It was the happiest Christmas in which Remus Lupin had taken part in years. There was the little family that was starting to grow up around him. Tonks was brilliantly happy that Remus had rejoined her at Andromeda's house, and she could not help looking over her shoulder to smile at him. Her baby bump had become more obvious, and Remus had trouble looking away from it, mildly taken aback from the amount the baby had grown in the time they had been apart. The feeling of belonging, not just to a fighting group but to a family, was something that he treasured more than any of the gifts that Tonks and her mother had given him.
It was the first Christmas since Halloween years ago that he had not been trapped in thoughts of the fellow Marauders and their absence from his life. Before, he kept thinking of the years and the Christmases that they could not be with them and how much he missed his true friends. They had made his life worthwhile and not condemned it to be a life of woe and attempting to hide his secret. In years past, he had thought of Harry, who would never remember the warmth and love of his parents at Christmas. It seemed to him to be such a tragedy that a person so young could not know the feeling of spending that day with his parents.
But this year... he was only driven out of the morose thoughts by her smile and the sense of family that he almost thought he could never deserve. He took every opportunity he could to kiss his wife, who beamed with pleasure every time he did so. It was the happiest Christmas, and those doubts and worries that he had had in those lost four months seemed to vanish before the Christmas lights and carols. There was no regret in his decision to return to his wife and his unborn child.
It was the first time he had been truly happy in years.