We'll Be Alright

To Mum and Dad,

Hello.

Romulus has been giving out a lot about the homework being given over the break and it is driving me insane. I don't like homework as much as the next guy but he just will never ever shut up. It's not even a lot of homework. It's only for one class which is Charms and I don't think it'll even be checked so what's even the point?

Romulus said he wants me to do my work (I don't want to) and he'll do a duplication charm (that's what the homework is about) and then we'll have two to hand in and since we're twins, it's alright if we have twin handwriting too. But then I said that HE should do the work and I duplicate it and then he started bickering and then he wouldn't talk to me for a few classes and then he started giving out again. And then he duplicated my wand and since the copies don't work, I had to root through all twenty of them to find the real one but he was hiding that too so I spent SO long looking for it and it was just up his sleeve. And then I duplicated HIS wand but he already did it so I duplicated an already fake one and he had his real one up his other sleeve. The homework is answering questions about copying things but I think if I just throw all fifty of our wands on the teachers desk we'll pass.

Romulus also said that he wants ME to write my letter AND his letter because he's too tired to write on his own so he's just dictating things to me and I'm to write it down. This is starting to happen too often I think and this is also starting to annoy me because you said you'd send those screaming letters if we didn't write everyday and Romulus hasn't gotten one yet. I'm doing all this work all the time because he's always too tired so I tell him to write during the day and he says he's too busy during the day so I tell him to write in the mornings before breakfast and he says he's too tired again. This is ridiculous and I'd really like him to get a screaming letter. And I'd like for you to mention something silly like how he sometimes sucks his thumb when he sleeps because he still does.

Romulus has been getting annoyed when I don't want to wear matching clothes. I LOVE matching a lot but some days I want to wear something that he doesn't want to wear and then he doesn't talk to me again but it's extra annoying because it's the weekend and we're meant to be having fun and messing around but I can't have as much fun if that idiot won't talk. And the others are all very fun too but the fun gets taken out of it sometimes.

Romulus says he wants me to move out as his Christmas present and he said that you said that'd be alright. I want you to tell me that that is not true because I remember I asked you tons of times to kick Romulus out and you said no so why would you let HIM kick ME out? I think this is very unfair because I think I'm much better to have in the house than he is because I'm not as messy as he is. I never spill things and just today he spilt pumpkin juice all over Peter's weird Polish newspaper.

Romulus made Peter, Sirius and James to teach him bad words in Polish, French and Spanish (James isn't very good at Spanish so he only knew ten) and he keeps telling them to me and calling me bad things that I can't understand. He told me that Sirius told him that one word (I forget what it sounds like and I don't know how to spell it even if I remembered) means beautiful in Scottish and he told me to tell Professor McGonagall that she is a beautiful woman. But I said no because first off, I didn't believe that meant what he said it meant and second, I don't think Sirius knows Scottish so Romulus must have found that word out from somewhere else and third, I don't want to call McGonagall beautiful if it does mean that. If he told me to call Mrs. Burbage beautiful though, I'd do it. I don't think she's beautiful, I just think that between her and Professor McGonagall, she is MORE beautiful. Oh and the boys have all told me that romulus is butchering how you say the words.

I've decided that romulus doesn't deserve a capital letter at the start of his name by the way.

Today, we had Herbology first, Potions second, break third, Transfiguration fourth, History of Magic fifth, lunch sixth, Muggle Studies seventh and Charms eighth.

In Herbology we plucked the mistletoe we planted a few weeks ago and wrapped red ribbons around them and answered a few questions about its use in potions. This class was combined with the Hufflepuffs and there was one girl who gave her mistletoe to Peter and he's been very happy ever since.

We didn't make anything in Potions today so we all spent the class sleeping with our books balanced upright so Slughorn couldn't see our faces. He got very upset at the end when it came back that our “pop quiz” that we took the other day came back that everyone did quite badly because everyone was asleep that day too.

At break we had ham and cheese toastie sandwiches and I talked to Lily about romulus and Petunia. I don't remember if I told you who Petunia is but she's Lily's older sister and she's not very nice.

Professor McGonagall was a cat for all of Transfiguration and we all did the work that she had written on the board before class started. I think she couldn't face being a human for our class specifically.

History of Magic was interesting because we learnt about the differences between Emeric, Elfric and Elvish (Peter told me he likes Elvis Presley and I'd like to get him a record or something like that for him for Christmas) but someone (not any of my friends this time because it looked too complicated) charmed the teacher so that a lightbulb would appear and ding over his head every time he began a sentence.

Then we had lunch and Marlene told me that Lily told her that Mary and Alice were talking bad about someone with blonde hair so Marlene (who was sitting next to me) asked Alice (who was sitting far across the table) if it was her she was talking about but Alice wouldn't say anything and then Mary said she definitely wasn't Marlene who they were talking about and Marlene asked who it was and none of them would say so I thought they meant Pandora so I said that to Marlene and then in Muggle Studies I saw them all back together again and Marlene told me after that they'd invite Pandora for a walk around with them because I told them all that she was actually very very nice.

In Muggle Studies, Deirdre asked me to clean the chalkboard and to write what she told me to. She told me to draw a big circle and put ELECTRICITY in the middle but I couldn't really spell it so she helped me and I know now. And she got everyone to call out whatever they know about electricity and I had to write it down next to little branches coming out of the circle. romulus was being a complete know-it-all and said about five different things in the space of a minute so I didn't write down a lot of what he said but I wrote it down once someone else said it.

And then Deirdre got me to sit back down and she rolled her little library on wheels and told everyone to choose a book and research one of the words on the board and she wrote an extra few really hard ones for people who wanted to try really hard. So I chose those words and taught myself about ohms but I don't really understand any of it because I was just reading the words and not taking it in.

romulus called ME a know-it-all for doing something so hard so I called him and idiot for not challenging himself and he said I was just trying to impress Deirdre so I stopped talking to him.

She gave us homework to make a poster on whatever we researched but I finished that in then minutes in Charms and I think if I didn't do that, I would have had time to do the Charms homework set for the holidays.

Evan and Pandora are staying back for the holidays because they say there's nobody home to take care of them. And we ALL offered for them to come home with us- even me, I'm sure you don't mind- but they said their parents wouldn't be happy if they found out so they're just going to stay in school. Can me and romulus stay too because they'll be all alone by themselves without their other friends and we all know they prefer us to them anyway. The others have asked to stay too. And it won't make any difference if we stay because you can just send our presents in the post.

I'm going to go to sleep. romulus is already asleep and has been for half an hour. I think he's the most lazy person I HAVE and WILL ever meet.

Bye bye, love you

From Remus

•••

Our dearest Remus and Romulus,

Remus: please stop beginning your letters with complaining about your brother. That was two pages of giving out about him, baby, we all know you think he's annoying, and I can tell you now that he thinks that about you too.

You are both absolutely going to do your homework over the holidays and you are going to do it here at home. Under no circumstances are you going to stay over there for the holidays. We let you off for Halloween but you are going to come home for Christmas and that is that. Your father and I have not seen either of you in months and we are not going to wait until the summer holidays to see our children. I will come down there and drag you both out by your ears myself if necessary, there is no two ways about it.

We did not sign off on kicking you out of the house, Remus, don't worry about that. We will never agree to kick either of you out, no matter how hard you try so I suggest you both just stop.

We would also appreciate being asked before you invite people to our house. The answer will usually be yes but still, the assumption should not be that we are alright with everything.

