she calls me back
if only i could wake you up
if only i could fall asleep
i'll love you when the oceans dry
i'll love you when the rivers freeze
there's something so undeniably magical about christmas as the potter's.
something so beautifully normal about it.
this is sirius’ third christmas at the potter manor and it still hasn't lost its magic. its wonder.
he almost forgets that it's the first time regulus and corvus are experiencing this. up until he takes a glance behind him while they're all decorating cookies.
reg and cor are standing off to the side, looking awkward and fidgety. like they don't fit in.
“reg, cor, come on.” sirius beckons, waving them over and handing them each a bag full of icing.
corvus hesitantly grabs a cookie (it's cut into the shape of a reindeer and it almost makes sirius laugh out loud) and starts intensely focusing on icing it.
reg seems more skeptical. he stands there for a moment, bag of frosting in his hand, looking absolutely clueless on where to start.
“here.” sirius guides, grabbing a snowflake cut cookie and setting it in front of his younger brother, moving the bag of icing onto the cookie.
regulus gives sirius one more look before focusing onto his cookie, decorating it in ice blue frosting.
it makes sirius smile as he looks between the two of his siblings and james.
james has his glasses slightly askew on his face, hair messed, and his bottom lip caught between his teeth. he is taking the cookie decorating business entirely too seriously, because he is james.
corvus has one hand bracing the counter while the other perfectly glides along the surface of her reindeer cookie. her hair keeps going into her face, and instead of just putting it up with the hair tie sirius knows is on her wrist, she just keeps frustratedly blowing it out of her eyes.
regulus looks completely engrossed in his cookie, a tiny smile that if it were anyone else, they wouldn't be able to notice, painting the corner of his lips.
‘happy xmas’ starts playing, and monty’s soft humming turns into outright singing. effie looks over at her husband with an endearing smile and breaks out into song as well.
before they know it, effie, monty, james, and sirius are all singing along to john lennon, and wildly dancing around the kitchen, huge smiles pressed on their faces.
corvus looks over with a confused look, but reg is still so entranced by his cookie decorating that he almost doesn't seem to notice.
sirius struts over to his younger brother, grabbing the piping bag out of his hand and setting it onto the counter.
“hey! i was-” reg starts, but sirius cuts off his whining.
“come on, reg. have some fun for once in your life.” sirius teases, grabbing reg by the hands and forcing him to dance around the kitchen with him.
regulus huffs out an exasperated sigh, trying his hardest to look annoyed as he breaks his hands away from his brother, doing a low energy little shimmy to make him happy.
sirius walks over to corvus, ignoring her protests and pulling her into the middle of the kitchen next to him and reg.
he interlocks the three of their hands, all of the siblings dancing around with smiles on their faces (sirius’ a little more whole hearted than the other two).
“war is over, nowwwwwww.” james drags on the last words of the song, his voice dramatically deeper and louder than sirius thinks he's ever heard it, and they all burst out into laughter.
sirius looks around, these people, his family, smiling and happy and merry, and he suddenly feels a pang of guilt in his chest.
because while he was spending christmases at the potter’s house, wrapped in warmth and magic and love, his siblings were trapped in a hellhole of hatred and fists and curses.
he left them alone. drowning. burning. suffocating in the walls of 12 grimmauld place.
he left his siblings alone in a house while he ran away to a home and then said that they were the ones doing the abandoning.
~~~
“presents!” fleamont exclaims, clapping his hands together and gathering everyone into the living room.
corvus sits next to reg, the sides of their legs softly pressing together in gentle reassurance.
christmas here feels different. at grimmauld, they usually didn't partake in any festivities of the holiday.
kreature would make an elaborate dinner on christmas eve, and they would all exchange one meaningless gift between them.
it wasn't anything special. barely worth going home for, in corvus’ opinion. her mother always found something to berate them on. her father always got grouchy. bellatrix always caused some sort of big family blowout. and her other cousins and her aunt and uncle would sit in complete silence for most of the night.
the potter’s is different. they make christmas cookies and sing along to john lennon and have snowball fights in the backyard.
they love and they care and they wrap you in warmth that isn't suffocating.
it's something so completely foreign to corvus that it almost makes her want to revert back to grimmauld. almost.
she spaces out for a while whilst the real family here exchange presents.
that's the thing, as much as everyone has tried to welcome her and regulus in seamlessly, it's still like they're standing on the outside. waiting to be kicked out or berated.
“corvus, how about you open mine first.” fleamont suggests, passing corvus a small box wrapped in red and white paper.
she hesitantly unwraps it, revealing a small black box. she opens the box, and inside lies a beautiful bronze watch.
