Remus sat at the table, thinking hard.

It was only three days 'til Christmas – he wondered, fleetingly, if that made it Christmas Eve Eve Eve – and he still hadn't decided what to get Tonks.

At this rate, all he was going to have to offer her was his heart – and, poetic and seasonal as that was, it wasn't really the kind of thing he could put a bow on and stash under the tree.

The door creaked open, and Sirius staggered into the kitchen, drunk on Christmas spirit, and something altogether more tangible. Remus' eyes fixed on the half-empty bottle of Firewhiskey in his hand.

"Are you moping about Tonks again?" Sirius said, settling into the chair next to the fire and resting the bottle on his knee.

"No. I don't – I'm not – " Remus protested. Then he sighed. Protesting was futile, and he didn't really have the energy for it. "Yes," he said, letting his head drop onto his waiting hand, and Sirius sniggered.

He gestured to the bottle of Firewhiskey in his hand, and when Remus nodded, he Summoned a glass and poured him a large measure. Remus leant forward and clinked his glass against Sirius' bottle. "Cheers," he said.

"Merry Christmas," Sirius said.

"You certainly seem in the festive mood," Remus said, taking a sip of his Firewhiskey and then swirling it around in his glass, watching as the firelight caught on the amber hints in the liquid, making it actually look as if he held fire in his hands.

"Hmm," Sirius said. "It's nice, having Harry – everyone – here. Wish it was under different circumstances, obviously," he added, a frown passing over his features just slightly. Remus murmured in agreement. "So," Sirius said, clapping his hands together and startling them both a little. "Decided what to buy her for Christmas yet?"

"And by 'her' you mean..?"

"Don't play coy with me, Moony," Sirius said. "I know you've only had one female on the brain for months now, so I hardly think I need to spell it out."

Remus chuckled quietly to himself, and looked away. He should have known Sirius would see straight through whatever charade it was he'd been putting up. "Of course if you want me to spell it out, it's n-y-m-f – oh no, wait – p – h?" Sirius looked adorably perplexed for a moment, and then sighed, waving away his spelling ineptitude. "Whatever. You know who I mean. Pink hair, dark eyes, tight T shirts – "

Remus met Sirius' eye with a wry glare, and Sirius sniggered at him, but thankfully didn't go on. Remus ran a hand over his face and let out a long, drawn out breath. "I can assure you that my Christmas shopping is all done, save one item," he said.

"The one item left being the most important one?"

"Of course," Remus said.

"Do you know what you're getting?"

"Nearly," Remus said, frowning at the thought.

"Well that's progress," Sirius said.

"Hmm," Remus murmured in an entirely unconvinced tone.

"It is," Sirius said. "When I asked you yesterday you said you didn't have a bloody clue – we're inching in the right direction."

"Inching," Remus said. "Let's hope we get there in time for this year, eh?"

Remus took a sip of his Firewhiskey, letting its warmth course through him and gazed into the flames in the grate, hoping for some kind of divine Christmas present inspiration.

"You know what she'd really like for Christmas?" Sirius said.

"A day off and a nice long sit down?" Remus said, and Sirius rolled his eyes and then smirked.

"There's mistletoe in the hallway."

"Of that I'm well aware," Remus said, "having Conjured a good deal of it myself."

"Why don't you put it to good use, then?" Sirius said. "A Christmas kiss is the gift that keeps on giving – if you play your cards right – and I'm sure she wouldn't ask for the receipt."

Remus hummed again, and while he couldn't deny that the idea of kissing Tonks – under mistletoe or otherwise – was certainly on his wish list this Christmas, he really thought he should get her something real, tangible, something that wouldn't look out of place presented in front of the children and Molly Weasley.

He looked up and met Sirius' eye. Sirius raised his eyebrows hopefully, and Remus frowned in return. "You're not taken with the idea," Sirius said. "Ok, let's keep thinking. What are your thoughts so far?"

"I was thinking – well, to be honest, I was thinking jewellery," he said.