Romulus: I want you to write your own letters and I suppose that it's okay to not get one every single day but we would really like two every now and then. Stop messing with your brother and saying bad things in different languages. How do you know that the translations your friends give you are even correct? For all you know, you could be saying something really terrible so you better make sure. Don't use your teachers as inside jokes, don't steal or duplicate or do anything with your brother's wand. Anything else is fine but that wand is very important and if it breaks, Remus won't be able to do his schoolwork for a long time before we can get him a new one. Both of your wands have a link between them and we don't know whether or not Remus' breaking will have an effect on yours.

Both of you: the solution to all of your quarrels cannot just be to not talk to each other. It doesn't get you any closer to fixing your differences. We've been telling you this for years and has anything ever actually been solved? No, you both just forget about why you were mad.

And Remus again: please give your brother a capital letter.

Can you bring a little bit of mistletoe back home? It'd be nice to hang it around the house. Again, you are both absolutely coming back home for the holidays.

You both need to try hard in your classes even if you think they're dull. As bad as it sounds, school isn't about what you like to do, it's about learning things that will help you out. So you have to pay attention and do well in quizzes and not hex your teachers (I know you said that the lightbulb thing wasn't a prank carried out by you, but just in case your planning on doing something similar in the future).

But I am very, very proud that you're showing off your intelligence in Muggle Studies. I would love to see that ohms poster you made so please ask if you can take it home. One of my friends down the road, her husband is an electrician and he can tell you all about everything to do with electricity if that's something you're interested in.

Your father had a hard time trying to understand that situation with the girls. You seem to have a good understanding of what's happening with them but trust me when I say, stay out of it all. Regardless of whether you think you know what's going on, it's the girls' drama and it's best to keep yourself out of it so as to not rock the boat and get yourself any rivals.

COME HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS!!! We'll be waiting by where you got on the Express in September.

Lots and lots of love,

Mummy and Daddy

•••

Evan and Pandora walk with the boys down to Hogsmeade train station with the rest of the school. Remus is between Evan and Pandora, Romulus with Peter, and James- naturally- with Sirius.

Pandora has always seen through Remus and Romulus' attempts to switch between themselves. Obviously, everyone else has gotten used to them, mix ups happening less and less, the only person really getting confused anymore being Evan. But Pandora? All she needed to know was either of their names before displaying absolutely no difficulty telling the twins apart.

In the classes that Ravenclaws and Gryffindors share, she excels. She doesn't get called on a lot as she tends to go on long tangents that not a lot of people have the heart to stop, but the odd time she does get asked to answer or contribute, she responds to perfect before, of course, the rant.

Remus actually quite likes when she talks like that. She says a lot but a lot of smart things. Granted, a lot of what she says is too niche for Remus to have even heard of- those Nargle things, Doolumps, Shoe-Dragons and Jibwranglers- but any new information is good information. She now talks about the latter Jibwranglers as she, Remus, and her brother walk side by side.

“Now, I've never explicitly seen one as I have never been on a boat. I wouldn't like to be on a boat, I don't think. Have you ever heard of the Titanic?”

“Tangent, Panda.”

Evan is the only person who freely and without guilt tells Pandora when she's drifting.

“Sorry. Anyway, I've never seen a jib so I've never seen those that wrangle but I'll have to show you, Remus, drawings made by people who have seen them. Do you think we have time to go back into the castle to the library really quickly?”

“Um-”

“No.”

Pandora seems to sink in disappointment and Remus sinks with her.

Over these two months that he has known her, Remus has come to the decision that she is as much of the Sun as James is. This is why they get along so well, always spit-fire talking at each other, indulging in one another's tangents, forgetting what the original conversation was about.

But like the Sun, when Pandora sinks, it's dark. Not literally and not as massive of a difference that the night is to the day, but the conversation slows. Her input, Remus thinks, is as important as the Sun. He also thinks that her tangent-tendencies are rubbing off on him.

“You can copy or trace the drawings and post them to me over the holidays. Or you could rip out the pages in the books.”

She nods before exploding in giggles. Evan and Remus join in because Pandora? Ripping something? With force? The upset of not seeing either of them and Sirius for two weeks fades.

Evan nudges Remus' elbow with his own. “Are you going anywhere for the holidays?”

“No. Maybe my Granny's house but that's not in a different country or anything exciting.”

“Different part of Wales though. That sounds exciting enough to me.” Evan shrugs.

Remus shrugs too and switches the arm he's using to roll his trunk. It's half packed of things he'd like to bring home to swap out, leaving the things he'd like to keep just in a pile in the dorm. Still though, it's a little difficult and he hopes there'll be prefects again to help put everything on the shelves.

The three of them go a little quiet because Pandora does. Remus checks to see if she's having one of her visions (she's not. She's just wistfully skipping with her hands behind her back) before walking a little faster up to Romulus and Peter.

“Remus, tell Peter he's completely wrong.” Demands Romulus instantly.

Peter pushes Romulus instantly too, sending him knocking into Remus, who pushes him too, back into Peter.

“I am not wrong!” He barks, pouting in a huff. “He was telling me about what your mum said and I agree that not talking isn't the answer to anything.”

Remus thinks about what Peter has just said for all of a second before matter-of-factly saying, “Peter you are completely and utterly wrong.” He also hopes to God that Romulus didn't let Peter see Hope’s ‘Lots and lots of love, Mummy and Daddy’ and get the wrong idea.

Peter rolls his eyes. “You're both useless. You never resolve any of your issues. It's like she said, you just forget about what you were mad about until you find something new.”

“That's absolutely untrue.”

“Remus: you were mad at him just yesterday, what was that about?”

Remus thinks for a moment. See, it's not a matter of forgetting what he was mad about, instead- well yes, maybe he's forgotten but only because he remembers being mad about a lot of things. He just has to figure out which is most likely the reason for him not talking to Romulus so he can win this against Peter. The most common, most biggest issue he has with his brother…

“You can't remember, can you?”

“He was chewing with his mouth open.”

Peter sighs. He could say it was something else and Remus wouldn't know any better but Peter being the honest, do-good, little guy he is, gives it to him.

“Okay, yes, that was it. But, all the other times, all that giving each other the silent treatment has done is waste time.”

Romulus pats his friend's back like a wise old man. “Listen Pete: next time you grow up with a sibling, come back to us, you'll get it.”

Remus can't fathom why people only have one child. Like having one pet: it'll just get all lonely. A lone child? Lone wolf is something separate entirely, and something much cooler. Something that Remus is in many ways. Remus knows he's super cool.

“My mum's new boyfriend has daughters my age.” Peter defends but it's a weak counter-argument.

“Did you grow up with them though?” Romulus points out, raising his eyebrow. Peter rolls his eyes once more.

“No but-”

“Then it doesn't count. Get reborn as a cool twin brother and then we'll talk.”

Remus leaves these two too, getting bored of Romulus' draining voice already. He speeds his pace to catch up with James and Sirius, slowing back down fairly quickly when neither notices him, already caught up in goodbyes about three hours early. It's incredibly embarrassing with their, ‘I’ll miss you so much’s and ‘I don't know how I'm ever going to cope without you’s. Being an outsider listening in, you'd think they're going to war.

He rejoins the Rosiers who do notice him but stop talking once they do.

“What are we talking about?” Remus semi-awkwardly asks.

“Nothing.” Evan says quickly. “Tell him about the boats, Pandora.”

