Remus had decided that there were few better ways to spend Christmas Day than baking gingerbread with a boy who had seldom baked before in his life.

James and Peter had left right on cue, and Remus and Sirius had been left behind. Remus had quickly discovered that, as much as he liked Sirius, James was sort of the glue holding them together. Remus loved spending time with Sirius when the two of them were in a group, but they didn't really click one-on-one. They simply didn't know what to talk about.

So, instead of talking, Remus' mum pulled out some ingredients and mixing bowls, and the two boys got to making gingerbread that would (hopefully) accompany the evening's gift-opening festivities.

"It's so strange, doing this without house-elves," said Sirius, trying to measure some sugar. "Or even magic. I'm not sure how you do it all the time."

Remus reached over and poured the sugar for the vaguely incompetent Sirius. "It's just like making a potion, except there's no Professor Slughorn to make you memorize all the ingredients."

"But you do have all of the ingredients memorized!"

"Well, I make this every year. You need to add butter, too. Wait, that's too much sugar!"

"It's never too much sugar," said Sirius wisely.

"No, it can definitely be too much sugar."

"Where's your sense of adventure? Are you a Gryffindor or not?"

Remus closed his eyes and shook his head. "MUM! Tell Sirius that adding more sugar does not make gingerbread taste better!"

"More sugar!" Remus' mum yelled from the other room.

"No, Mum, tell him to add less!"

"More sugar!" yelled Remus' mum.

"Mum! I know your hearing isn't as good as mine, but it's definitely better than that!" Remus suddenly clamped his mouth shut. He wasn't supposed to mention that. Not with his parents. Not with his friends around. Not now. Lighthearted werewolf jokes with Questus and Madam Pomfrey were fine, but lycanthropy, to Remus' parents, was a very heavy thing that ought not to be joked about—because his mother would cry, his father would look guilty, and then the day would be ruined. Remus could not ruin Christmas Day. "Er... would you get the flour, Sirius?" Remus mumbled, pretending he hadn't said a thing.

"Sure!" said Sirius, fetching the chocolate chips, and he dumped the whole bag into the gingerbread before Remus could even stop him.

Professor Questus arrived around ten; the second he stepped into the house, he wrinkled his nose and coughed. "Are you baking?" he asked. "Thought you were better than that, Lupin. That's... a very strong chocolate smell. What are you making, poison?"

"It was Sirius," said Remus, glaring at his friend. "He added far too much sugar, far too much chocolate, and this gingerbread is going to be awful."

"I'm not even sure it's going to be gingerbread once you finish it. By the way, Black, you have dough in your hair."

Remus looked over at Sirius and laughed. "Yes, that was me—did it after he ruined the batch the fourth time over. I asked him to wash it out, but he refused."

"My parents never let me walk around with hair like this," said Sirius proudly. "Dough is far better than shampoo. I bet I smell of gingerbread."

"You would, if that thing you created actually resembled gingerbread in any way, shape or form," said Questus. "Alas, it does not. Happy Christmas, by the way."

"Happy Christmas!" said Sirius. "You know, this is my first Christmas away from home ever. How long is supper?"

Remus shrugged, a little embarrassed for some reason that his family was the very opposite of Pureblood. "We... well, it's usually just the three of us. Last time we just ate sandwiches while we opened presents in the evening, right?"

"I think so," said Remus' father. "They're all blending together at this point. Christmas has been about the same thing since 1964."

"Did we even do Christmas in 1969?" said Remus. "Three years ago. I don't remember it at all."

"Er... no, we didn't. We just ignored it. Money was tight, and you weren't feeling well... but we set up the Christmas tree at the beginning of December, remember?"

Remus did remember. The full moon had been on the twenty-third that month, so he'd been recovering. "Yeah, I do remember. That was the year that Dad knocked it over, right?"

"No, that was the year before."

"Ah. Well, anyway, Sirius, Christmas isn't usually a very big deal at our house."

To Remus' surprise, Sirius' eyes were shining brightly. "Brilliant," he said. "I love small Christmases. Well, I've never done one before, but I bet I'll love it. I hate having fifty courses for supper, all of which are disgusting and can be eaten in one bite. Can we have sandwiches for dinner?"

"Really?" said Remus. "Why? That's not very Christmas-y."