"Are you sure you want to get her something so – " Sirius trailed off and his forehead creased. "What's the word?"

"Expensive?" Remus offered, but Sirius shook his head. "Girly?" he said, getting another shake of Sirius' head for his trouble. Remus searched for another adjective for jewellery, drawing something of a blank. "Er – shiny?" he offered, more in hope than expectation that he'd hit the nail on the head.

"No," Sirius said, waving his suggestions away impatiently. He thought, hard, for a moment, the lines on his forehead getting deeper and more pronounced by the second, and then he said "fixed."

Remus took a moment to think – to wonder if Sirius had slurred some other word, but he couldn't think of anything that made sense. He met Sirius' eye questioningly. "Fixed?" he said. "I don't – "

"Well she's always changing, isn't she?" Sirius said. "Are you going to get her something to go with her pink hair, or something to go with that festive red she's been wearing? And then there's the time her hair's – you know – hair colour, but then sometimes it's green, isn't it? And you know women and their guff about coordination."

Remus frowned, perturbed. It was certainly a point.

He ran his hands through his hair.

He was back to square one. He'd thought it was bad enough trying to narrow down his thoughts from 'jewellery' the vague, abstract concept, to something specific, but now he was back with the gift-buying world at his feet and nary a thought about how to narrow it down in a different direction.

He sighed. Maybe his heart would look nice gift-wrapped after all….

He sighed again, downing the rest of his Firewhiskey in frustration that his brain hadn't come up with any more gift ideas, but as Sirius leaned forward and re-filled his glass, he had the inkling, the very tiniest inkling, of an idea.

He tried not to force the idea, to frighten it away, and he let it form on its own, of its own accord.

And then smiled.

It wasn't just a good idea – it was a great idea, tricky to pull off in the time frame available, but he could hardly call himself a Marauder if he shirked a challenge.

"What are you smiling at?" Sirius said. "I thought we were moping?"

"We were," Remus said. "And now we're not."

He could barely contain his excitement, and so he didn't even try. He got up from his chair, and placed an exaggerated, noisy kiss on Sirius' forehead, affectionately ruffling his hair. "What was that for?" Sirius said, looking utterly stunned as he flopped back in his chair, wiping at his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Because you, Sirius Black, are a bloody genius," Remus said, retreating from the table and up the stairs.

"Am I?" Sirius said, and then grinned. "Well, I suppose it has been said…."

"Back in a minute," Remus called over his shoulder as he reached the door. "Please don't pass out while I'm gone – there's a chance I might need your expertise."

The library was deserted, and Remus perused the shelves. Over the months he'd spent here he'd got to know them like the back of his hand, and Sirius' mother had been fastidious about her arrangement of books, grouping them by subject matter and then alphabetically by author. He ran a finger across the middle shelf that contained reference books on miscellaneous subjects, passing by The Poisoner's Poison and a selection of volumes on plants that fought back and were great for improving security, but finding another half dozen or so that he thought fitted his purposes admirably. He piled them up in his arms, and went back downstairs.

Sirius was sipping his Firewhiskey by the fire where Remus had left him, and when he took in the pile of books in Remus' arms he rolled his eyes. "I knew I should have feigned sleep until I'd figured out what you were up to," he said.

"You don't know what I'm up to, yet," Remus said.

"I know enough," Sirius said, gesturing to the pile. "I know there's bleeding homework."

Remus bit back a laugh in favour of a glower over the cover of the top dusty volume, and set the books down on the table, where they thudded ominously. Sirius took a gulp of Firewhiskey and then got to his feet, coming over to the table and leaning on it heavily, squinting at the gold and silver embossed titles on the leather bound front covers. "The Alchemist's Almanac?" he said.

"Uh huh."

Sirius frowned. "You're going to learn alchemy in two days so you can afford to buy her a proper present?" he said. "I know you're not exactly slow on the uptake, Moony, but don't you think it's pushing it when most people can't learn it in a lifetime?"