Pandora does just this. It's quite impressive how she has such seemingly basic knowledge on practically everything. It's like she's read every book known to man and knowing her, she's probably figured out a way to do it. She probably taught herself how to read before her first birthday. Remus wonders what it's like for Evan being her brother.

She talks about submarines and oil containers and the deepest parts of the ocean where the ugly fish go to hide. She wants one of those fish to have as a pet but Evan isn't too keen on having an aquarium in their living room to house something that- for the sake of his eyes- should stay miles down in the sea.

Sure, he thought James and Sirius were laughable and worthy of a good old mocking but when they reach the train station, Remus wishes he hopped on the goodbye-for-two-weeks bandwagon earlier as five minutes doesn't seem like enough time anymore. Why oh why has he no break from Romulus, but one from the people he really likes to be around?

Remus hugs Evan first. It's quick but holds the amount of feelings that Remus was going for. But he hasn't got the slightest clue as to how he's going to do this before the summer holidays, saying two whole months worth of goodbye.

“Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay at my house for the holidays?” Remus asks Evan when the hug has concluded.

“I'll be alright here. Everyone's already asked me to come to their places too.”

“I know, but you might not want to go near all of their smelly houses. Are you sure? My parents basically said yes.”

“I'm sure. I'll see you, mate.”

“See you.”

And that's that.

Remus has never hugged Pandora but it lives up to everything he expected it to be. She springs onto him with her arms around his neck tight enough to choke. Remus doesn't think he'd be too bothered if he died at the hands of Pandora. It might take a little while though.

She doesn't let go of his neck for a minute, humming the tune that she has been for about a week now still. Remus isn't really sure where to put his hands as he's never been so pleasantly trapped in a hug for this long so he hopes that keeping his arms loosely around her ribs is okay.

“Have fun at home, Remus.” She says halfway through the hug, her voice the exact same without a trace of sadness.

“I will. My parents really won't mind if you come.” He tries again.

Won't mind? Christ, they'll thank him until the day they die for bringing home a girl like Pandora. Bringing home like literally bringing her home, not like bringing her home like a girlfriend. He'd never do that. Not that she's not very pretty. Because she is. But just not in that way. Not that she's not pretty in every way.

“That's okay, Remus, we'll have plenty of fun without you here.”

Remus shuts off his blabbering brain and slithers out of Pandora's grasp to playfully nudge her shoulder back. She smiles widely and turns to James, who is the next closest person, and gives him the same treatment.

Evan and Pandora go after everyone gets a hug to say goodbye to their other friends. Sometimes Remus forgets that their little group isn't the centre of everyone's lives and the Rosier twins actually do things and interact with the people in their respective houses. Strange, really.

People all around are piling on the train and all that can be heard it's the loud, constant chatter and roll of wheels on textured concrete.

Remus, Romulus, Peter, James and Sirius eventually have to get on as well. They very quickly find a compartment with two slightly older Hufflepuff boys, and poke their heads out the window to try to find the Rosiers again. After spotting them and being spotted back, they say and wave goodbye to them, not stopping until they're completely out of sight.

It's quiet for the first few minutes before conversation and laughter break out again. It feels a lot like how it did a little less than four months ago on their very first day together. Every day has been exactly like that and Remus is positively convinced that the rest of his days will be too.

They each hold more than one conversation with each other at once: Peter with the twins, the twins with Sirius, Sirius with James, and James with Peter. It all settles down though when they hear Peter express his reluctance in going to James' house during the holidays for fear of the spice in his home and what it may do to his bowels.

After a brief hysterical laughter, a re-catching of breath, and the Hufflepuffs leaving to find another compartment (maybe the key to getting one to themselves is being obnoxiously loud until the other occupants leave), the boys share just one, drifting conversation.

They're all going away for some of the holidays, each to their humble beginnings: James to Spain for a week, Peter to Poland for both weekends as he usually did, and Sirius to “middle-of-nowhere, Boring County” France.

Remus makes a mental note to get Romulus to lie with him about going to a different country too because he can't possibly listen to any more of these beautiful sounding, hard to pronounce, foreign places without getting jealous, a feeling he thoroughly dislikes to feel.

Peter and James brag about their upcoming trips and the presents they can get for their friends over there. Sirius doesn't talk at all about his plans in France.

Peter explains what he'll be doing but a lot of it- like most things- goes in one ear and out the other for Remus. He's lost the second Peter tries to explain again how the alphabet works, that ‘L’s sound like ‘W’s, and ‘W’s sound like ‘V’s. He's lost by James too when he says ‘Madrid’ in the most overdone accent that Remus has ever heard.

So he spends a lot of the ride looking out the window, feeling a little motion sick anyway. He obviously has to get extra candies from the trolley to make up for this uncomfortable, extreme, hospital-worthy illness. And eating it all before they get close to King's Cross absolutely does not make him feel worse. In fact, Remus is pretty sure it makes him feel a lot better and he makes sure to remember to pass along this information to his parents.

“Our parents are waiting at the end of the train.” Romulus solemnly tells the boys when they start to recognise the greenery leading up to the other side of Platform 9¾.

“Mine’s at the top.” Peter says.

“Me too.” James looks the most disappointed out of all of them. “Sirius?”

“I dunno, I'll find them.”

“I'll help.”

“No, I got it.”

When the train stops and the doors open, Sirius is the first to slip through the crowds. Remus goes up on his tippy toes to try to follow where he goes, maybe to catch a glimpse of his little brother and strange-sounding parents, but the masses of people consume him instantly.

Being around the middle of the train, the boys choose to part ways, two going to the back and two to the front. There's a lot of final looks back at each other before Remus decides that really, this is getting ridiculous and he leads Romulus faster towards the same door (or thereabouts) that they entered the Express on in September.

For a few seconds, they stand on the ledge of the door frame, slightly elevated so they can see a little better over the crowd.

Like last time, there's colours being flung and songs being sung. There's happy kids and their parents finding a little space and disappearing in imploding ribbons with a crack! There's small fireworks too, red and gold sparks raining down on those a little bit up the way.

But then there's a flash of pale blue in Remus' face, bright enough to sting just a bit. He swats it away and sees it jumping around Romulus' face too. It's a cloud of colour until it shifts into something else: a hare.

It leaps a few feet over the heads of the people below, leaving little ripples of that same blue where its feet land. It's beautiful. Remus wonders if they can catch it, his parents will let them keep it.

“There.” Romulus says, pointing ahead of him. Lyall is in fact there near the back brick wall with one arm around Hope's shoulder (ew), and one arm raised, his wand in hand that the hare is sucked into- Remus will ask Lyall later to let it back out.

Now with a heading, the boys rush and push past everyone around, stepping on toes and dragging their trunks over them too; everyone is far too caught up in their own matters to notice at all.

The boys emerge before their parents after a minute of traversing, not getting any time to compose themselves before being bombarded by the both of them.

Lyall is on Romulus first, sweeping him off his feet and spinning him around in the air. As his son demands to be put down, Lyall says, “You may not be seven and a half pounds anymore, but I am still allowed to pick you up whenever I choose to.” Romulus allows himself to be swung for another moment.

“How heavy was Remus?”

“Seven point six.”

“Fatass!”

“Hey! Language!”

Hope dives for Remus, lifting him up too with just as much ease as Lyall. Remus- simply because he's scared of falling in front of the entire school- hugs her neck and laughs.

“How are you, Teddy? You've been having tons of fun at school?”

“I'm alright and we'll tell you all that later.”

Hope and Lyall put their children down at the same time and quickly switch over.

