Prompt: (word) Holiday

The Gift of Friendship

It was a tenuous alliance between Sirius and Marlene at first. They'd both stayed behind for the holiday, he because his family didn't celebrate Christmas, and she because her parents were visiting relatives in America and wouldn't have returned in time to get her back on the train to Hogwarts. They were the only two left in Gryffindor Tower, everyone else having gone home.

Marlene hadn't wanted anything to do with him to begin with. After all, this was the boy who made a game out of trying to make her so angry with him that she stormed off, even going so far as to place bets with his friends on how long it would take him to accomplish. She hated him for it. He was a despicable human being in her estimation, and wasn't worth her notice if he got pleasure from making her miserable.

She'd been sitting on the couch closest to the fire reading one evening when everything began to change. He sat on the opposite end of the couch and stared into the fire, seeming tense, nervous even.

She wanted to yell at him and tell him to find a different seat far away from her (really, the Slytherin common room wouldn't be far enough in her opinion). She bit back this initial reaction, however. They'd been alone for two days now, and he hadn't bothered her one bit. He must be lonely and simply want the presence of another person.

Marlene read on despite his nearness. She noticed him turning to her every once in a while, opening his mouth as if to speak, but closing it and turning back to his contemplation of the flames. They sat in this manner for several hours until Marlene started to find it difficult to keep her eyes open. Closing her book, she made her way up the stairs, vowing to put him out of her mind as she climbed into bed.

The next day, he met her at the bottom of the staircase and asked if she wanted to walk down to breakfast with him. Too shocked to think about it, she responded with a quick, "Yes." They walked mostly in silence to the Great Hall, Sirius occasionally asking her questions, like how well she'd slept or if she was enjoying her book. She replied with only one or two words, still puzzled by his sudden interest in her.

He kept up this banter during breakfast, appearing to be more at ease with her with each passing minute. She found she didn't really mind this. It was better than the silence of the past few days. She began to answer his questions in more detail and ask some of her own.

They went their separate ways after that, Marlene to her book, and Sirius to whatever it was that he got up to when his friends weren't around. This only lasted a couple of hours before he came back to the common room and asked if she'd mind a walk around the grounds, to which she readily agreed.

A thick blanket of snow covered the expansive grounds, much to Marlene's delight. She'd seen the snow falling the night before when she went to bed, but she hadn't paid any attention to it after that. Her survey of the winter landscape before her was interrupted by something hitting the back of her head. She turned to find Sirius grinning mischievously, a second snowball in his hand.

"Care for a little snow battle, McKinnon?"

Marlene, taken aback by his sudden playfulness, didn't answer immediately. First sitting with her in the common room, then talking her ear off at breakfast, now a snowball fight? She could hardly believe this was the same Sirius she'd always known. He'd changed for some reason and Marlene found herself liking this new side of him.

Shrugging, Marlene bent and expertly formed her own snowball. "Fine, but I'll warn you, snowball fighting is like a sport in my family. I'm quite practiced at it. My aim is deadly accurate."

Sirius's eyes lit up. "Perfect. I like a challenge. Let's see what you've go-" Marlene's shot hit him perfectly in the face, leaving him spluttering as she formed another snowball and took off running before he could retaliate.

They returned to the castle late in the afternoon, breathless and soaked through, having missed lunch entirely. Sirius raided the kitchen for hot cocoa and some sandwiches, which they shared while laughing over the afternoon's adventures and warming up by the fire.

The next day was Christmas. They met in the common room early in the morning and opened their gifts together. Marlene apologized for not getting Sirius a gift, even though he didn't get her anything either, but he just smiled and shook his head. "The fact that you even accepted my attempts at friendship over the last couple of days is a good enough gift to me. I was honestly just bored and lonely when I started trying to get you to talk to me, but the more we talked, the more I discovered I wanted to know about you."

Marlene smiled fondly at him. "I'm glad we had this chance, Sirius. Even if you were just so bored that I was the only option you had left." She shoved him playfully and giggled.

When their friends returned and life at Hogwarts went back to normal, Sirius and Marlene went their separate ways again. But they couldn't forget the bond they'd formed and soon, to the amazement of not only their friends but the entire school, their newfound friendship blossomed into something more. The man that Marlene had once vowed to despise as long as she lived became the man she couldn't live without.