When the barrier spilled them out into the muggle world, it took Remus a few moments to understand why Sirius and James were both looking to him with such expectation and uncertainty. It had taken them longer than usual to get through the barrier at platform nine and three-quarters, the extra precautions of wartime slowing down even the simplest of processes. It was only when he saw Peter, reluctantly breaking off from their group and permitting his mother a brief hug, that he realised what Sirius and James were waiting for.
"We're taking the tube, lads," Remus said bracingly. "Bye, Pete! Have a good Christmas!" He took off in the direction of the exit before giving anyone a chance to respond. A moment later, the sound of hurried footsteps informed him that the other two had caught up.
"You're parents don't pick you up?" James asked, puffing slightly.
Remus shrugged. "Not since I was—er, thirteen? They both work, and it's a short trip."
Outside, the ground was coated with a layer of slushy, greyish snow. The plaza around the station was busy, lively, a world away from the carefully whispered conversations and hurried footsteps of the shopping crowds they'd left behind in Hogsmeade. Remus resisted the urge to take Sirius by the hand, nervous to lose him in the crush of distracted bodies. He contented himself with a brief, steadying hand on the other boy's shoulder. Sirius gave him a reassuring smile, then clapped James on the back of the head, redirecting his attention from a nearby gaggle of young women in punk garb and towards the entrance to the underground.
James flashed Sirius a two-fingered-salute but made no other response, and they were soon, all three of them and their bags, bundled down into the dingy station. The eastbound platform was more sparsely populated than the others and they claimed a wooden bench all their own.
"You do this every holiday, Moony?" James asked, watching with wide eyes as a train made its screeching departure from the westbound platform opposite.
Remus shrugged. "Yeah, unless I'm at yours." Realising what he'd said, he stood from the bench and craned his neck out over the tracks, looking for an approaching train. It might have been a more convincing ruse had he looked in the right direction.
James stared down at his feet. Sirius squeezed him hard on his shoulder and watched Remus' stiff back.
There was a reason James and Sirius were joining the Lupins for the winter holidays this year, and it wasn't that they'd grown tired of the Potter's hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Potter's summer bout of dragon pox had…stretched beyond the summer. They had been moved to hospital and Remus, Sirius, and James were all passing the holidays at the Lupin residence with the promise of an easy floo connection to St. Mungo's and plenty of familial cheer. Peter would be stuck back in Sussex but they'd promised to write to him—If they could remember.
When Remus turned back around, a sheepish expression on his face, Sirius raised his eyebrows and jerked his chin in invitation back to the bench. James continued to examine his shoes. They were very nice, really. A gift from his mother the winter previous.
Sirius gestured again, the look on his face a clear message: You worry too much. Remus returned to the bench but did not sit. Instead, he stood behind Sirius and played mindlessly with the poms on his hat. They weren't really a couple for public displays of affection, but this felt innocuous enough on the quiet platform. And it was soothing. They both needed soothing.
To Remus' relief, their train soon arrived and the transition on board presented an opportunity for broken tension. James and Sirius quickly fell into a discussion of their plans for the next full moon. They were hoping to make it into Hogsmeade again. Remus watched the stations tick by.
When they arrived at Whitechapel, Remus shepherded them off the train and back above ground. Whitechapel Road was as long and grey as ever, although quieter than usual as many of the shops had already closed. The Jewish bits of the high street shuttered early during Hanukkah, shopkeepers and customers alike eager to return home before dark for the lighting of the candles. It made a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of Christmas shoppers they'd found outside of King's Cross.
The walk was chilly but their path was well lit by street lamps and the occasional light of a hanukkiah glimmering out the window of the flat above a shop. When they reached the turnoff to Remus' street, the road grew narrower and the streetlamps fewer and farther between. The glow of the holiday candles, all nine lit for the final night, took on an even warmer presence in the darkness.
Remus pulled ahead, letting the other two resume their conversation at his back. He wasn't nervous, exactly—he'd told his parents about the lads over the years, and they knew about Sirius. And James and Sirius knew about his parents, knew more or less what to expect. There were no secrets being kept. And yet, nonetheless, it felt to Remus like he was about to be horribly, irreparably revealed.
In far too little time, they reached the Lupin home.
"This is it," Remus said, stopping in front of number sixty-five. He focused his considerable attention on unlatching the gate—not very difficult, but better than watching his friends as, for the first time, they took in the narrow, weathered slice of brownstone he called home .
They'd made their way halfway up the front path when the door was pulled open and Hope Lupin appeared, spreading her arms out wide. She wore a blue apron covered in smatterings of flour.