Lyall throws Remus briefly into the air. For being point one of an ounce heavier than his brother, Remus finds it curious how Lyall threw him and not Romulus. Maybe they were switched at birth. Thank god because he loves his parents, but Romulus is just a dreadful name he wouldn't like to be stuck with.

When the twins are let go, the parents are hunkered and squeezing their cheeks.

“Oh, my babies, look at you!”

“Mum!”

“My beautiful, tiny, smart little boys!”

“Dad!”

“You grouchy little monkey, Rommy, and Teddy, I missed my baby boys so much.”

“You're so embarrassing!”

“What are you even saying?”

Remus whirls about, trying to find out if anyone he's interacted with saw that whole ordeal. Sure, it might be nice to see your kids after so long but Remus can guarantee that it does not need to be that big of a scene. When he's older and he's got kids, he'll treat them so normally because he can't imagine putting someone else through that. Hope and Lyall were kids once- weren't they embarrassed by their parents? Wouldn't they want to stop the cycle?

Remus finds himself off the ground again, back up in Hope's grasp. She holds him up on her hip this time, grinning wildly at him. She doesn't look very different and Remus doesn't really know why he thought she would. Maybe she expected that of them too.

Lyall looks the same too. He's got that same stern but humorous look about him when he struggles a little more to get Romulus in his arms too.

Romulus doesn't seem to want to stand still. Or be picked up. Clearly, he's been spending way too much time with Steven. He looks very unhappy when the fight is lost and he's forced up onto Lyall's hip, arm snaking around his neck when Lyall holds him up with just one arm while he reaches for one of the trunks. Hope does the same but Remus doesn't feel any less secure.

“Are you ready to go? Or do you want to find your friends quickly?” Hope asks.

Remus shakes his head. “We already said goodbye.”

“And they're all the way up at the top anyway.”

“And nobody's coming home with us?”

“No, they wanted to stay.”

Their parents look as relieved as anything at that but Remus is sure that they'd be begging to bring the boys and Pandora home if they met them just once. He'll try again during summer.

They have a look around and pat their pockets.

“Have we got everything? Are we ready to go?”

Romulus looks preemptively sick. Remus sticks his tongue out at him and blows raspberries but he doesn't want to see their breakfast come up any more than Romulus does. He looks even worse once Lyall begins the short little countdown.

Unlike the wall between King's Cross and platform 9¾, the twins aren't as determined to keep their eyes open to see what happens between apparition. Romulus is busy thinking about his nausea (Remus thinks that he only feels sick because he thinks so hard about it. If he just calms down a little, he'd probably just be fine) and Remus is also busy with one: being proud that he doesn't get like this and two: trying his hardest to get Romulus to feel worse.

They're in their living room before Remus can process it and Lyall is patting Romulus' back like he's burping a baby. For someone so against being held like that hardly a minute ago, Romulus looks pretty content like that, albeit a little green.

“Remember breakfast, Romulus? Runny, runny eggs and beans-” Remus taunts.

“And the smell of Sirius' gone-off milk in the dorm.”

“And y’know on brooms when you go too fast down and your stomach moves around? Remember when you broke your nose?”

“Alright, Remus, that's enough.”

Lyall sets Romulus down and hits Remus' shoulder hard, seeing to have gotten a hold of himself.

Remus is hungry.

“I'm hungry.”

Romulus whispers another ‘fatass’ (he really loves that word, doesn't he?) quiet enough for only Remus to hear.

They're made to bring their things up to their room while, as a special treat, pancakes are being made for lunch. Lyall makes lovely ones, dusted with a little sugar and topped with strawberries and honey, and this is exactly what he promises his boys.

Hope helps them bring their trunks upstairs and leaves them to empty out the contents practically all over the cleaned, tidy floor.

“You better stop saying all that whenever I'm nauseous-” Romulus says. Pfft, as if. “I might puke all over you next time.”

Remus scoffs and rolls his eyes. He throws over a pair of underwear to hit Romulus square in the face. He squirms and throws them back.

“I'll just move out the way,” Remus explains like it's the most obvious thing ever. Well, because it is. “It's not like you can walk in a straight line to catch up with me or anything.”

“I hate you.”

Their parents have gotten them new clothes and they lie neatly folded on each of their dressers. Remus notices that there's a couple of matching sets between them but there's one or two that are unique to Remus and Romulus. Although he's fond of his nice, comfy looking jumpers and the likes of, and although he knows he was complaining of too much matching, Remus doesn't think that he'll wear his individual outfits very much.

They race down the stairs, half trying to trio each other up and half trying to actually get to the kitchen. It smells heavily of all sorts of things, sweet pancakes only one amongst it all. Lyall's put the grill on and is cooking things Remus would not like to try. He thinks if he's offered, he'll just settle for an extra dusting of sugar instead just at the prospect of having to eat any of Lyall's disgusting tomatoes and onions.

The twins sit at the dinner table and wait. This whole day is probably going to be like how the day Romulus broke his nose was like: VIP treatment until everyone's fed up with it. Bearing in mind that Hope and Lyall are adults, they're probably going to let this honeymoon-esque phase draw out a little longer than young, idiot boys would deem okay.

“We'll sit in the living room, boys, watch a movie with our lunch.” Hope says and wow, this is going to be a great phase.

Remus and Romulus scramble from their seats and into the living room, both diving onto the couch hard enough for it to move a fraction upon impact. But they're up instantly again and slide on their knees to the cabinet with all the DVDs.

“What are we watching?”

“Whatever you two decide on.”

As they usually have to, the boys pick out around five movies each and lay them out in front of each other to veto until one is agreed upon. But Remus doesn't like the movies Romulus likes and vice versa so when it comes down to two movies to choose from, the boys come to a halt.

One time, they let Hope and Lyall agree on one (those two watch movies all the time together after the boys go to sleep so Remus doesn't think it's very unfair to always be choosing things to watch themselves) and Romulus left halfway through. Remus- feeling a little guilty as it was mostly his idea for the switch up- stayed but fell asleep a little later. Sometimes when he's having a little trouble sleeping, he'll go to his parents who will bring him down to the living room, put on the movie and carry him gently to bed when the first ten minutes knock him out.

This drives the twins to come to a decision as often, if they take too long, Lyall will threaten a decision made by the adults. But being driven does not necessarily mean being cooperative.

Remus swipes Romulus' DVD box to the side, hard enough for it to almost slide under the couch and Remus is not going to be the one reaching under to try get it- there could be boggarts.

“You always pick that movie.” He whines. “You practically know the entire thing word-for-word and I'm choosing this ‘cause we haven't watched it in a while.”

“I don't care, I want to watch mine first.”

“That's stupid. Just re-watch yours in your head while this actually half decent thing is playing.”

“My movie is very decent.”

“It has a bad word in it.”

They never really get to hear said bad word as their parents take turns making a louder, funny noise to cover it up. And it's not even a bad bad word like the f-word. Not that Remus is giving his brother the benefit of the doubt. Because he is not and never will. Ever.

“So? I think your movie could do with a few bad words.”

The living room door swings open gently (Remus doesn't need to see this happen to know it's Hope- it's the sound pattern of his footsteps that gives her away) and their mother comes in with three plates in tow, the third balancing dangerously on her forearm.

Romulus stands quickly and takes the plate for himself under the guise of helping and seats himself down on the couch next to Hope, his prized movie forgotten already on the floor.

“Do rock, paper, scissors, boys. A lot faster than arguing over something so silly. They're both going to be watched in the end- we can do a little movie marathon if you'd both like.”

