Christmas was always hard for Remus. He had been raised in the bosom of an affectionate and old-fashioned family, and had certain ideas about how Christmas out to be. It could involve being surrounded by friends and family, warmth and love. It had been a long time since his last real Christmas.
He tried to go home once or twice - tried spending Christmas with his parents and Natalie and her family - but his parents had taken a very dim view of his relationship with Sirius, and that still hurt. It didn't help that, every time they saw him, they asked if he was seeing anyone special, because they knew a nice young lady who would love to meet him.
Natalie was a bit more understanding, but the two of them had grown apart after he started at Hogwarts and she learned she was a Squib. Her little boy barely knew the uncle he resembled so much, and Remus had overheard her once telling their parents that she hoped the boy would be "normal". He preferred not to think what she might mean by that.
His last Christmas with his friends - the last real Christmas - had been wonderful. He and Sirius had spent the week with Lily and James and baby Harry in Godric's Hollow. Peter had been invited, too, but he had already agreed to spend Christmas with his ailing mother.
Remus recalled with longing the twinkling tree, the gifts heaped high around it - most of them for Harry, of course - and its moving ornaments which had so delighted the baby. The house had been filled with the mouthwatering aroma of Christmas dinner cooking, and later, Lily's special biscuits: tiny red and green cinnamon-flavoured reindeer that actually walked about on slender legs, their red noses glowing and blinking. Lily had always been a great one for charms.
He remembered how she had beamed with pride when she brought them out. Harry had crowed with delight and grabbed for one, which had skittered out of his reach to the other side of the plate. He had been ready to start wailing, when his father had swooped in and grabbed one, presenting it directly into Harry's fat little hands. The memory of that toothless baby grin as Harry had put the biscuit in his mouth still made Remus smile.
"They're brilliant, Love," James had said. "You're brilliant. You could write your own book of cooking charms. Really, Padfoot, she comes up with such clever ideas. She's going to make me rich one day."
She had squeaked as he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her, laughing, into his lap.
"That's my girl!" he had declared. "She makes the most wonderful squeaking noises as well, but those are just for me!"
Baby Harry screeched and giggled at his parents' antics, drooling cookie crumbs all down his front.
The scene faded from Remus's mind, his smile with it. It was cold in his rooms. There were no decorations or any indication that it was the holiday season; only deep, dark winter. He shivered. There was hardly any daylight this time of year so far north, and the cold was a damp one.
He had considered joining in the Christmas Eve feast for those few who had elected to stay at Hogwarts over the holidays. Harry would be there, he knew. It would have been nice to share Christmas with the boy, but the last thing a thirteen-year-old boy would want during the holidays was his teacher's gloomy company. He had friends of his own, and a hundred adventures still to be had, and a thousand laughs still to be shared.
I haven't even got a gift for him, Remus thought guiltily.
He had no idea what boys of that age liked these days, besides having little money of his own. Thirteen years ago, he and Sirius had bought Harry a toy Snitch for his first Christmas, but they had had Sirius's inheritance from his uncle at their disposal in those days, as well as their own small combined incomes.
Harry had been much too young for such a toy, which was larger, softer and slower than a real Snitch, but James had been overjoyed at the gesture, and had spent hours trying without success to teach the baby to catch it. The golden ball whizzing about the room had still been enough to delight Harry.
James had been sure that Harry was going to play Quidditch for England one day, and he often mentioned looking forward to box seats at the Quidditch World Cup in his old age.
"In fact," he had once joked, "in twenty years time, they'll have to rename the England team 'the Potters'. I'm going to teach all the sprogs to play. They'll be bloody fantastic, just like their old man."
The grin he had flashed at Lily echoed briefly now on Remus's own lips before fading. Lily and James had already been talking about having another baby, and the last time he had seen Lily, he could almost have sworn - But that thought was too painful on top of everything else. Suffice it to say, it had not happened, and the England team would just have to do without all that amazing Potter talent.
I'd be alarmingly bad company tonight, he thought with a sigh. Best for everyone concerned if I don't inflict myself on people.
He knelt to start a fire in the hearth instead. Another Christmas alone. Well, he was used to it. His mood was unlikely to improve tomorrow, only two nights before the full moon, so he would probably be better off giving Christmas dinner a miss as well.