"My boys!" she called, all motherly familiarity. "Finally here!"
Her accent was nearly Londoner, but it twisted askew at the edges with traces of Ladino. Remus wondered if Sirius and James could tell. He glanced sideways and caught Sirius' eye. Sirius was smiling, excited and interested. He crinkled his eyes shut, brief and tight, a little burst of encouragement for his boyfriend. Remus relaxed by a degree.
Inside the house, it smelled of hot oil and pine needles and oranges. She enfolded her son in a warm, encompassing hug.
"Good term, my love?"
"Yes, mum."
She leaned back and cupped his face between her hands. "Yes?"
"Yes!"
"Good, then." She released him and turned to the other two boys. "I won't hug you just now because I'd hate to get flour all over your lovely coats,"—it was true, Remus now had traces of flour all down his front—"but later, yes? Good. I've been cooking, which I'm sure Remus will have told you is not my strongest suit, but it's been ages since Remus has been home for the holiday so I thought we'd pull out all the stops." She spoke looking over her shoulder as she led the way further into the house.
In the small sitting room just off the narrow entryway, a Christmas tree reposed, an unopened package of faerie lights, and a brand new box of green and gold ornaments perched beside it.
James halted his steps in front of the doorway.
Sirius did, too. "Do—do they have—er, Hanukkah trees?" he asked, looking confused and a bit anxious.
Hope laughed. "No, silly boy. We got that for you. Didn't want you boys to feel bereft of a Christmas." She made brief, sparkling eye contact with Remus. "The Bensaïds next door nearly had a heart attack when they saw us carrying it in. Asked Lyall if he was converting!"
"Oh," said James.
She continued to lead the way through the cramped hallway. "We'll put it up tomorrow. You boys will have to show us how. Here's the kitchen," she said, waving an airy hand at a doorway emitting a steady cloud of clove-scented steam. "Bedrooms are upstairs. We've only the one guest room, but you'll be wanting to share with your beloved, no?" she looked to Remus for confirmation.
"Yes," he said, with an impressive minimum of embarrassment. James dug a teasing elbow into Sirius' ribs, and Sirius gave back as good as he got, watching Remus' ears pink. It was frankly delightful.
"Well, go get settled, then," she said. "We'll eat at half eight, when Lyall comes home." She shooed them up the steep, creaky stairs and returned to the kitchen.
The guest bedroom was quite sparse, with only a single bed, although a red and green quilt had been added on top of the usual cream-coloured bedspread.
Remus, finding himself in the awkward position of host, showed James all of the things he almost certainly already knew.
"This is the dresser," he said, pointing to the dresser. "Er, the bathroom is across the hall,"—he pointed to the bathroom they'd passed just outside the guestroom's doorway—"and, uh, yeah, if you want another blanket just, er, just tell me."
James nodded seriously. "Will do, Moony. Thanks."
"I'll, uh, show Sirius my room, then," Remus said.
James' face split into a grin. "Oh, but I must see the room that raised up our Moony!"
"It looks the same as—"
"No point in arguing," Sirius advised, rolling his eyes at James.
So Remus led their odd little parade down the short hallway to the bedroom, only slightly larger than the guest room, that he'd called his own since childhood. There was a single bed and a cot run-up just beside it.
"Er, we can fix it up," Remus reassured. "When dad gets home he'll transfigure it." Sirius, however, was distracted by the posters on the walls.
"Velvet Underground, huh? And Patti Smith, I see."
"It's good music," Remus said, an edge of defensiveness creeping in. He couldn't have said for certain why.
Sirius gave him a hard look. "I know that," he said. He took a step closer and whispered into Remus' ear. "It's really good, Moons. I like it a lot." His eyes, sweeping over the crocheted blanket on the bed and the slanting eaves of the ceiling and the scarred wood of the floor, told Remus he wasn't referring only to the music.
Remus, glancing back over his shoulder, saw that James had returned to his own guest room. "Yeah?" he confirmed.
"Oh yeah," Sirius said. "Bloody love it."
He crowded Remus backward against the crooked border made by the combination of bed and cot. Remus cursed at the pain at the backs of his knees from the sudden collision, but he was smiling all the same. Sirius, pressing a kiss to his lips, could feel it. He worked his way from Remus' lips to his chin and then his jaw, and then down his jaw to his neck.
"Love it so damn much," he murmured between kisses. "Almost as much as I love—"
The door opened again, James' breathless form at the threshold. "You have a cat!" he exclaimed, making no comment on the position in which he'd found his two best friends.