The twins nod excitedly and even Remus forgets for a second of their disagreement. He stands too, takes the other plate off of Hope's outstretched hand and takes a seat on her other side. He brings both movies with him and places them on the coffee table and places his plate of delicious, steaming pancakes on his lap. The base of the plate is warm and Remus knows that Lyall's put that special spell on the food so that it won't get cold. He could leave it out in the snow all day (gross but he has done it before) and the temperature wouldn't drop a degree.

“Okay, Romulus, c'mon: rock, paper, scissors.”

Romulus, with a mouthful of pancake, shakes his head. Remus makes a face when he speaks and he knows Peter would have given him a whack for wanting to start this same old argument again. Is it weird that he misses all his friends already? This is going to be a long two weeks, something he finds weird as well because it used to be that breaks were too short.

“I don't care enough anymore, put yours on first.”

Is this the answer to everything then? Give the guy a plate of food and he'll comply with anything, even giving up first place?

“Well, I want to do it. So do it.”

“It's scissors, paper, rock, boys- don't listen to your mother.” Lyall informs them, sitting next to Remus with a plate packed with food: tomatoes and mushrooms and bacon and onion, and (objectively the worst part of his whole meal) his pancakes are plain, void of even honey. Or lemon juice. He's a savage, Remus has officially decided.

Hope shoots him a look.

“Rock. Paper. Scissors.” She articulates for him.

“Or you can do the fun magic one: spell, shield, staff.”

“That's needless and wordy. ‘Rock, paper, scissors’ is just fine.”

Their parents go back and forth a little over this and the boys are half way through their meals before the conclusion they come to is that Hope is right, and so is Romulus: they should just put Remus' movie on first. And it only took about five minutes to come to this conclusion which Remus thinks is record timing.

When everyone's done their meal about ten minutes into the picture, it's paused so that more can be made because they are hungry. Lyall is the one to prepare it all again while Hope makes her boys lean on either one of her shoulders. She hugs and gives kisses that Remus is a little more okay with seeing as they're out of his peers’ sight here at home. He puts up a little struggle still for effect.

Romulus is grabbed like one of the cats and brought to sit on Lyall's knee once he's back, a constricting hug bearing down around him. And Hope gives Remus a signature tightest-hug-ever and yes, he realises now. This is a ‘who missed the boys the most’ competition. Who are these people and what did they do with in-some-ways boring, slightly reserved, but fun when they want to be Hope and Lyall over the holidays? Can the old parents stay wherever they're trapped right now?

Remus' movie is only an hour and twenty minutes long so the family go right into watching Romulus' as soon as it's over, with a small break for some snacks in between.

Before they know it, the first day of Christmas break is turning to its evening. The fireplace is lit, the mistletoe Romulus expertly picked is hung, and Hope and Lyall kiss way too much. Remus changes his mind and wishes for the old parents back, who maybe kiss once a month (in front of the boys at least).

They put the tree up in the living room, Hope and Lyall explaining that they wanted to wait to put it up as a family, even if it meant leaving it until five days before Christmas. Honestly, Remus would rather him and Romulus be left out than their family look boring and lazy as anything.

There's tons and tons of ornaments to be put up, collected by Hope and Lyall over the years. Clearly over the span of about a billion years by the look of three full boxes of glass balls and tinsel and lights.

Romulus got to put the star on the top of the tree last year so Remus gets to do it this year. Lyall lifts him up awkwardly, hits his head on the ceiling, and Remus reaches over to put the decoration on. Lyall makes it spin with a spell and it'll stay spinning until he decides he wants it to stop. He silently casts this spell but Remus will find out its incantation because the image of Romulus uncontrollably spinning is too good to not be reality.

“Will you go get some food, darling?” Hope asks Lyall after they all take a step back to admire their work. Their work so far, more like as there still more ornaments than necessary leftover and a few plain patches on the tree.

“From where?”

Oh, Remus knows exactly where.

“Granny’s! The chip shop next to granny's!”

Romulus excitedly hits him, face all lit up. “Chips from Granny's! Please, Dad!”

“Please, Lyall, my love?”

Lyall rolls his eyes but nods. He pats his pockets, looking for his wallet, his wand, his keys, all of which Hope knows the location of and hands to him like she was the one who hid them all.

Even though he'll be apparating about forty minutes down the road, Hope brings him to the door. Remus is smart enough to know that they're kissing again.

Apparating takes no time, ordering takes maybe ten minutes. Lyall is gone for forty and Remus is convinced he has died. His family don't like when he voices that his head has gone to the worst case scenario so he stays quiet, dreading his father's funeral in solitude. All for some (admittedly life-changing) chips.

He focuses on the pattern of the blinking lights on the tree, on the Christmas movie Hope has put on, on the crackling of the small fire going in the fireplace. He loves watching fire (the family went camping four years ago and Remus fell in love with it. Summers have been either too busy or too cold to do so again) even though it gives him that same anxiety that Lyall being gone for too long does.

He comes back of course, the crack! from outside loud enough to be heard inside and to make Remus and Romulus jump.

The second he comes inside, the house begins to fill up with the warm, fresh smell of chips but Lyall walks into the living room with two bags: a plastic one for the food which Remus recognises, and a fabric one which Remus does not recognise and does not know its contents. Lyall holds this one up for his family.

“Ran into your mother,” He tells Hope. “She brought me to her's and wouldn't let me leave without the bread in the oven.”

Remus grins because chips and sourdough? It might as well be Christmas already.

Hope chuckles and stands to take the bags out of Lyall's hands.

“When are you going to learn to make bread?” She asks, taking a peek inside the bag. He holds it open for the boys to see, a lovely pattern of a wreath around the circumference of the loaf. Remus sometimes feels bad for digging into the bread as the always lovely design is being dug into too. They need to find a way to frame it.

Lyall sighs tiredly. “There has to be some things that you do.”

Remus is about to agree and take his father's side, having watched him do a lot today. Hope butts in first.

“Who painted the walls?” She points to the walls.

“Okay-”

“And replaced the windows, mowed the lawn, fixed the washing machine.” She counts on her fingers.

“Sorry-”

She points to Lyall. “Who washed and ironed your shirt?”

“You're right-”

“Who gave birth to twins?”

“Alright Mum, I think he gets it.”

Dinner is served and another movie is watched. Then another, and halfway through another before Remus is conked out, legs resting on his mother's lap, head resting on his father's. Warmth and pleasantries fill the room's atmosphere and make his sleep good, good enough to not notice a thing when he's picked up and brought to bed.

•••

“Remusremusremusremus!”

He is tired when he wakes up. He's disoriented, face pressed into his pillow, body contorted strangely but not altogether uncomfortably, just naturally. Like he had fallen from a great height and here, awkwardly like this on his stomach, is how the wind and dynamics had chosen to land him. But Remus is not tired.

Romulus is patting his back, shaking him awake because it's Christmas.

Like every year, the lead up to Christmas is agonising. This year was no exception from the twins' ceaseless begging to bring forward Christmas day by just a week so they could have fun now rather than later.

Peter has Christmas just a day early, they tried explaining to their parents that even that would be sufficient.

“That's just a tradition for Polish people.” They had told them. “And last we checked, we're not Polish.” Although Remus is pretty sure that Romulus convinced them of otherwise with his Slavic swear words he'd gotten Peter to now write a whole list of in exchange for Welsh words (they had thrown a few fake ones in like “Eyeyeet Byoogrs”, meaning “dumb idiot” and sounding “I eat boogers”, and “Meehay-eight Shao-ring”, meaning “half-wit loser-face” and sounding “me hate showering”. They ran out of convincing ideas, okay? Remus wonders if Peter had the same idea and they've just been saying nothing all this time).