Shivering, he stood up. It would be some time before the fire had any effect on the chill in the room. Perhaps he would go for a walk and try to warm up. If he kept to the little-used north half of the castle, there was little chance of encountering anyone. The trick was getting that far without being required to stop and display a little holiday spirit.
Peering out the door, he found the corridor deserted. He set off toward the North Tower at a quick walk, trying to recall the shortcut to the disused portion of the school.
If I remember correctly -
Checking behind a tapestry that hung near the stairs, he found a door. It was locked, but a quick "Alohomora" gained him entrance, and he was soon standing in a cold, dark, and musty-smelling corridor. Solitude.
His steps slowed as he walked down dusty hallways, past darkened classrooms - some of which were currently being used for storage - around shadowed corners, up uneven steps, stooped through low doorways, trying all the while to think of nothing at all.
He had learned to live his life wrapped in layers of gray numbness over the past several years. The pain was no longer sharp, but still a dull, throbbing ache that underlay his every waking moment. But the combination of being in this place, of seeing Harry - so much like his father - and most especially of being confronted daily with both talk and images of Sirius - not to mention the familiar canine smell which still clung to his bedclothes - had brought the pain and memories sharply into focus once more.
There was very little he could think about without feeling his throat tighten, his chest ache, his eyes burn. So as he walked, he allowed his mind to think only of the hardness, the colour, the age of the stones, the scents of dust and damp and nothingness.
His efforts were more or less successful until his eye caught a flicker of movement through the open door of a darkened room. Curious, he went to the door and peered inside. What he saw made the blood drain from his face, and weakened his knees considerably.
There was only one thing in the room: a huge, ornately framed mirror.
Erised, he remembered with a shock.
He should turn around and walk away, right now. He should go back to his rooms and lock the door and forget he had ever found the damn thing again. But the mirror drew him like siren song. What would it show him this time?
Remus knew already what he wanted more than anything else on earth: Sirius. But a brave and loyal Sirius - the Sirius he thought he had known - the one who would rather die than see his friends harmed. He wanted Lily and James alive and well and raising Harry.
I want the last twelve years of my life back, dammit! I want the balance of good and ill everyone else gets - just a normal life; friends and family and love. Small daily triumphs and tragedies. This great, gaping loneliness to leave me -
From the depths of his mind, the images swam to the surface of the mirror. Thinking the words had done nothing to prepare him for the seeing.
At first, he thought he was seeing that Christmas long ago in Godric's Hollow. There were the four of them, sitting around the tree, their heads bent close in talk. Then a dark head raised, and Sirius looked out of the mirror directly into Remus's eyes and smiled that wonderful, mischievous smile, gray eyes sparkling under dark, expressive brows.
It was not Christmas of thirteen years ago; there was Harry, come to sit between his parents, looking much as he did now. No, there were differences. The scar on Harry's forehead was missing. His glasses were new, and of a shape and style which suited him. His hair was a bit longer.
Now that he looked at them closely, Remus saw that they were all older. Lily and James - was this truly how they would look if they were alive today? Lily did not look so different from the way he remembered her, though she was obviously now more woman than girl. She was still pretty and slim, but her hair was cut so that it brushed her shoulders, rather than falling nearly to her waist. James's hair seemed to be lying reasonably flat for once, and was going attractively gray at the temples. He had just opened a package containing a shirt in Gryffindor colours and hugged his son, who looked pleased and embarrassed at the same time.
Remus saw himself sitting next to Sirius, hand resting on the other man's thigh, Sirius's arm casually draped around his shoulders. In the mirror, Remus's hair was less gray. There were fewer lines around his eyes and mouth. His clothes were better quality, and looked new. Every now and then, he and Sirius would glance at one another and smile, or Sirius would say something and he would laugh.
Sirius leaned over and whispered something in his mirror-self's ear and that Remus gave Sirius a sideways glance, mouthing "later". Sirius grinned and gave his shoulder a squeeze.
Sirius looked much more like the man Remus had known than like the haggard stranger in the papers. There were no shadows under this Sirius's eyes, he was clean-shaven, and, like Remus-in-the-mirror, there were fewer telltale lines denoting the passage of a difficult life. On this occasion, his hair had been neatly brushed and tied back at the nape of his neck. The shining black waves fell halfway down his back.
