Dec 13 for LLAP15, Writcraft, and Dewitty1

Remus wasn’t too sure about spending Christmas with Sirius’s family during fourth year, but his parents had had to leave suddenly for Germany to see to his ailing Gran, and Remus had been at a loose end. At least it wasn’t during the full moon.

“It’ll be fine, Moony,” Sirius insisted. “My parents are rude, but the Lupins are an old line and I told them your mother was Russian witch your dad purchased for a wife, and not a Mug—”

“What?!” Remus hissed. “My mother is not a Russian bride!”

“Shh, shh!” Sirius said, looking around. “Trust me, it’ll go over better than your mum being a you-know-what.”

Remus frowned fiercely at Sirius, but it did no good. Sirius was already looking around the train platform for his parents. Finally, Sirius grinned and started waving. “Here we go—Monstir, Monstir, over here!”

“What the fuck are you yell—” Remus was cut off as a female house-elf popped over to them. “Oh, hello.”

The house-elf peered at him with unusually violet eyes for a moment before bowing to Sirius. “Master Sirius, is you ready to be going home?”

“Yes, thanks, Monstir. Our bags are just here.”

The house-elf snapped her fingers and their trunks and bags disappeared. Sirius reached out and Monstir took his hand. After a belated moment wondering if they were just going to leave Regulus at the station, Remus mentally shrugged and followed suit, and the house-elf popped them to Grimmauld Place.

It was not a nice-looking place. Remus could see that as soon as they landed in the foyer. It was dark and gloomy and the wallpaper had a blood-dripping dagger motif that Remus really didn’t care for.

“Sirius.”

Sirius jumped, halfway through pulling off his travelling coat to hang on the beastly Centaur-spine coatrack by the door.

“Father,” Sirius said cautiously. “This is my friend that I told you about, Remus Lupin.”

Sirius’s dad looked a lot like Sirius, but he had an air about him—a kind of bored and banal evilness—that was wholly different from Sirius’s wild-eyed exuberance and likely Attention Deficit Disorder. Although Remus had certainly never said as much to Sirius. 

After a long moment, Sirius’s father let out an unimpressed ‘hmm’ and nodded to Remus. He held his hand out to shake once, perfunctory. 

“Your brother’s just arrived home with Kreacher,” Mr Black said to Sirius. “And your mother’s expecting you to meet her in the drawing room. Now.”

He walked away and Sirius turned to give Remus a quiet apologetic-grimace sort of look. Remus shrugged. He reckoned a week with the Blacks couldn’t be worse than a week at home by himself, cold and hungry because he wasn’t old enough to use magic for cooking or heating. 

And really, the first day wasn’t too terrible. Mrs Black had a degree of madness about her that Remus, uncomfortably, saw in Sirius. The academic in Remus was macabrely intrigued by the living effects of inbreeding, but the friend-in-love-with-an-inbred-sod part of him was mostly just sad. He wondered if Sirius would’ve still had his bouts of debilitating depression or agonizing events of magic sensitivity where he couldn’t stop screaming until he succumbed to his double-curse of being a Black needing to get the dark magic out of his body. During those times, Remus and James would rush Sirius to Madam Pomfrey, their new Healer, and she would frown at them, read his chart, and take him to a private room to cast dark curses until the pain eased.

The real test of Remus’s strength came on Christmas morning, when Regulus—desultory and trying very hard to be grim—let himself into Sirius’s bedroom and woke them both by pelting them with a long, plush basilisk.

“It’s Christmas, twats,” Regulus said. “Wake up. We have to go downstairs.”

“Fuck off, Reg,” Sirius growled, shoving his head beneath his pillow. “No one wants presents.”

“Duh,” Regulus said. “Christmas sucks, but we have to do it anyway because it’s proper, so quit being a tosser and go down with me so Father wont focus on me before I’ve had breakfast.”

Remus blearily pulled himself from the bed and started dressing. “We’ll be down in just a moment, Regulus. Thank you.”

Regulus laughed darkly, turned to leave. “Don’t thank me,” Remus could’ve sworn he heard him mutter.

He ignored him, determined to be a good guest and hopefully make Christmas a little easier for Sirius. Remus knew Sirius didn’t like Christmas much, but he didn’t know why. Sirius’s family had a lot of money, and they might not be affectionate, but Sirius was adamant that they always got him valuable gifts.

The Christmas tree, however, was a bit disappointing, Remus had to admit. For one, it wasn’t a Fir, but a large, rotting, Venomous Tentacula that put off an acrid, cloying scent whenever one neared it. Remus had done his best to keep a wide berth. 

