Happy Holly-Days!
James Potter loved Yuletide.
It was a special time. From the decorations to the feasts, to the balls — James absolutely adored this time of year.
Every year, the Potters dedicated the first day of the Winter holidays to decorating every inch of the house. Garlands across the walls, wreaths on the doors, streamers of gold, gilded bells, bowls of chestnuts, apples and oranges everywhere you turned. The home was so filled with cedar and holly and mistletoe and pine that it looked like an indoor wilderness. His parents even set up a Yule tree in the drawing room! Adorned with pinecones and golden ornaments and delicate streamers, it was a beautiful sight.
A Yule Goat was placed in pride of place in the dining room. A symbolic object made from straw, the goat presided over their feast, its horns representing a plentiful bounty.
The central feature of the festivities was the fireplace though. The Yule Log burned constantly in the hearth, his parents tending to it with constant vigilance and care. The ritual fire would burn throughout the whole twelve days, warding away evil and welcoming in good fortune. And an altar to Hecate was set up on the mantle, with candles and bells and lavish gifts — gold, perfumes, and spices, all offered up in appreciation. (Hecate was his family’s chosen patron. James thought she was badass.)
Many families hosted balls to celebrate the Yuletide and the Winter solstice. They were grand occasions with everyone dressed up to the nines. Tables on tables of food to demonstrate their prosperity, golden adornments flashing no matter where you looked. Couples of young and old would twirl around on the dance floor to the dulcet tones of live music, and the musicians would carol out merry songs of Yule.
On the actual Yule — the Winter Solstice — the Potters indulged in the mightiest of feasts. Everything from stuffed turkeys to caramelised Brussel sprouts to the most magnificent of cakes. James would eat and eat and eat until he was so stuffed, he could barely even move. They would pour out libations for the gods and offer up the best cuts of meat by burning them in the hearth. (In the olden days there would be animal sacrifices, but that was considered messy and distasteful these days. James suspected some families still did it discreetly.)
The very best part for James, however, was getting to spend so much time with his family. The celebratory mood of the festivities instilled a lightness and a joviality in them all, and it was a wonderful thing to celebrate with his loved ones.
That’s why James was so thrilled this year — it was the first time they were celebrating with Sirius and Regulus! James was beyond excited. He couldn’t wait to show them all his family traditions and share in the joys of the holidays with them.
Unfortunately, his parents were trying to ruin it.
“But Muuuuum!” James whined at the two-way mirror-call. It was an ingenious little device that allowed them to speak face to face from so far away. Usually, he loved being able to talk with his mother even whilst at Hogwarts. Right now, it was aggravating him.
“You sound like I’m asking you to walk to the gallows.” His Mum fixed him with an annoyed look. “I thought you loved Yule Balls.”
“Yeah, when I can mess around with my friends,” James explained, pouting. “We always sneak off and wreak havoc. But I won’t get to do that if you make me debut.”
“Debuting is important!” Mum told him, and not for the first time. “It’s your coming of age!”
“I’m already of age,” James pointed out petulantly. “Why does it matter if I debut or not?”
“Because every Potter that has ever lived debuted when they turned seventeen,” his Mum reminded him, stern and unyielding.
“Doesn’t mean I have to!”
“Yes, it does.”
“Traditions can change!”
“‘Can’, yes. ‘Will’, no.”
“Mu-um!”
“You and I both know that your father will be crushed if you don’t debut.”
James winced. That was a low blow. “I’m not trying to upset Dad.”
“I know you’re not.” She softened too. “But we let you off in the Spring after your birthday, and you didn’t debut at Eostre. And then we let you off again during Summer, and you didn’t debut at the Solstice. And then again at the Autumnal Equinox. And now you’re trying to avoid it again. There’s only so many appropriate festivities left before you run out of time. And your Dad doesn’t want to push you, but you are going to upset him if you break tradition.”
Guilt seeped through James’s skin. “…I just don’t get why it’s even a thing. It doesn’t change anything — it doesn’t matter really.”
“It matters to this family,” she responded firmly.
James bit his lip, sullen, and avoided eye contact.
She sighed. “Will you at least tell me why you don’t want to debut? I mean — Frank did it without a problem. And Sirius too. Honestly, most of your friends have debuted at this point.”
Well, most of his Pureblood friends.
“Sirius only did it because his parents forced him to,” James muttered stubbornly. “Then he ran away.”
“James Fleamont Potter. I’m not appreciating this attitude,” Mum reprimanded.
He grimaced. “Sorry.”
A beat.