Real or fake, their parents were not pleased with their apparent Polish swearing and said they would absolutely not be partaking in the early Christmas tradition, maybe even starting a new one and pushing Christmas Day back.

They didn't opt for such torturous measures and today is the real Christmas Day.

So Remus springs up, practically falling out of bed and running with Romulus downstairs. His eyes sting and want to be closed. He didn't check the time but he thinks it to be around eight.

The living room door is closed (that's where all the presents are always left, right in front of the fireplace and sometimes if they've been super good, the piles extend over to beneath the windowsill) and the twins jump up and down in front of it.

Romulus goes for the handle but pulls back like he's gotten an electric shock. He goes again and again but the giddiness and nervousness overtakes his muscle function. What if nothing's there? Maybe there was a little too much messing about going on in school but it has to be known that that was them being naughty per say. Just a little troublesome.

Remus can't find the courage in himself to open the door either so they just jump and shake and run on the spot for now.

“You do it.”

“No you do it.”

“Let's go to the kitchen.”

So they do just that, running in their festive socks to where they left the food out for the reindeer. The twins both agreed last night that they should have all the cookies to themselves as Santa gets like a million packs to himself in one night. Surely he can go without one singular one of their favourite type. Their parents agreed but asked for a cookie each too. The twins felt obliged to agree as they said they'd be happy with just that and a hug for Christmas.

The milk is drunk, only a tiny bit left over at the bottom of the cup. The biggest carrot they could find in the grocery store is nothing but a little stump now. And there's a small folded note on the plate. ‘To The Lupin Twins’ it reads.

Everyone knows they're Remus and Romulus, it just sounds better. Even Romulus agrees on the order. Either Santa is trying to seem overly professional or he's trying not to show a bias, being the Santa and all. Or it's simply because Santa doesn't know the twins and doesn't know how they're addressed.

And quickly for the record, Remus does not think his brother is second place to him. To anyone, in fact. Nobody ever.

“You read it.” He says, picking the note up and passing it to Romulus who takes it with a trembling hand and opens the fold.

There's a moment of quiet and Remus is sure that just their breathing will be enough to wake their parents upstairs.

Romulus folds back the note.

“Out loud, Romulus. Read it out loud!”

“Yes! Sorry, I'm very tired.”

Remus looks over his shoulder at the click above the door. Four thirty in the morning. Romulus will wake up properly in a bit.

“To The Lupin Twins: you both have had a brilliant year, especially these last few months in your new school. We hope you enjoy your presents and ask that in return, you both try to keep the bickering to a minimum. It bothers the reindeer. Lots and lots of love, Santa and Co.”

Why is everyone so obsessed with their arguments? This just confirms that Santa is an only child too. Boring!

As they usually do when sneaking about during all hours of the night when they shouldn't be, the twins go for the sweets jar first. It's an adventure in and of itself.

It's placed out of reach of the boys, up high and on top of the fridge where only their parents can get to for reasonable distribution. Pulling a chair over, they both agree, will be much too noisy so Remus helps Romulus up onto the counter and he leans over, takes the jar, and passes it down to Remus, jumping back down onto the floor. The operation takes five minutes in total but the last few seconds are critical. Remus dreads the day there's a miscommunication and the jar is dropped, glass shatters everywhere and Hope and Lyall catch them red handed in a sea of broken shards and candy. Today is not this inevitable day, however.

Then it's a matter of getting the lid off. Being glass, the lid and rim of the jar clink and ring aloud when they come in contact, a noise so recognisable that their parents won't have to even come downstairs to see to know what they're up to. Being Christmas Day, Remus hopes they'll be more understanding.

There's also a rubber stopper of sorts to make the seal a little more tight. This means that there'll have to be a little more force behind taking the lid off, but too much- as previously explained- will cause a

clink! that the boys can't afford.

Romulus does this step too, having steadier hands than Remus. He feels just a little useless on the sidelines like this, half wishing he'd been more interested in drawing and colouring like Romulus had been growing up.

The jar is opened with slow precision and the boys dig into the chocolate and gummies and everything in there. They portion their goods so that their parents won't come down to see a severely depleted or even empty jar, and place the sweets they leave around the edge of the jar to enforce the ‘still full’ appearance.

They stuff their little pockets with as much as they can and quickly eat what they can't fit. This is so that if their parents come down, all they'll see is their two lovely children, candyless and innocent albeit with suspiciously full pockets.

“Our pockets, you say? Our faces smeared with chocolate? Why, Dad, I've never heard anything sillier.”

“Us? Stealing sweets? Mum, please, we despise thieves.”

Remus wouldn't say thieves. Maybe Robin Hood-like vigilantes, stealing food for the needy children. He wants to help.

“I'll put the jar back.”

“Are you sure?”

He tries really hard. Doing it once perfectly will mean he can do it the other times too. He gets himself up onto the counter and gets the jar back to its place atop the fridge himself. He's proud when he gets down, dusting off his dustless hands and placing them on his hips like a superhero. He grins but Romulus doesn't even see, too busy rationing his sweets on the table.

“I'm bored,” Remus calls to him.

“Should we go wake Mum and Dad?”

Remus weighs out the pros and cons. The biggest pro is that it is bloody Christmas and the sooner Hope and Lyall are up, the sooner they can open presents! The biggest con is that when Remus puts himself in his parents’ shoes, he can see himself being angry at being woken up at such a ridiculous hour. But the Christmas spirit changes things like time zones; it's six hours ahead on Christmas day so when you really think about it, it's actually almost eleven in the morning and well past the time to get up.

He does then, however, remember he is not his parents, and his parents are not him.

“It's a little early, don't you think? They probably won't be very happy with us about being woken up.”

Romulus shrugs. “It's only five. And what else are we going to do?”

“We can sleep.”

Remus isn't particularly tired although his eyelids feel ten pounds heavy and his head feels dizzy and his body is wrecked, so much so that breathing feels like a bench press.

Romulus shrugs again but rubs his eyes. Remus mirrors.

“I don't want to go all the way back upstairs.” His brother complains, voice slurred. “And I'm not even tired at all.”

“Me neither.”

At all.

“Honey?”

Remus has no memory of falling asleep. He doesn't remember setting his head down on the table, or if it fell there after falling asleep at an odd angle. On a chair. At the dining table. And he and Romulus are now being woken up. On-

“Christmas! Christmas, come on!” Squeals Romulus, jumping to his feet to pull Remus' chair away from the table. Remus stands suddenly too, causing the weight of the chair to shift dramatically and Romulus to be sent flying backwards onto his bum on the tiled kitchen floor. Remus doesn't even laugh, he's that excited.

Lyall has the handle of the living room door in hand, waiting for the boys and Hope to come running up through the hallway from the kitchen.

Hope hurries behind the boys, a camera in one hand and the other reaching out to flatten down each of their terrible bed-heads (table-heads, more like).

“Wouldn't it be hilarious,” Lyall ponders, a sly grin on his face. “If there wasn't a single present in there?”

Remus goes cold and stern and he can feel Romulus do the same by his side. “No, it wouldn't be funny at all.”

“Open the door!”

“What about my present?”

Remus did not like Lyall's insinuation that he and Romulus hadn't been good enough this year to get presents so the hug he gives to his abdomen is reluctant and Remus is sure Lyall can feel it.