Remus sighed. "I'm not trying to learn alchemy," he said. "I just thought there might be something useful in there."

Sirius picked up one of the other volumes, and blew the dust off the cover, coughing a little at the cloud of dust particles and Merlin knew what else that he produced. He wiped at the cover with his sleeve until the title was visible. "Charming Stones for Profit and Pleasure," he said. He stared, perplexed, at the title for a moment, and then realisation of some kind seemed to dawn. "Am I to take it we're more on the pleasure side of things than the profit?"

"Well, hopefully," Remus muttered. "I thought we'd start with this one."

He held up Semi-Precious and Precious Stones and Their Suitability for Cursing and tapped the cover, before sinking down at the table and opening the book to the index, trailing down the list of chapter titles until something looked promising.

Sirius drew back a chair on the opposite side of the table, scraping the legs across the floor. "I'm still not quite sure what we're doing," he said, as he settled into the chair and yawned.

"Well it's liked you said," Remus said, looking up from his dusty volume. "It must drive her batty to have everything be so fixed, so I'm going to charm her a stone that obeys her every command," he said. Sirius' eye widened a little to indicate that he was on the very verge of being impressed. "Then she can change it to whatever she wants – to match her hair or her clothes, obviously, but it could keep her safe, too – she could change it into any protective stone she might need for work."

Sirius grinned, but Remus knew better to think his old friend was pleased, or impressed by his ingenuity. "You're right," he said smugly, confirming Remus' suspicions. "I am a bloody genius."

Remus threw The Compendium of Gems at him. "Well then," he said, "get reading."

It turned out that charming stones for profit or pleasure was a relatively easy process.

Well, not easy in the strictest sense of the word, Remus thought. Most people, he reasoned – normal people – would think staying up until dawn reading up on the theory, snatching two hours' sleep, and then trudging out into Hogsmeade as soon as the shops opened, spending half an hour standing outside in the freezing cold without the delight of a pink haired Auror to distract them from the creeping frostbite in their extremities while they dithered over which pendant to get, coming back, charming the stone, and then spending the next thirteen hours teaching it every stone and gem in the Compendium of Gems and Precious and Semi-Precious Stones And Their Suitability For Cursing was actually quite a lot of work.

However, he thought, from the perspective of a man who had, in his youth, stayed up for seventy-two hours trying to perfect a cruciferous vegetable-head hex to use on the git who stole his girlfriend, it wasn't a major undertaking, and as he sat at the table, a little bleary-eyed and light-headed from lack of sleep, gazing at the teardrop shaped pendant in his palm, he thought it'd all been worth it.

Even though he'd been testing the stone on and off all day, he couldn't resist having one more check that it worked, and it hadn't been his sleep-deprived mind playing tricks on him.

Hematite, he thought, thinking how well the stone would go with Tonks' beautiful twinkling eyes. The stone turned silvery black in his hand, and he smiled.

Pink Sapphire,he thought, half-picturing the stone he'd seen in the jeweller's window, and half the colour Tonks' hair had been when he'd run into her in Hogsmeade. He was so lost in a daydream he barely noticed the stone change.

He tried a couple of other stones – obscure ones he wasn't sure anyone but the author of the book on his knee had even heard of, and then, satisfied that the charm held, he Summoned the red velvet gift box from the dresser, and nestled the necklace inside, arranging the pendant on the tissue paper until he was happy with the way it looked.

He wrapped it carefully, Conjuring a green bow and some imitation holly sprigs to nestle in the knot, and then looked at the box on the table in front of him. It looked perfect.

Now all he had to do was find the perfect moment to give it to her.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Anyone who reviews this one gets an all-night study session with a fanfic Remus of their choice: Studious Remus insists you work in silence, but keeps shooting meaningful glances at you from behind his copy of Hogwarts, A History; Sexy Remus abandons the pretence of studying anything but lips two minutes in; Flirty Remus hands you suggestive tomes until you get the message; and Shy Remus studies hard, but passes you notes, blushing furiously every time your hands brush.