“this is gorgeous.” she exclaims, lifting it out of the box and feeling the weight of it in her hand.
“read the inscription on the bottom.” fleamont encourages, small smile wrapped around his face.
she turns the watch over, inspecting the small letters carved into the bottom of it. they read, ‘the family you come from isn't as important as the family you are going to have’.
“i love it. thank you.” corvus smiles, already clasping the watch onto her wrist, admiring how it looks on it.
sirius wordlessly hands her another gift wrapped in the red and white paper. this one is very messily wrapped, the corners of it slightly bulky and tearing.
she unwraps it to reveal a quidditch book, filled with pictures from different games that the montrose magpies have played in.
“this is awesome, siri.” corvus breathes out, the nickname coming out like a reflex. when she looks over to apologize, sirius just has a wide, happy smile on his face.
euphemia gets her a dark green jumper, the inside sleeve embroidered with ‘C.C.B.’. reg gets her a new blanket for her dorm room, since barty and evan practically destroyed hers while practicing a transfigurations spell a while back. and james gets her a heavy black snake ring that reaches almost to her knuckle.
for the rest of the night, they sit and watch muggle christmas movies, sipping hot chocolate and eating their decorated cookies.
which is how corvus finds out that james is way too much of a sprinkles finatic. she makes sure to take a mental note of this, shuffling it into the box labeled ‘james potter’ in her mind. every detail of him stored inside, trying to crack the code of james potter.
all in all, the night is one of the less horrible christmas eve’s she's ever had.
later that night, she wakes up to a knock on her bedroom door. she half expects it to be reg. she can't think of any reason any of the other members of the house would be coming to her room at- she checks her watch- 2:43 in the morning.
she's surprised to see james’ face when she opens her door. she tries her best to smooth out her hair and wipe the sleep from her face.
“sorry. i didn't mean to wake you.” james says sheepishly, still standing in the doorway and scratching the back of his neck. corvus has to resist the urge to yank his hand away.
“it's nearly three in the morning. what did you think i would be doing? the irish jig?” corvus teases, grabbing james gently by the arm and guiding him into the room, closing the door behind her.
“oh. yeah. sorry.” james sighs, and unlike corvus, there isn't a trace of sleep on his face. he doesn't even seem tired. doesn't seem like he realized how late it was
“how much sleep have you gotten since break started?” she questions, pressing her fingers softly against the subtle bags under the boy’s eyes.
“uh, not much.” he answers, reaching up as if to fix his glasses, before remembering they're not on his face and he takes his hand away.
“jamie.” corvus says, almost scolding, grabbing james by the hand.
“i'm fine. really. not tired. see?” he pulls a huge smile onto his face, dorky and full of teeth, and corvus has to bite back a laugh.
“you have to sleep, jamie.” corvus informs, biting her bottom lip to hold back the smile waiting to crawl out.
“i will. i promise i will.” james holds up his hands in surrender. “right after you open your real christmas gift.”
“what?” corvus’ eyes widen as james pulls a small black box out of his pocket.
“it's not wrapped. i'm not really good at it.” james says, suddenly looking small.
corvus looks up at james one more time and he motions down to the box. she pulls the lid off of it. inside, resting on a small piece of cotton, is a necklace. the chain is silver and it has an oval medallion in the center. inside of the charm is a night sky, filled with stars.
it's a magic necklace. she can tell because of the tiny twinkling of the stars on the charm.
“james. this- this is beautiful.” corvus expresses, almost breathless.
james wordlessly motions for her to flip the necklace over. similar to the watch that fleamont gifted her, the back is decorated in small carved words.
“‘I am grateful that you were born, that your love is mine, and our two lives are woven and welded together’.” corvus reads aloud, gently running her fingers along the words engraved into the metal.
“it's mark twain. he was an american muggle author.” james informs, watching the black haired girl carefully, his eyes full of wonder.
“the stars are the star chart from the night we first kissed.” the boy adds, his voice quiet and careful.
corvus finally looks away from the necklace and back at james.
any remnants of any mask ever in place are completely gone. the mask is shattered and abandoned on the floor. the only thing left, being corvus black’s undeniable love for james potter.
“i love it jamie. i love it so much.” she says, sincerity dripping from her voice as she wraps her arms around the boy, and he automatically reciprocates, smile embedded onto his lips. “i love you so much.”
“i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you.” james chants, fisting his fingers into the material of the sweater corvus is wearing. “you, you, you, you. constantly, consistently, continually, you.”