"Exactly! My family wouldn't be caught dead eating sandwiches! And let's eat in the sitting room again!"

"That sounds lovely," said Remus' mum, smiling. "What do you want to do until then?"

"Piano," said Sirius immediately. "We should all go to John's house and listen to me play the piano. You may throw flowers if you wish. I'm going to play all the Christmas carols I know. And then I want to go outside with Remus and poke him with a stick."

"Er... what?"

After the piano excursion, Remus' parents walked Remus and Sirius down to the town (while Questus took a nap in his armchair), and Sirius, true to his word, kept poking Remus' arm with a stick. "Cut it out," laughed Remus. "That's not fair. I'm not even armed."

"Town's really well-decorated this time of year," commented Remus' father while Remus tried to grab the stick. His mother was looking at Remus disapprovingly, but he ignored her. "I don't think I've ever taken you there on Christmas Day, Remus. It's a bit of a tradition that the adults go out and decorate on the night of Christmas Eve. The whole thing's lit up from the inside-out."

"I've seen it from my window," said Remus, but he wasn't really paying much attention. Remus finally managed to grab the stick, and he quickly grabbed it with his other hand and snapped it. Now Sirius was holding one half, and Remus was holding the other. "Ha!" he said, triumphant: "Now I have a stick, too!"

Sirius squealed and stumbled backwards. "Ahh! Don't hurt me!"

"I have a sword of my own now and cannot be stopped," Remus declared.

"Well, I'm far more experienced in the noble art of fencing."

Remus paused. "Are you really?"

"No, you dolt. You think my mum wouldn't object to me, Sirius Black the Rebellious, swinging a sword around? I'd kill someone. But I'm still infinitely more skilled than you are! Hi-yah!" Sirius swung his stick at Remus, and Remus tried to block it with his own stick—no avail. He rubbed his stinging wrist and glared at Sirius.

"You'd better watch out, Sirius. I'm holding a stick." He lunged forward and tried to poke Sirius, but Sirius grabbed his arms. "Agh, let me go!" Remus cried. Remus' mum and dad watched, amused. "Sirius, you let me go right now or I'll—"

"Yeah? You'll what?" Sirius shifted both of Remus' arms to his left and and started poking Remus with his right hand, which was holding the stick. He was far too strong for Remus' liking. "Hunt me down on the night of the full moon? Bark? Wag your tail at me? Give me disapproving looks with big, yellow eyes and a furry snout? Ooh, very threatening."

"No!" laughed Remus. "I'll tell James that you were the one who ripped his favorite tie."

"What?!" Sirius' eyes got wide. "How did you know that?"

"I didn't until just now, but now I do."

"Remus!" Sirius tried to be angry, but he was laughing too hard. "Seriously, how did you know? Everyone thought that James had ripped it himself. It was perfectly plausible—James rips stuff all the time."

"Your heart rate sped up whenever someone mentioned it," said Remus, smiling. "Perks of being a werewolf. Only perk, actually. Knowing who ripped James' tie. But I'll tell him if you keep poking me, and then you'll never hear the end of it!"

"Fine!" said Sirius, dropping the stick. "Happy now?"

"Not quite," said Remus. He poked Sirius all the way to the town.

He and Sirius were laughing so hard that Remus didn't even notice that his parents had been listening the entire time and were exchanging confused glances.

Evening arrived, and the Lupin family (plus Questus and Sirius) ate sandwiches in the sitting room while they opened presents. "We got one for you, Sirius," said Remus' father, pulling a small parcel out from under the tree. "You can go first, seeing as it's your first Christmas away from your house. Calls for some celebration, hm?"

"Certainly!" said Sirius. "You didn't have to do that, Mr. Lupin. I know you're poor."

"We're not poor!" said Remus.

"You sharpen your quills to stubs instead of buying new ones. You are poor." Sirius took the gift and opened it carefully, setting aside the wrapping paper when he was finished like Remus often did. Remus couldn't help but smile. "It's a book," said Sirius, staring at the gift. "You got me a book. About... how do you pronounce that, Remus?"

"Sherlock Holmes," said Remus.

"Sherlock Holmes. I don't even really know what those are."

"It's the name of a fictional detective."