“Just tell me what’s wrong, honey. All I’m asking you to do is show up at the Ball, socialise with the adults, and maybe dance once or twice. What’s so scary about that?”
James sighed. They both knew it wasn’t that simple, but even so, it was probably time to bite the bullet. “Debuting means stepping into Wizarding society as an adult,” he began.
His mother nodded along encouragingly.
“But we all know it’s really about stepping into Pureblood society,” he continued, which made her frown.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Muggleborns don’t debut,” James expanded carefully. “Neither do Half-bloods. Godric, even some Pureblood families who don’t have enough money or standing don’t debut. Why? Simply because they don’t get invited to events like this. The whole thing feels a bit… elitist… to me. And discriminatory too. I feel like debuting means I’m condoning it all and becoming part of that prejudiced cycle.”
His mother blinked a few times, having clearly not expected that. She considered his words carefully. “I can see what you mean.” She took another few moments to think. “Do you think your father and I are prejudiced?”
“No,” James answered automatically. “You’re huge activists.” He smiled at her. “Knocking some sense into the Wizengamot one law at a time! I’m really proud of that.”
Mum smiled back at him. “Well, that’s nice to hear. But I bring it up because we can only do those things — activism, spreading awareness about the injustice of our government, challenging the system, lobbying against laws — we can do those things because we are part of Pureblood society. Our money, our status, our name… that gets us in the door, and we use it to help affect change. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“You’re saying I should use the advantages of my birth to help make the world a better place,” James surmised thoughtfully. “That’s probably the most Slytherin thing you’ve told me in a while.”
Mum grinned sharply, shark-like. “You forget that I was Slytherin far too often.”
James huffed a laugh. “I think most people do.”
She hummed, pleased. “Appearances can be deceiving.”
“So, is that what you and Dad do?” James circled back. “You play the game, go to all the Pureblood events, make sure you’re solidly in high society, and then try to change things from the inside?”
“Well, that’s what I do.” Mum nodded, smiling faintly. “Your father just follows my lead and does what he’s told. He’s the born-Potter, and yet, he’s never quite had the head for politics on his own.”
“I’m not sure I have the head for politics either,” James admitted. Pureblood political games were bloodbaths, and he wasn’t convinced he had the constitution for it.
“Find a smart, cunning Slytherin to marry,” Mum advised, only half-joking. “You’re just like your father — all nice, and kind, and soft-hearted.”
“You say that as though it’s a bad thing.” James grinned at her.
She grinned back. “It’s what I get for raising you with things like love and morals.”
A pause.
“Debuting doesn’t mean you automatically agree with everything in Pureblood society,” his Mum told him sagely. “Think of it as an opportunity. …You are very blessed and there is a lot you can do with those blessings. But you have to be willing to use them.”
James let out a heavy breath, feeling himself cave. When she put it like that…
“…I refuse to wear green robes.”
His Mum grinned victoriously, eyes gleaming. “Done! But just so you know, there’s no chance in hell I’m letting my son debut in Gryffindor red.”
*
For the next few days, James tried his best to put all thoughts of balls and debuting out of his mind, hyper-fixating on a much more enjoyable topic.
“Happy Yule!” James called out cheerily to random students as he made his way down the corridors. “Happy Yule! It’s Yuletide! Have a wonderful Yule!”
He received some unimpressed looks for his holiday cheer, but James paid them no mind. He was determined to spread the festive spirit and enjoy himself no matter what.
He grasped his basket tight and managed to slip through the open portrait entrance of the Slytherin Common Room just as a couple of students were leaving. He looked around for one particular sour little Slytherin.
“Potter?” Regulus frowned as he noticed him. “What the fuck are you doing in here?”
Ah! There the sour little Slytherin was!
Truthfully, James didn’t know Regulus very well. He knew the boy was a Slytherin and a Seeker, and that he liked Potions and hated nearly everything else. …That was pretty much it. They had no reason to know each other really. They didn’t hang out, they didn’t have many mutual friends, and just… no real reason to talk. Other than Sirius, of course.
Regulus had always just been Sirius’s sour little brother to James. Nothing more, nothing less. It sounded awful to say, but he just didn’t devote that much time to thinking about the guy at all. Regulus barely even crossed his mind, most days.
All of that changed when Regulus showed up on James’s doorstep, eyes wild and clothes stained with blood, holding up an unconscious Sirius who’d clearly just been cursed within an inch of his life.
It was a terrible truth, but that was the first time James really looked at Regulus. Really saw him. James took in the abnormally ruffled hair, the bloodshot eyes, the tear-stained face, the pure unadulterated fear etched into every atom of the boy’s being, and that was the moment he really registered as a person to James.