Mr and Mrs Black were already waiting for them in the drawing room—where the ‘tree’ was. A collection of hungry, caged fairies were strung around the ‘tree,’ giving off faint, flickering glows. Remus tried very hard not to cringe where Sirius’s parents could see him. 

“Merry Christmas, Mrs Black,” Remus greeted her. “Mr Black,” he added, nodding. He held out a small, wrapped package of chocolates he’d brought with him, and Mrs Black took it without a word. 

Sirius stumbled down after Remus, his hair still sticking up a bit from his half-arsed attempt to brush it. “Morning Mother, Father,” Sirius said, his voice oddly emotionless. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Sirius parents said, as if they were discussing a clause they didn’t like in a contract.

Sirius flopped down on the sofa and Remus, feeling very awkward, followed suit. Regulus stared at them balefully from his chair by the weak fire.

“Kreacher,” Mr Black said, bored. “Bring the gifts.”

Kreacher popped away and back again carrying three equally-sized, wrapped boxes. Neither Sirius nor Regulus looked too excited by the prospect of Christmas presents, and Remus was starting to get a wary feeling. 

“You may open them,” Mrs Black said, her smile wide and toothy.

“Thanks, Mother,” Sirius and Regulus chorused, and slowly, as if they didn’t want to open their presents at all, started picking at the wrapping paper. 

Well that was just rude, Remus thought. Regardless of how little affection was exchanged between Sirius and his family, they’d still gone out of their way to give their children—and even their child’s friend—gifts.

“Thank you very much, Mr and Mrs Black,” Remus said. “You really didn’t have to.”

“It was nothing,” Mr Black said. He leant back in his chair and pulled a pipe from his pocket.

Remus smiled at them and began to pull the wrapping from the package. He opened the box and peered inside. Then he blinked. Surely his eyes were playing tricks on him. Remus’s throat began to close up and his blood drained from his brain, leaving him lightheaded and dizzy. He slowly, carefully, reached inside, but jumped back when his fingers came in contact with cold, leathery skin.

“How could you?!” Sirius screamed, startling Remus out of his shock. “How fucking could you?!” There were actual wet tears pooling in Sirius’s eyes, and they began to fall as he blinked. 

Sirius reached into his box and pulled out a mounted house-elf head, its violet eyes wide and staring. He threw it at the wall, where it shattered the glass front of a curio cabinet filled with preserved Nifflers. 

“Why couldn’t you have given me an old house-elf head like you do every year?” Sirius cried. “Why her? Why Monstir? She wasn’t even fully grown yet!”

“I got Mongrul,” Regulus added, emotionless. “Taxidermied in the year 1699, as a wedding gift for Calliopeia and Castor Black.”

“That’s right, love,” Mrs Black cooed. “You’ve been learning your Black history like a good boy.”

Regulus smiled, but it looked like a grimace.

“And you, Remus,” Mrs Black continued, completely ignoring Sirius’s increasingly fevered yells. “We weren’t sure what you liked, so we decided on Vermen, a house-elf who served our family for 312 years, a gift from the Russian Czar to my great-great Grandmother, Auriga, on the day she finished Durmstrang. There’s a great deal of magic in the decapitated heads of one’s servants, you understand.”

Remus worked his throat, but couldn’t get any sound to come forth. Sirius had devolved into an unintelligible heap of agony on the floor, now cradling the mounted head of his favored house-elf, Monstir. Remus looked to Regulus, found him to be no help, either—for his part, Regulus appeared to be waiting for everyone to finish this shitshow as fast as possible so he could escape.

“That was…that was very thoughtful of you,” Remus finally managed to get out.

Mr Black gave him a tight, fake smile. Mrs Black’s lips pulled back in a death-rictus grin.

“I think, perhaps, the excitement of the morning has worn Sirius out. Would you mind terribly if I took him up for a nap?” 

But Remus didn’t bother waiting for a response. He snatched Sirius’s arm and hauled him up to his bedroom, and they didn’t emerge again the entire holiday. Sirius didn’t speak about Monstir ever again. Remus really wished he’d known this was what Christmas was like for the Black children any of the three prior Christmases he’d known Sirius, and got angry at him for sending him wrapped packages of taxidermied wolf feet.

‘For luck and strong magic,’ Sirius’s notes had always said.

Remus had never once realized Sirius wasn’t just having a laugh at Remus’s expense, but really, truly, hadn’t fucking known any better. The poor fucking sod.

Next year, Remus thought. Next year, he would show Sirius what Christmas was really about.