"Oh." Sirius hugged the book and beamed at Remus' parents. "Cheers, Mr. and Mrs. Lupin."

"We weren't sure if you liked to read," said Remus' dad. "We picked it up this morning in town... while you and Remus were trying to catch that goose." Remus grinned. They hadn't caught the goose, but they'd come admirably close.

"Oh, I don't like to read," said Sirius. "Hate it. Can't sit still for more than two seconds. And this looks terribly boring. But I love it anyway. So much better than cufflinks and dress robes and fancy silver goblets, which is what I usually get. Maybe I'll just give this to Remus and ask him to summarize for me."

Remus gave his father the fictional book on poltergeists, which he'd found at Mitchell's for a very low price. "I've already read it," Remus explained, "and it's woefully inaccurate. Hilarious, really." His father assured him that woefully, hilariously inaccurate books were his favorite kind. Remus gave his mother a candle that Pensley had given him during one of the meditation sessions. "Please burn it when I'm not home," he begged. "It's disgusting."

Remus' mother and father gave him more toad food for Bufo, more quills, and, to Remus' great surprise, a small laptop desk. "You needn't have!" said Remus, delighted. "Seriously?"

"Of course. Can't have you falling behind on your studies," Remus' mum kissed his forehead, to Remus' great embarrassment. "Madam Pomfrey sent me a picture of you trying to balance a schoolbook on your left knee and writing on the other. Didn't look particularly comfortable, so we've decided to remedy that. And we've plenty of extra funds this time of year. I know you like to worry about that."

Sirius, after teasing Remus about how lame it was to be so excited about a homework-related gift, ran into the kitchen and fetched the disgusting gingerbread. He tried to pass it around—Remus' parents tried some, and Sirius ate half the batch, but Remus and Professor Questus politely declined. Well, Remus politely declined. Professor Questus said something along the lines of "that gingerbread is the reason that the Killing Curse was invented, Black" with a very grumpy look on his face.

"I have a couple as well," said Professor Questus, pointing to the remaining parcels under the tree. "That one's for Mr. and Mrs. Lupin. That one's Lupin's, obviously—the one shaped like a book. Three guesses as to what it is."

"A Hinkypunk," said Remus. He picked up the one meant for his parents, meaning to pass it to them, but suddenly paused. "Oh, no," he said. "You can't give them this. It would be terribly ill-mannered of you."

Questus cocked an eyebrow. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Regifting isn't very polite." He turned to his parents. "It's the houseplant. The one that he's been trying to destroy for weeks."

"Oh, no. Absolutely not," said Remus' father, wagging his finger. "We don't want it either. That thing is immortal. It's terrifying."

"You're not getting rid of it that easily," added Remus' mum.

"Fine," groaned Questus. He took the houseplant back and scowled. "Go on and open yours, Lupin. Hopefully it's more satisfactory."

Remus picked it up and shook it. "Hm. Are you sure it's not a Hinkypunk?"

"Never said it wasn't. A Hinkypunk would look marvelous in the Gryffindor dormitories, I think."

Remus opened it carefully. It was a large brown notebook—clearly old, partially falling apart. He flipped through it and recognized pages upon pages of Questus' handwriting... colored post-it notes... additional notes in the margins... diagrams... "What?" he said.

"Requires a bit of an explanation. When I was in Hogwarts, I was determined to be the best duellist on planet Earth. I like to think that I succeeded before I got old and injured—excluding Dumbledore, that is. But I tended to focus on strategy above all else—so those are my notes from my late Hogwarts years, from when I underwent Auror training, and the from first few years that I was an Auror. There's strategy, what works, what doesn't work, anecdotes, diagrams... the like. I figured you'd get more use out of it than I ever would, seeing as it's all memorized at this point. And I can't give you actual lessons anymore, so..."

"Wow," Remus breathed. "That's... a lot. From you."

"Not sure what that's supposed to mean. I've been nothing but generous and understanding my entire life." Remus laughed a little, but at the moment, he didn't disagree. "Clearly," continued Questus, "duelling an art that I'm not quite suited for anymore. That book contains years of research, so it might as well get some attention."

"But..." Remus blinked. "Me? It's not as if I'm talented."

"No, not really. But you could be. Talent acquired is better than talent ingrained."