He had immediately jumped into action — his parents had been out at dinner with friends, but Sirius was literally minutes away from bleeding out on the doorstep. They didn’t have time to call for help. There wasn’t time to wait for adults to swoop in and save the day. They didn’t have precious seconds to waste when Sirius was so far gone. So, he scooped up his battered best friend, relieving the terrified young boy in front of him of the heavy weight, and carried him inside. On instinct, he started yelling out potions for Regulus to fetch on the way, before clearing the dining table and settling Sirius’s limp form on top of it.
James had never really been exposed to that level of chaos before. That type of trauma. Of the very real possibility of death. Of the reality that was watching a sixteen-year-old boy sob at the near-lifeless form of his older brother whilst James knitted his torn flesh back together bit by bit.
The next half an hour was a frantic dash. With dangerously rapid breathing and perpetually shaking hands, the two of them gradually brought Sirius back from the brink. With James’s Dad being a Potions Master and his Mum being a Healer, they had everything they needed on hand to stabilise him, just enough until his parents arrived. James hadn’t known that he’d retained that much medical information from his folks, but as it turned out, he was a relatively decent Healer in a pinch. (Maybe he should put that on his resumé.)
It was traumatic, and awful, and quite possibly the most fear James had ever felt in his life, yet somehow, he had sort of gone numb in the moment. He’d managed to get it together enough to force-feed the right combination of potions down Sirius’s throat, managed to staunch the bleeding effectively and stitch his best friend up despite his quivering hands, managed to keep his tone steady when murmuring incantations and put enough power behind his words that he quite literally talked the fading life force on the table back towards the mortal plane. Apparently, he turned level-headed and emotionless in a crisis. Good to know.
The second they had a free moment, James sent for his parents, and to their credit, they arrived in less than five minutes. He and Regulus were quickly ushered away, and that’s when James started to cry. Alone in a room with only Regulus Black for company, his best friend barely out of critical condition in the next room, and only alive due to his own hands, James broke down. Sobbing, weeping, shuddering for breath — the kind of ugly crying he hadn’t known he was capable of until it happened.
Through all of that, James had still found the awareness to stop Regulus from leaving.
It took him a second to register the boy exiting the room. And another few seconds to comprehend what the footsteps down the hallway meant. But he eventually realised that that stupid little trauma-ball of a boy was trying to go back to Grimmauld Place. Attempting to return to the same people who nearly killed his brother not even an hour ago. Of all the idiotic things…
James remembered standing at the end of the hallway. Remembered Regulus turning back to meet his eyes — haunted grey meeting equally haunted brown.
‘I have to go,’ Regulus had said, his voice shockingly even given the circumstances.
‘I’m not letting you go,’ James had managed to get out, shaking like a leaf.
They had stared at each other for several long moments.
Then Regulus had turned around and started sprinting. James had run after him, absolutely refusing to let him leave. He had quite literally had to tackle Regulus to the floor and fight him to keep him in the house. They’d been a tangle of limbs, Regulus biting, scratching, clawing, hexing, doing anything possible to get him to let go.
James had held fast. He’d latched onto the other boy like his life depended on it, and he’d refused to let him go.
He didn’t regret it. Not with how relieved Sirius was when he woke up to Regulus at his bedside. Not with the lightness he saw in the shoulders of both brothers at their newfound freedom. Not with everything he knew and heard about that hell-house they came from.
So, now Sirius and Regulus both lived with James. Right down the hall. Sirius took to the change like a duck to water, but Regulus was still… Regulus. He was reserved, and hard to know, and half the time, James found himself sneaking glances just to make sure the boy wouldn’t try to run again. But he still didn’t really know Regulus all that well.
They didn’t talk about that night. Ever. It was hard to find the words to discuss what had happened between them, what that shared experience had been like. It was all a jumble in James’s head; of blood and beating hearts and a Sirius that was far too still. That night was looking up and only being met with young, wide, terrified grey eyes, begging him to, “Do something!” Begging him to save his big brother. It was steadying Regulus’s shaking hands, wiping at his tears, and harshly telling him to “Get it together and hold this still.” It was being the numb one while Regulus broke down, then being the emotional one whilst Regulus went numb. It was the anticipation beating in time with their frantic hearts as they hoped to every deity there was that the one thing they had in common — the only love they shared — would live to see tomorrow. It was literally fighting each other — missed hexes that scorched the walls, shouts that echoed through the hallway, and scratching with worry-bitten fingernails as Regulus brawled like a demon trying to throw him off. It was physically battling a boy James barely knew, all to keep him away from the abusers he called parents.
