Christmas in the Potter household was no joke. Everything, from the tree, to the decorations, to the Christmas dinner was exuberantly extravagant and taking care of it all was a massive job. Consider that the Potters only had house elves in the loosest sense and that they'd been expressly forbidden to do any work over the holiday, it was probably a good thing that Lily, Remus, Peter, Marlene, Alice, Frank and Mary had decided to spend Christmas with James and Sirius. Even a house as big as Potter manor didn't have seven guest rooms (only six), so Lily decided to sleep in James' room. For some reason, Sirius insisted on letting Remus have his bedroom and sleeping in the guest wing - in retrospect, this should have made the big reveal of the weekend all the more obvious, but everyone just dismissed it as one of his whims.
Sirius and Marlene spent the majority of the day before Christmas not talking to each other at all - Sirius was helping Lily out with decorating the house while James and Marlene were hard at work trimming the tree. Frank and Remus were cooking dinner and Alice and Peter handled the leftover tasks. It was a busy day for all of them, and as a result, they were fairly exhausted (and hungry) by the evening.
o-O-o
"Hello." Lily said, leaning against the door frame. James scrambled into a sitting position, shutting his book and putting it on the bedside table.
"Hey." He said softly. "Done decorating?"
"Yes." Lily sighed tiredly.
"Do you want to rest for a bit, love?" She rubbed her eyes and then shook her head.
"No, it's almost time for dinner - Remus said Frank would have the chicken out of the oven by eight, so…" James got up and moved to the door, also leaning against the frame.
"Alright." He said, reaching up a hand to softly caress her cheek. "We should probably - hey hold on!" His eyes drifted upwards as he noticed that a sprig of mistletoe hung in their doorway. "Did you do this?" He asked, looking down at her with a mischievous smile. Her confused expression made him think not.
"I - I don't know how that got there, Sirius must have put it there as a l-" She was cut off as he bent down and kissed her, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her close. She relaxed and slid her arms around his neck, leaning into him.
Too soon, they broke away, and Lily took his hand.
"Let's get everyone else and go down to dinner." She said. He nodded.
o-O-o
"I missed you." Marlene said as she strode into Sirius' room, shut the door behind her and promptly got into bed next to him.
"Don't you want to give me time to put my shirt on first?" Sirius asked smirking. Marlene shook her head and put her arms around him, snuggling into his bare chest. "I missed you too." He said in a more serious tone. "It's insane, I can't blame this on us keeping it a secret, I haven't even been able to talk to you today." Marlene nodded silently.
"Maybe we should-" She began and then stopped.
"What?"
"Maybe there's no point in keeping it a secret anymore."
"Really?"
"Well…yes." Marlene propped her head up on his chest, gazing straight into Sirius' eyes. "The whole point of us keeping it a secret at first was so that we'd have a chance to see where this was going without the added pressure of everyone knowing. But I don't need that anymore. I know where this is going."
"And where would that be?"
"I love you." She said blithely. "And you love me too, and I can't imagine a day when those two sentences wouldn't be true anymore. And I just…fail to see the point in hiding it. I want to be able to hold your hand and kiss you without having to think twice so…yes, I don't think this needs to be a secret anymore." Sirius seemed to looking at her quite strangely. It reminded her of how he'd looked at her the night they'd gotten together. "What?"
"I love you so incredibly much Marlene McKinnon."
"I love you too Sirius Black." She whispered, lowering her head to kiss him. His hands, previous resting on her hips, wrapped around her entirely, and soon they were lost in a world of their own. Their kisses deepened and became increasingly more passionate until eventually they had to break away for air. They didn't stop, however. Sirius shifted a little and they both ended up on their sides, kissing each other wherever they could for all was worth. This was significantly easier for Marlene due to Sirius' half-clothed status, but he evened the score by dipping his hands underneath her shirt and softly stroking her stomach and back. He began to kiss down her throat and Marlene arched her back, looking up at the ceiling and wondering why everything was so much brighter. It took her a millisecond to realise that it wasn't her imagination that had caused so much more of the room to be illuminated, it was the fact that someone had opened the door. She sat up suddenly, practically knocking Sirius off her and they both stared at the doorway in horror.
o-O-o
"MY EYES!" James groaned, burying his head in his hands. Alice and Mary began laughing uncontrollably, the sound echoing down the halls, while Peter looked a little embarrassed to have walked in on such a scene. Lily and Remus wore twin smiles of amusement - that is, until Lily turned around and said:
"I thought it was you!" Remus' expression turned into one of confusion.
"What? How is that even possible?"
"Well, a couple of months ago, she mentioned that she was in love-"
"So you figured it was me?"
"Well, it was either you or-"
"Could we stop discussing this?" Sirius asked loudly as Marlene scrambled off the bed, finger-combing her hair nervously.
"Could you please put on a shirt?" James retorted, finally deigning to look up again.
"Fine." Sirius said, bouncing off the bed too and making his way over to the cupboard.
"DINNER'S READY!" The sound of Frank's magically amplified voice made its way down the hall, and Lily's face broke into a grin.
"Well, it seems that we have a lot to discuss this Christmas eve." She said, giggling. Everyone started to make their way to the kitchen as Sirius let out a small sound of protest. Marlene took his hand as they exited the room.
"It's okay." She said. "We can do this."