Remus, extricating himself from the glorious abyss of Sirius' hair, was confused. "Yes?" he said. "You knew that."
"No, I didn't!" James exclaimed.
Sirius, finding his way back to a seated position, had to agree. "You never said a damn word!"
"Oh," Remus said, unperturbed. "Yeah, well. Yeah. Name's Kayesi. Kay, we usually call her."
"What?"
"Means apricot. Because her colour, y'know?"
"Right," James said.
"Bet I can catch her," said Sirius, taking off like a shot. James grinned wickedly at Remus for a moment and then joined in on the chase. Remus sighed, but only barely, and followed suit.
Kay led them on a chase that ended in a hopeless gaggle at the entrance of the closet in the guest bedroom. She had darted up onto the top shelf and was now quite comfortably licking her back leg. Sirius was speculating about what might happen if he transformed into Padfoot —No, Sirius, my mum might come up — I was just wondering, wasn't going to do it— when, from downstairs, the sound of the front door opening met their ears.
It was a sweaty troupe that made their way down for dinner, but all three were smiling. Hope patted her hands clean against her apron and attempted to lead the charge into the dining room for dinner. Lyall, however, still wrapped in his brown duffle coat and tartan scarf, had questions to ask.
"What's all this then?" His glasses had fogged up with the sudden temperature change of entering the warm house, and he pulled them off his face and scrubbed them against the fabric of his scarf as he peered at the boys. Remus recognised his tone, one of teasing welcome and fatherly bravado, but he felt Sirius stiffen beside him all the same.
Hope stepped forwards and, plucking the glasses—now covered in lint from the scarf and no less fogged—from her husband's hand to clean against her blouse, gave a long-suffering yet good-humored sigh.
James bounded forth, hand outstretched. "I'm James, sir! James Potter. I'm a friend of Remus."
"He knows that already," Remus said, momentarily hiding his eyes in his hands. "Hi, dad."
"Hello, son. Glad to see you looking so well. Got something in your eye there? Potter, you say? I knew your grandfather. Liked him a lot. Your father, too, come to think of it. Both brilliant men."
"Thank you, sir."
"No need to call me sir. Do you happen to know what happened to the research Henry was conducting before he died? I was very curious about the reactions he'd identified, looking at the influence an extraction from a specific species of Delphinium had on the mating behaviours of that colony of dementors that was occupying the Heath. I think I read somewhere that—"
"Lyall." Hope was handing him back his glasses and giving him a very stern look. James was glassed over, listening to Lyall but—if Remus knew his friend as well as he thought he did—not really hearing. To Remus' other side, Sirius was still tense. Remus brushed his fingers against the side of the other boy's hand.
"Thank you, dear," Lyall said, accepting the glasses and settling them back on his nose. "Yes, I'm sure I read that—"
Sirius, his heart beating more quickly by the moment, gripped Remus' fingers. Remus squeezed back. Then he cleared his throat and spoke: "Dad, this is Sirius."
"—that they thought it could hold exciting implications for the behavioural patterns of other dark creatures, as well—"
Remus looked helplessly at his mother, and she rolled her eyes and placed her hands on her hips, preparing a more forceful interruption. However, she never got a chance.
"Mr. Lupin, I'm Sirius Black," Sirius said, and his voice filled every corner of the small space. He let go of Remus' hand and stepped forward to stand beside James.
Remus' father, who had removed his glasses once again and was, once again, futilely wiping them off on his woolen scarf, stopped talking about a study he'd read regarding the hormonal irregularities specific to trolls.
"Hello, Sirius," he said, voice mildly surprised, as if he'd forgotten that there were other people in the room. He probably had. "You'll be the boyfriend, then, yes? Excellent, excellent, glad to have you here. I knew your grandfather, too. Can't say I liked him very much, though. There really wasn't much to like."
"Lyall!" Hope reprimanded.
"No, he's right," Sirius said, finally relaxing, a grin blooming in his voice. "Grandfather was horrible."
"Yes, you see?" Lyall said, looking to Hope. "The boy has good taste. Must do; he's chosen our Remus." He turned his unwavering attention back onto James. "Now, as I was saying, I'm very eager to find out more about these chemical differences we're only just now beginning to investigate. I've been saying for years that it's worth applying principles of muggle science to the study of dark creatures, especially in this new—"
"Lyall. My love." Hope, clearly, had decided that patience would no longer cut it. "It's nearly nine. The sun set more than five hours ago and the keftes are growing colder by the minute. We are going to sit and we are going to light the candles and we are going to eat."