Remus's fingers twitched. He longed to run them through that hair. Somehow he knew that, in the mirror world, it had been he who had brushed those shining tresses and tied them back, planting a kiss on that neck as he did so.
More figures appeared in the mirror. Three younger children ran between the adults, giggling and chasing one another. There was a girl of about ten who looked like Harry. She had freckles, and her hair hung in two neat plaits. Chasing after the girl was a small boy of seven or so, who was the spitting image of Lily. Harry grabbed the boy as he went by, and proceeded to incapacitate him with tickles. He giggled and shrieked silently in the mirror and appealed to his mother to save him.
The last child puzzled him - a girl of about eleven with long, blonde curls and big, brown eyes. She was wearing new flannel pajamas in Ravenclaw colours, and she looked like neither Lily nor James. She had been chasing the other two children, brandishing a sprig of mistletoe. When she got to Harry, she stopped, held the berried twig over his head, and kissed him unabashedly on the cheek before running away, giggling. Harry was so stunned that he let his little brother go, blushing furiously.
The blonde girl ran through the scene again, this time in the other direction, and barreled directly into Sirius, who caught her and kissed her on the forehead. She held up the twig, this time between Sirius and Remus-in-the-mirror, and as the two men in the glass obligingly leaned in to kiss, Remus saw the girl's mouth move to form the word "daddy".
Remus sat down hard on the cold stone floor, head shaking slow denial, eyes fixed on the scene. Somehow, the mirror knew even the desires he had not let himself think of for years.
They had talked about it. Shyly the first time, as they helped Lily and James decorate the nursery that would be Harry's in a few months. After Harry was born, it had become a frequent topic on conversation.
They could adopt a child. God knew enough Wizarding children had lost their parents in those dark days. They would make good fathers, they had thought. When Harry was born, they had both sworn to protect him with their lives, like he was their own.
Remus had meant every word, even if Sirius had not. Remus still loved Harry like his own blood even now, when he was practically a stranger.
They had gone so far as to obtain the proper paperwork from the Ministry that fateful October, even though they both knew the chances of the Ministry awarding custody to two men, one a werewolf, were slim. Only the night before Remus's world had crumbled, they had lain in bed talking about the possibility. They also discussed how, should anything happen to Lily and James, Harry would come to them, but Remus had thought that was an eventuality too horrible to contemplate.
Now he gazed into the enchanted mirror, seeing another possibility - a life that might have been. This child sitting in Remus-in-the-mirror's lap, gazing up at him, handing him gifts. What was her name? What her story? He could well understand how this mirror could drain a man's life away while he sat, transfixed, not noticing.
The little girl was pulling on a gray hood, tying it under her chin. A hood with wolf-ears on it. She dropped to all fours and howled, then pounced on Remus-in-the-mirror. Sirius, shifting to his Animagus form, did the same. The three of them tumbled and wrestled and laughed and licked one another's faces.
Remus could not bear it any longer, looking into this life that might have been - that could never be - his. He stumbled to his feet and fled.
He hurried up a corridor and around a corner, seeking the exit at the North Tower, wanting only to put distance between himself and that accursed mirror. He needed to erase those too-sweet visions of longing from his mind. He needed the safety and relative comfort of his own rooms and a stiff drink.
It seemed to take him forever to find the base of the North Tower again, and when he did, he was brought up just short of running headlong into Professor Trelawney. He steadied himself against the wall, wanting only to get away quickly, but constrained by instinctive politeness.
"Professor," he gasped. "Good evening. It's, ah, unexpected to see you."
"But not for me to see you, Professor Lupin. The crystal does not lie." She peered at him mistily though the thick glasses that made her look like a giant insect. "But, my dear Professor, are you quite well?"
"Ah, no," he said quickly. "No, I don't feel quite myself this evening, I'm afraid."
She pursed her lips and nodded in exaggerated sympathy. "If you would like, Professor, I should be more than happy to crystal gaze for you, and see if I can't find the source of your turmoil." She raised her brows inquiringly. "Many factors are only to be perceived by those of us who are masters or mistresses of the exalted art of Divination, you know."
"Thank you, no, Professor," said Remus, casting about for a hasty exit. "I, ah, I think I'll just go back to my rooms and have a bit of a lie down. Thank you. Good night, Professor."
He turned aside and hurried off down the corridor, casting glances over his shoulder to make sure he was not followed.