They didn’t know each other very well. But they knew the deepest parts of each other. The parts that they hadn’t been able to keep hidden that fateful night, when they had been scraped down to the rawest versions of themselves, their vulnerable guts on unintentional display for each other.
And now, in a strange way, James was emotionally attached to a boy he barely knew. A stranger he’d fought tooth and nail for. But it was about time that changed. It was about time they got to know each other. (In a much less traumatic way.) James’s heart was already attached. He was far too invested to ever be able to walk away from Regulus Black. The only thing left to do, then, was to walk towards him.
“Happy Yule!” James wished him as he sauntered over. He thrust out the gift basket in his hands for the Slytherin to take.
Regulus blinked at him. “It’s November.”
James was not deterred. “It’s never too early to start celebrating!” He wiggled the basket enticingly.
“It quite literally is too early to start celebrating,” Regulus argued, seeming highly baffled and a touch irritated. “Yuletide lasts twelve days. None of which are in November.”
“But it’s our first Yuletide together!” James countered, not backing down. “Which means it will be the best Yuletide ever!”
Regulus had to take a deep breath. “I’m not some poor orphan Yule-rat you need to take care of just because we live together now. I’m a big boy, Potter.”
James was under no impression that Regulus couldn’t take care of himself — he’d learned first-hand what a strong hex the guy could dish out — but that wasn’t what this was about. This was about James making Regulus feel more at home with the Potters, and maybe the two of them bonding a bit. Possibly. Hopefully.
“And I am full of holiday cheer!” James forcibly shoved the basket into his hands. “You will take my gifts, and you will enjoy the Yule, even if I have to shove my festive spirit down your throat!”
It was maybe a little intense, but James wasn’t afraid to force some bonding between them, now that he was fairly certain it wouldn’t come naturally.
Regulus, meanwhile, just stared at him.
Stared down at the gift basket.
Then back at James.
“Let me guess… this is your favourite holiday.”
“What gave it away?” James grinned, maybe a little too bright, but could you blame him? Regulus seemed to be a hard sell on holiday spirit. “This is your Potter Yuletide starter pack! I handmade you an apple and orange garland — may the sun return to us soon — which I suggest you hang over your bed. We’ve also got some golden bells to ward away the evil spirits, some sprigs of holly and mistletoe, some nice candles… Oh! And my personal favourite…”
James plucked up a small goat he had fashioned from straw. It was a bit crude, but it was handmade, so the effort made it more special in his humble opinion.
“A Yule Goat,” Regulus surmised in an indecipherable tone. That tone made James want to cut him open, just so he could see what was inside — he sometimes felt like Regulus hid all of his emotions just beneath the surface of his skin, and James was desperate to see them.
“I named him Gus!” He declared proudly, determined to crack the Slytherin one way or another. “May your table always be full, with Gus watching over you!”
Regulus carefully took the straw goat when James handed him over. He stared at the misshapen little animal ornament intently. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You can thank me when you don’t go hungry or get possessed by malicious spirits,” James replied haughtily. No-one should be too proud for a Yule Goat. “Happy Yule, Regulus.”
The boy gently, very gently, placed Gus back into the basket. “You didn’t need to do all of this.”
James waved a dismissive hand. “I wanted to. I love the holiday and I want our first one together to go perfectly.”
Regulus’s gaze met his, intense grey eyes boring into bland brown. His were beautiful eyes, stormy and strong, like the vast sea or an impenetrable stone. Sirius’s were brighter, bluer, like the sky or something. Where his best mate’s eyes seemed to emanate fun and mischief, Regulus’s were deep and mysterious depths; they always seemed intimidating and intense to James. (Except on That Night, when they’d seemed so vulnerable and scared. James had yet to see them like that since.)
“Our first one together,” the Slytherin repeated deliberately, voice neutral.
James sputtered awkwardly. “I mean — all of our first Yule together! You, me, Sirius, my parents — all of us together!”
Regulus hummed as though minorly amused by James’s fumbling. “I suppose it is about time I start ordering my robes for the Yuletide Balls,” he conceded with the hint of a smile ghosting his lips.
James grinned, heart soaring. Victory was so close he could practically taste it. “It’s that time of the year! You know you wanna say it!”
Regulus rolled his eyes.
“Say it!” James cajoled, bouncing excitedly. “Say it for Gus!”
The Slytherin’s gaze seemed to catch on the crudely fashioned little goat once more. He sighed, shaking his head. “Happy Yule, James.”
“HAPPY YULE!!!!!”