Lyall finally seemed to pause for breath and notice the scents of cooking hanging heavy in the air. "My darling! You cooked!"
"I did."
"You should have said so! Let me just take off my scarf."
Hope threw her hands up in mock-despair, a gesture that Lyall didn't notice as he had turned his back to lay his scarf and coat on the chair beside the door.
"In the closet, my dear," Hope reminded him.
Lyall waved his hand vaguely. "I'll do it later."
"No he won't," Hope whispered conspiratorially to James. James coughed. Sirius snickered. Remus wondered why he had thought this could possibly be a good idea.
"What are we waiting for!" Lyall said, making a shooing motion at the lot of them and attempting to shepherd them into the next room. "I'm hungry."
"Unbelievable," Remus sighed, turning around in order to enter the dining room.
"What was that, son?" Lyall said from behind him.
"Nothing!" He felt Sirius' lips draw close to his ear. "I like your dad," he heard in a whisper.
"Thank you!" Lyall exclaimed. "That's very kind of you to say."
"Be careful, he's got ears like a bat and an ego the size of the moon," Hope cautioned from the front of the group.
Sirius began laughing again. James, most unusually, stayed very quiet.
The dining table was already set, the hanukkiah shining bright silver and filled with unlit candles at its centre. His mother had dressed the table in their finest white linens and then obscured it under heaps of food: crispy, golden keftes de prasa, an enormous dutch oven full of fragrant lamb dafina, a platter of roasted carrots doused in tahini and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds, and a spinach salad adorned by a crown of walnuts and orange slices. Off to the side, waiting for dessert, was a bowl full of syrupy bimuelos. Each place setting had its own, full glass of red wine.
"Oh, this does look good," Lyall said, taking the place at the head of the table and pinching a kefte between his thumb and forefinger. He broke off the crispy edge and popped it in his mouth. "Delicious."
"Hands first, then blessings, then food," Hope said from the other end of the table. "Boys, you can sit."
"We're being good jews tonight, then, hmm?" Lyall observed as he stood and walked into the kitchen. James, Sirius, and Remus took the remaining seats around the table. They heard the water run for a few moments and then he reappeared, brushing his hands dry against his trousers. "Well, I don't see why not."
"Kind of you," Hope said dryly. "Remus, my love, will you fetch the matches?"
Remus nodded and turned in his seat, pulling open the drawer of the cabinet just behind him. It was a benefit of living in a small home: everything you needed was almost always within arm's reach.
Hope, armed with the matches, stood and pulled the hanukkiah closer to herself. She was about to strike a match when she hesitated and looked back at Remus. "Did you want to do it, love? You always liked to."
"It's alright, you can do it," Remus said. It was true, as a child he'd always argued for the chance to lead the blessings. This year, however, he was content to watch. There was a certain kind of magic to the way his mother blessed the candles and he'd not seen it in a long time. Besides, he was hyper-aware of the presence of James and Sirius at the table with them. It changed something, somehow. It wasn't bad, but it put him on edge.
"As you wish." She stood and struck the match. Lyall pointed his wand at the overhead light and it dimmed so that the brightest thing in the room was the flickering flame. One hand cupped behind the centremost candle, the shamash, Hope gently ignited its wick. Once it was aflame, she lifted it from its holder and began to sing.
From where he was sitting, Remus could watch the progress of the flame and his friends' faces, both at once. Sirius looked so beautiful in the candlelight, the orange glow kissing his high cheekbones. He was paying Hope rapt attention, drinking in the words she sang even as he missed their meaning. James, across from him, leaned forwards and rested his chin in his hands. The flame reflected off his glasses, rendering the lenses intermittently silver-white.
Remus loved the way the hanukkiah looked on the final night of the holiday, the way the flames wavered and danced together in their long row. There was something so vulnerable and yet so mighty in it, the slender strength of each individual candle contributing to an inviolable whole.
The candles lit, Lyall raised the lights in the room once more. His energy from earlier had receded, the act of blessing the candles bringing a meditative peace to his agile mind. From across the table, he regarded his wife. She still stood, using her hands to draw the warmth of the flames into her bosom. She covered her eyes, letting the warmth of her palms bleed into her cheeks. She reached out a hand and caressed Remus' cheek, sharing with him that same warmth.
"A woman of valour," Lyall said, quiet and grave. She met his eyes and smiled at him, and it was a thing so deeply intimate that even Remus felt the need to look elsewhere.