“Merry Christmas, Dad.” He says and steps back, letting Romulus go next. Remus can see the reluctance and now he's sure that Hope had seen it too. She certainly heard Lyall's tasteless and insensitive joke so she certainly understands the twins' anger.

Lyall raises a bow to Hope when Romulus steps back too, lowly muttering the same, “Merry Christmas, Dad.”

“Darling?”

“Open the door, Lyall Lupin.”

One time after so much messing, James had been called out from Charms by McGonagall herself. It was obvious he was in for it as the professor would have had to walk from her classroom (the students being mere students didn’t have any idea as to what her schedule looked like so the chance that she left midway through a class was made out to be 50/50) on one end of the castle to the Charms room on the other end. Even still, James bit down a smile as he followed McGonagall on her heels out the room which had filled with ooh!’s. Remus is sure that had this interaction been in a classroom setting, Lyall would have gotten a chorus of his own ooh!’s for that, and for the impatient look on his wife's face.

The door opens and like every year, Remus feels as though he hasn't seen colour until this moment. Each present is wrapped in a different paper. Or, at least he thinks it is. Honestly, he wouldn't be able to spot if there were duplicates.

The very biggest one taking over most of the fireplace is what specifically catches his eye first. ROMULUS reads the neat, swirly handwriting on its side.

The next biggest ones are bikes, he can tell on account of them not being wrapped, topped with only bows on one of each of their handles. One is blue, one is a darker blue and Remus is alright with this; he wouldn't want to be riding someone else's bike, or someone else riding his. He decides to look away from these for just a second, knowing he'll get attached to one colour and if Romulus likes that one too… Remus doesn't fancy an argument right this second.

All their stockings are full and practically overflowing. They hang from the mantelpiece with the boys' in the middle with Hope and Lyall on either side of them like in most situations.

Can one get married to a room? To the feeling of it? The smell? Remus hopes.

The boys dive and slide on their knees to the ground to start with the little presents. They swap the ones labelled with the other’s name and tear open the gifts.

A wooden brain-teaser puzzle, a snowglobe, ‘The Outsiders’ by S.E. Hinton (“A little bit heavy, don't you think Lya- Santa?”) and more Christmas socks are what Remus receives as his first presents of the season.

Hope makes him close his eyes before they get to the bigger presents and he feels something come down over his head. Something hard so he rules out any sort of hat and opens his eyes.

Romulus chuckles, Lyall beams and Hope lifts him up to see himself in the mirror above the mantle. A silver helmet is on his head. One with little silver sideburns of-sorts and a mohawk of red fringe on the crown of his head. One very cool-looking Roman era helmet.

Remus gasps. “Put me down, put me down, put me down!”

Once on his feet, Remus lifts off the helmet and brings it up close to have a good look at it.

It's silver, not plastic (or at least, Remus chooses to believe so). There's gold linings decorated around the helmet in little mandalas and the red fringe is a soft, soft fabric, densely fitted into its rich holster so that it will stay up. There's grooves and dents and patches where the paint- sorry- the real silver has gone brown. Rust or post-battle dirtiness, Remus assumes. He imagines wild things while the room is silent, the family all likely waiting for more of a response.

He imagines the helmet belonging to a noble warrior; a gladiator; a chariot racer. He imagines it being passed down from son to son and he imagines the Roman he's related to. He gets to imagining his great-great-hundred-times-great grandad and he banishes the thought, not wanting his newest prized possession to have to live in a bloody museum for all its life, not wanting to only see it in a glass case, never getting to wear it.

“Can I keep it?” Remus asks Hope with sad eyes. An upside-down sort of smile spreads across her lips and she cocks her head. She comes down onto her knees and wraps her arms around Remus tight once more.

“Of course you can keep it, baby, that's for you.”

For the first time in a while, Remus wriggles out of Hope’s hug and shoves the helmet back over his head. He turns to Lyall with a big smile who gives him an even bigger one right back.

“Next step is to get you a couple of swords and-”

“Can we get a horse? Please?”

Remus isn't joking like Lyall seemed to be (a shame because Remus really wants a sword now too). Both parents wince a little bit at each other.

Romulus speaks. “Hey, I want a horse too.”

“Maybe lets-”

“How- um…”

“We could go down to the stables, how about that?”

Remus lights all the way up, as does Romulus. It seems that he too is too excited to be his usual self, shown clearly to Remus when he doesn't get a mouthful of ‘that’s such a ridiculous looking hat’s out of him the instant the helmet went back over his head.

“To buy?”

“To look at.”

“Maybe we can ask to ride one.”

Remus loves Christmas.

The big massive present for Romulus, Remus finds, is not something to be too jealous over. It's an easel, a little bit taller than Romulus, set up already and can even be adjusted down. There's new pencils and fancy crayons for him too, and a set of watercolour and acrylic paints. Hope seems just as excited about this as Romulus does, immediately putting in an order for a portrait of the family.

Romulus gets a few colouring books too. Mindful colouring books with only patterns. Hope also takes more interest in this than her son, going as far as to rob a few crayons and filling in all the blanks once the presents have all been opened and they all settle a little.

Remus attempts the little brain-teaser first, wanting to savour the bigger presents- like his new bike!- for a little longer.

It's a difficult one though. It's tricky and falls apart out of its packaged and aimed-for state very quickly. Remus sits and fiddles with it for fifteen minutes, leaning so far into the damned toy in his lap that his back bends like a banana and it really hurts to sit back up straight again. He dumps the thing next to him, a piece sliding in between the couch cushions. Lyall picks it up and, like Hope, takes over one of his boys' presents.

He does the exact same thing as Remus did, however, struggling and struggling and grunting when he basically has it, and trying to force the pieces back into their pointed-sphere shape. He fetches his glasses and holds the box close to his face. Then he tries again. Box. Toy. Box. Toy. It's lunch time when he figures it out. Remus has long since forgotten about the thing and has moved onto begging Hope to be let outside on the bikes with Romulus.

“After we get some food in you- you don't want to get a stitch-”

“YES! I've done it, everyone.”

Lyall slams the wood now all in its rightful place onto the table with a loud thump!, making it shake. He takes his hand off it and presents it to his family with a massive, proud grin on his face. This is incredibly strange.

“Well done, love, but can you not break the poor table? I don't think Santa’s wallet can afford a new one for us.”

The boys inhale their lunch only to find that Hope is even less inclined to let them go straight out to run around. ‘Forty minutes’ she advised.

So they send off the presents to their friends to pass the time.

For Sirius, a ukulele- he said he'll need a guitar for when he's a rich (richer) and famous rockstar. The best Remus could do for him was this little thing and a few stickers should Sirius want to decorate. He also sends off four Chocolate Frogs- two for Sirius and two for his brother, should they both want to grow their card collections.

For James, a broom cleaning set- the twins were reluctant when Lyall pointed it out. Had it not been for their eye-opening and only slightly traumatising conversation with Poppy, Remus wouldn't have believed Lyall when he said it was all he ever wanted when he was eleven. To be totally in charge of his broom, to feel all grown up maintaining it like his precious baby. The boys and Hope were a little put off by his fantasising but at the end of the day, this is what they send off to James and Remus is happy with it.

For Peter, (Romulus picked these out, for the record), a weirdly expensive tiny tree. It comes with little scissors and, Remus doesn't know, you have to cut the tree? To make it look nice or something. He doesn't quite get the point of it, makes fun of it a bit, but Romulus knows best and that's what Peter is going to get in the post.