"I..." Remus traced the spine hesitantly, the weight of years and years of research nearly crushing his lap. This was too much. He couldn't accept this. "I just think that..."

"We can talk about it later," said Questus with a wave of his hand. "Take it for now."

"Do you have something for me?" said Sirius eagerly.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Frankly, because I don't like you very much. Also, I don't really have the strength at the moment to walk a mile to town and a mile back."

"Oh. Okay."

"I got you something pretty similar," said Remus to Questus, grinning. He pulled another parcel out from under the tree and tossed it to Questus.

Questus stared at it for a few seconds and gave it a scrutinizing look. "I know what this is," he said.

"You can open it, you know."

"Don't need to. I know what it is."

"But you've never read it."

"True." Questus opened it. "Just as I expected. A Documentation of the Life of Remus Lupin." He opened it up and snorted. "You had no one else to give this to?"

"I thought you'd appreciate it."

Questus flipped through it and whistled. "This is very elaborate." Then he started to laugh. "Hilarious. I can't believe you did this."

"See, I knew you'd appreciate it," said Remus. "I was just going to throw it away—never want to see it again after rereading it every night—but this is much better." Remus turned to Sirius and explained as best he could. "See, when I was... well, lying to you and James and Peter... I needed a way to keep my lies straight. There were really too many to remember on my own. So I wrote a novel about the fake Remus Lupin I was pretending to be in front of you, and I reread it every night so that I would remember."

Sirius looked like he was trying to respond, but he was laughing too hard.

Remus shook his head. "I don't know why everyone thinks it's funny. Writing a novel was a perfectly logical thing to do."

"Not really," said Sirius. "Most people would make a list."

"I did. Remember that booklet you found?"

"Oh, yeah! The one that made us think that you were lying about everything. You covered it up really well, actually. That was good."

"It... it really wasn't. And honestly, Sirius, I can't believe you woke me up in the middle of the night to confront me about it."

"It was eight pm!"

"But I was sleeping. Hence it was the middle of my night."

"When was this?" said Questus, clearly amused.

"I wrote about it in Chapter 87 of A Documentation of the Life of Remus Lupin."

"Ah, okay."

Sirius grinned. "Still confused," he said. "What's with that houseplant?"

"It's immortal. Invincible," said Questus. "Dumbledore gave it to me at the beginning of the summer because he said that I looked lonely. I 'forgot' to water it for a few weeks and it was still alive, so I started making an honest effort to destroy it."

"Er... why?" said Sirius.

Remus jumped in. "He likes destroying things. Especially the pride of poor seventh-year students."

"It's not my fault they always start crying. And I'm not the only one who destroys things, Lupin—I could make the same case for you. Your friendships, for one."

"Your leg."

"Touché. Your health."

"Me, in dots and boxes... though I still think you're cheating."

"I'm not. Your mental state."

"Your career. And people's respect for you."

"Your... no, I can't think of anything else."

Remus laughed. "Really? What do you think I do once a month? Now that's destruction."

The room suddenly seemed very silent. Remus turned to look at his parents, who looked quite stricken.

Remus had completely forgotten to stay away from the topic.

Joking was instinctive at this point—but he just knew that his parents were going to start crying ang guilt-ing and... oh, he hadn't meant to ruin Christmas for them. He mentally pinched himself. Why did he have to go and do that? It wasn't as if it was hard to stop mentioning werewolves around them! It was such an easy thing, and Remus couldn't even do it. How was he supposed to keep his lycanthropy a secret from others if he couldn't even do this one thing? And why did he have to go and make such a violent, self-deprecating joke, too? Remus glanced at his parents again, who looked extremely confused and mildly terrified.

"Are you okay, Remus?" Remus' father asked slowly.

Remus sighed. "I... I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

"I know it makes you uncomfortable. Discussing werewolves, I mean."

The silence hung in the air like bats in a cave—terrifyingly still, ominously dark-colored, and likely to wake up and cause chaos at any moment. Remus wiped his palms on his trousers. Merlin's beard. The lack of noise was almost louder than the Great Hall.

"Honey, it doesn't make us uncomfortable," said Remus' mum. "It makes you uncomfortable. That's why we avoid the subject. You sort of... shut down."