The meal was wonderful, if occasionally burnt and a little lukewarm. Lyall offered to warm it with a quick charm but Hope insisted that the only magic permitted at the table during the holidays was her own. Lyall nodded in agreement but Remus saw him point his wand surreptitiously beneath the wooden boards, casting a non-verbal heating charm on his own plate. With a squeeze of his hand, he alerted Sirius, who waggled his eyebrows at James, who managed a weak grin.
It was odd; he'd been the nosiest of them all on the journey to King's Cross, filling the anxious silence that had fallen between Sirius and Remus as they contemplated the hurdles that the next few weeks held in store for the pair of them.
Meeting the parents. Returning to London for the first time since fleeing Grimmauld. A moon away from Hogwarts.
Peter, too, had been glum, sulking about being left out. Sirius had wanted to shake the self-pitying bastard, a feeling he seemed to be having these days with more and more regularity. James, however, even in his anxiety for his parents, had remained the buoyant soul of the group. The beating heart of the Marauders.
Not so now.
"James, my love," Hope said as their meal drew to a close. "Would you be so kind as to pick up the packages just by your feet?"
Surprised out of the fugue he'd hidden in since the start of dinner, James startled and then contorted comically to peer under his seat. Sure enough, there were three neatly-wrapped packages tucked just beneath his chair.
Remus quirked his eyebrows at his mother, who only continued to smile her banal, contented smile. He quirked harder but to no effect. She wouldn't give away her secrets.
Gifts in hand, James looked brighter than he had been since before the meal began. Each carried its own tag and he examined the slips carefully before passing the bundles around. "One for Sirius," he said, handing it over. "One for Remus, and one—"he dropped it in front of his own empty plate—"for me."
Remus was already picking at the corners of the tissue paper when Hope stalled him with a hand.
"Before we open them," she said, "I'd like to say something." She looked from James to Remus to Sirius, and back to James again. "There is a blessing that jews sometimes say to their children on the sabbath. The literal translation asks that our children have peace. Favour. Kindness. Protection. I don't know it by heart, not in English. The point is that, before all of that, it begins by invoking our forebears. The men and women of our history. And to me, what it has always represented is this: I say these words to you today because I wish to wrap you in a strength and a love that goes beyond the weakness of my own two arms. I wish to wrap you in the love of centuries; of generations of people as good and kind and just as yourselves. The world—your world, a world I sometimes think I will never even begin to understand—faces challenges. You, young as you are, face a darkness great and terrible. So today, I give you these gifts, and with them, I give you love. Love from me and from Lyall and from hundreds and thousands of strong, bold hearts, past and present. May it keep you for many days to come."
When she finished speaking, there was silence all around the table. Remus felt a ringing in his ears—not bad, but unsettling. Unbound. He glanced between his friends, nervous for their reactions. Nervous that his mother's words had been too much, had been ill-received. But he saw only the same confusion and wonderment that he himself felt.
"Well said!" Lyall chortled.
The spell broke. He clapped his hands in applause for his wife. "You always were the real magician when it came to words."
Hope inclined her head, accepting the teasing praise. Then she waved her hands at the boys sitting around her. "Open! Open! All at once, if you please."
So James and Sirius and Remus each tore the paper from their parcels.
In Remus', a hat awaited him. It had earflaps and was a deep bluish-grey. It reminded him of Sirius' eyes. He wondered how his mother had known.
In Sirius', a pair of gloves: fawn brown and made from the softest cashmere.
In James', a scarf as big as a blanket—nearly a cloak, really—and forest green.
Each boy gave his thanks, their voices muted in contrast to the enormity of the gratitude they felt. There was just something about the articles, the stitches so fine and precise, the wool so soft and warm. It made everything feel as if it were freshly blanketed in pristine snow.
Hope clasped her hands together, accepting their thanks. She stroked Remus on the cheek, then reached out and hesitated for a moment, awaiting the inclination of the head that signaled permission, and did the same to each of the other boys at her table.
"May you wear them in good health," she said. "May they serve you well."
Hours later, sharing a half-bed and half-cot contraption that they'd attempted to transfigure for themselves after Lyall had turned in early, Remus and Sirius stared into the darkness.
"I'm worried about Prongs," Sirius finally whispered, the sound half-lost in Remus' neck.
"Me too," Remus admitted. And then, even more quietly: "I'm worried about all of us."
He felt Sirius' great exhale. "Fuck. Me too."
"Are we going to be ok?" Remus asked. He wasn't really asking Sirius. He wasn't really asking anyone at all. He knew that there was no answer to give.
To his surprise, however, he felt Sirius nod.
"I reckon so," he said.
"And why's that?"
Sirius snorted. "You were there, same as me," he said. "Your mum is one magical lady."