For Evan, lots of candy. He's got a sweet tooth, that boy, so Remus got everything he could reach in the candy store in town. He went to a few actually, Muggle and not, getting everything from rock candy to gum whose taste never runs out. If he gets all happy around just jelly at dessert, Remus shudders to think about how he'll react to the good two and a half kilos of candy here.

For Pandora, The Little Book Of Odd And Curious Spells by Victoria Nguyen. It really is a little book, not even covering the surface of Remus' palm. The writing is small but just big enough to be read, the very first page laying out how to perform a spell that turns one's fingers double-jointed (ten-druple-jointed by the way Nguyen describes it) so that they can contort almost bonelessly without pain. Yeah, he thinks Pandora will have fun with this.

They write a letter each to go with these presents. Remus finds it ironic how Romulus can't write a letter to their parents after being away for almost four whole months but he can write a letter a day to Peter after being away for just shy of a week. Remus knows that Peter is Romulus' favourite out of all their friends, he just didn't know until now that Peter was Romulus' favourite out of all the world. Obviously not including Remus himself. Remus is obviously first and then Peter in a very close second.

Romulus' letter is two pages long, double sided. Pfft, thinks Remus because two pages is simply ridiculous.

The parcels are sent off. Pixie has grown a bit but there's no way she can carry anything heavier than just Pandora’s present. It's times like these when Remus wonders why oh why they took in a baby owl, as cute as she is.

Hope goes to the neighbours and returns with an owl perched on her forearm. Remus once went next door to shower and use their oven; he really likes this neighbourhood. They use this owl (Perry) to deliver James and Evan's presents.

Finally, Lyall has an old, gruff looking owl named Creed (Remus has been frightened of him since he was young, perhaps relating to an incident in which Creed had flown into the twins' bedroom window at the precise and unfortunate moment that Remus decided to gaze boredly out said window) who they use to fly over Peter's presents and Sirius’ along the way (France is apparently on the way to Poland. That or Lyall is lying. Not that Remus knows any better).

They're allowed, finally, to use their new bikes. Romulus asks for the lighter blue colour and Remus doesn't mind, thanking his genius, past self for being so logical.

Right away, there's almost a crash.

Romulus leaves the house first, on his bike instantly. He pedals down, down, down the short pathway that leads from the closed gate to the door, breaking only just in time. He catches his breath before looking back to the others, smiling and waving. He leans over the handlebars and tugs the gate's latch free, pushing it to swing open and he's off again, Remus in quick pursuit, helmet still adorned.

‘Not too far’ their parents advised so the boys stick to just their road, doing laps up and down, and up and down. Going up, they're side by side. Going down the slightest of hills, they're speeding to get ahead, skidding to stops at the end of the cul de sac. Remus' main goal with this radical bike is to make tyre marks in the tarmac. He'll figure out how later.

The tyres are thicker than what he's seen so he suggests a ride about in the grass, muddy from what must have been last night's shower.

Romulus doesn't hesitate to agree and they're off. For kids who only learnt how to ride bikes last year on the neighbour’s kid’s rickety bike, they sure are good at it now. Remus can't ever imagine how he thought this was difficult.

The air is still cold and damp and the wind is like bullets of frost as they fly down the field, the hill a little more noticeable here. Remus wonders if it'll snow for the holiday.

He's freezing by their fifth time legging it down in the grass. He holds his helmet on his head for fear of it flying off, and screams at Romulus to look at him cycle and steer one handed. Romulus does not risk trying it too.

Remus cycles like this for about a minute before he drops his hand back onto the handles. He's not scared, just smart.

Up and down a few more times and they're forced to stop, legs straining and chests heaving like they're coming up for air at the top of the road.

Remus looks around the corner. Around the corner to the entrance of the estate; the exit from his point of view.

The odd time that the family drives, they obviously have to drive up this road, around the corner and along another road. There's no paths, just faded road markings to separate the lanes. There's stretches where there's no markings at all and drivers have to just trust themselves to stick to their respective lanes. And there's stretches where the bush and trees on either side of the road have spread too far onto it, making it smaller than before. Here, if there's two cars, one will have to pull in to let the other pass. Going left means going into town a couple of miles away, and going right means going to Granny's even more miles away. For this, Remus decides not to follow his will and suggest he and Romulus take a trip.

Remus turns and catches Romulus gazing down the road too. He looks away when he meets Remus' eye, and nods his head as a gesture down the road.

“Race you down again?” He asks.

And they're off. Remus leans down so his chin is resting where the handlebars meet. This makes him go fast, he assumes.

But it's not him who whizzes past Romulus, but a speck of white and brown. It whizzes past Remus too and he yelps when it does. There's a small gust of wind when it passes and Remus yelps again.

“Look! James' owl!”

They make a harsh turn at full-speed, almost crash into the gate again and rush into the house, discarding their bikes upright against the bench.

Lyall is feeding the bird from his palm when the boys barge into the kitchen and Hope is detaching the big brown parcel from the owl's leg. She slides it onto the table and passes a card each addressed to the twins.

The cards have basically the same wordings to them which makes Remus smile. Maybe James felt guilty about giving the twins just one card, felt like that'd seem like they're not separate people. Remus doesn't mind either way.

They get separate presents which Remus obviously is happy about. For Romulus, a set of three ceramic plant pots which he almost drops immediately in excitement. There’s a packet of seeds and a pound of soil all the way from a special farm on the side of a volcano.

For Remus, volume one of six of a series solely about the construction of the Colosseum. Remus squeals and shows Lyall and they both pretend Remus doesn't know it all to the last detail. Remus reminds himself to give James the biggest hug in the world when he sees him again.

There's a bottle of wine in the package too. Remus takes it out and has a look. It's severely gone off as far as he can tell by the ‘1927’ on its label. His face contorts a little and he holds it away from him, preparing himself for the smell to hit. He passes it over to Hope who's eyes widen like crazy. She shows it to Lyall who has the same reaction and yeah, Remus hopes James' parents are real bloody happy with themselves.

James' owl is sent off just as two more arrive. Lyall fixes a bowl of feed for them both.

Peter's parcel holds wine too. ‘1961’ which is considerably better than the Potter’s gift but Remus still finds it absolutely repulsive. He receives Elvis’ Christmas album, Romulus receives a book that they have to wrap Lyall's belt around to contain, and they both receive three donuts each.

The second owl is from Evan and Pandora. It also contains wine. Remus isn't altogether sure how that's possible. There's two cards again, their names written in Pandora's handwriting. They're both completely different this time; Remus' one includes a beautifully detailed drawing of a Jibwrangler, with five tentacles and one big eye that takes up half of its round head. He wasn't too sure what he was expecting it to look like.

Granny Sophie comes over for dinner- a roast dinner (one of Remus' personal favourites) and the wines are tasted. The kitchen fills with the smell of it; fruity and sweet are the only words Remus can think of to describe it.

Sirius' present hasn't come by the time they're going to bed. He knows (no really, he knows) that Christmas isn't all about presents. He'd just like some sort of communication, that's all. Even just to say thank you for the gifts. If he's even gotten them yet, that is. Lyall said France was on the way to Poland, didn't he? They don't even know if Peter has gotten his gifts yet either. Maybe both countries are just really far away. He hopes they're having a good time, wherever they are.

As he's climbing into bed, Remus realises this is the furthest away he's been from any of his friends since he's met them. It's Christmas and it's been a lovely day, but Remus goes to bed a little sad.