"No, it makes you uncomfortable. I only shut down because you start crying and Dad starts looking guilty, and the logical thing to do when you're bothering someone else is to stop doing it!"

"I don't cry, dear. I just worry about you. I used to cry, but I think I'm pretty used to the idea by now. And Dad looks guilty because he's usually the one to bring it up."

"I don't understand. I thought that..."

"Well, we thought that..."

They all trailed off.

Suddenly, Questus threw his arms up in the air. "Finally! I can't believe it took you almost eight years!" He started laughing. "That was so painful to watch for so many months. You idiots! Do you see what just happened?" No one responded. Yes, they did, but Questus explained anyway. "You each thought for years that talk of werewolves made someone else uncomfortable, but you've all been comfortable with it the whole time! You all avoided the subject, turned it into some sort of taboo, and essentially made it more difficult for Lupin to discuss it when he finally did start going to school because of petty assumptions and bad communication! This is precisely the reason that I advocate for telling the truth as it is!"

Remus' mother was still looking at Remus, eyebrows crinkled. "Really?" she said, and Remus couldn't tell if she was talking to him or Professor Questus.

Questus answered anyway. "Really!" he said. "Both of you made me promise not to tell the other that you were actually comfortable discussing werewolves, did you know? Lupin did so at the beginning of the summer, and then his parents did the same at the beginning of the school year. There wasn't a thing I could do about it. Just had to wait until one of you slipped up badly enough to be confronted about it. I knew it would be Lupin—would have bet on it if I'd had anybody to bet against me. Tried to egg him on every once in a while, but he only just now took the bait. Thank goodness you all know now. That was so incredibly painful."

"Remus, you're... you don't mind talking about it?" Remus' father asked.

"'Course not. And you?"

"Sweetie, we talk about it every night when we're sure you're asleep. We'd go mad if we kept it all bottled up."

"Yet none of you thought that perhaps Lupin needed to talk it over with someone," said Questus. "Unbelievable. This is ridiculous."

"I don't really understand," said Sirius.

Questus snorted. "Good. Hope you never do."

Remus' mother looked at Questus and shrugged, slowly, and Questus shot her a nasty look. Remus couldn't begin to think what that meant, and it felt sort of weird to know that his parents had inside jokes and the like with Professor Questus. Remus always forgot that they were friends, too.

Questus took some gingerbread absentmindedly from the tin, took a bite, and then spat it out. "That's disgusting. Anyway. You two should have seen the comments that your son made about werewolves in his essays and on his tests. That kid has such a dry sense of humor."

"Well, we knew that," said Remus' dad.

"About werewolves specifically."

"We did not know that," said Remus' father. He still looked a bit shaken, and Remus couldn't blame him. He couldn't believe they'd all been so stupid—all those years of dancing around the subject, hoping he didn't make his parents uncomfortable; all those years of genuinely being uncomfortable, due to being totally unaccustomed to discussing werewolves in a casual setting; all those years of misreading his parents, missing their late-night conversations, ignoring the signs... heavens, Remus had heard them talking about werewolves late at night before. Why hadn't he put it together? He'd just always assumed, and he'd never asked, because their lives had been the same for so long and Remus was never really looking for a change...

"You're not the only one who makes jokes, Lupin," Questus was saying. "Your parents have made quite the werewolf jokes themselves. You know, it's a very good thing that Lupin had me and Pomfrey around and didn't have to keep all of that to himself last year. He would have exploded, I think."

"Dumbledore, too," said Remus. "I can only remember one werewolf joke that I've made around him, though."

"Oh, do tell."

"It wasn't particularly clever. I just said that the armchair stuffing tasted a lot worse than the stuffing that Hogwarts serves. Have a version of the full incident in Chapter 30 of A Documentation of the Life of Remus Lupin."

"You ate an armchair?" said Sirius in awe.

"No. That's ridiculous. I showed it who was in charge, that's all."

Questus pushed himself into a standing position, still laughing. "Come on, Black. Let's go to my place and play the piano for a bit. I think that they have some catching up to do."

"Sure!" said Sirius, running to get the door.

The last thing that Questus said before he Apparated back to his house with Sirius was, "And the cat's name is Werewolf!"

AN: Legend has it that the disgusting gingerbread is still out there, waiting to claim its next victim.