Christmas

dying-for-jegulus:

For my Jegulus Marathon

Warnings: swearing, mentions of underage sex

A/N: This was an ancient fic fragment I never published, but I quite liked. I edited it “a bit” because it’s perfect for this. Enjoy! 🙂

James pensively watched his marshmallow get browner and darker, slowly turning it. He hated how much work it was to get this tiny thing just right. And if he made two at once, the second one would get all cold and sticky until he had eaten the first one.
“You’re burning it, stupid”, Sirius informed him, a bit annoyed because he had repeatedly burnt his mouth already. Marshmallows weren’t his strength.
“Thanks, I wouldn’t have noticed myself”, James snapped.
Sirius rolled his eyes dramatically and proceeded in putting as many marshmallows on his stick as possible. He was trying to beat his own record – five – and also trying to “beat” Remus, who wasn’t actually trying to compete with him, but Sirius wouldn’t believe him (“It’s just his strategy to get me to give up!”).
James carefully took a bite of the sweet to check whether it was still too hot to eat. It wasn’t, but it tasted a tad bit charred. He didn’t really care.
“Sirius?”, he asked. “Have you seen – have you seen your brother lately?”
Sirius frowned at him. He didn’t answer for seconds, and finally snorted, “Unfortunately, yes.”
James sighed inaudibly. “Look, Sirius. It’s a cold winter. He’s the only one who stayed over Christmas besides us.”
“Why would I care?”, Sirius drawled, his eyes narrowed.
“He didn’t go home because you wouldn’t be there, and he didn’t want to be all alone with – his parents. I’m not telling you you shouldn’t have ran away – that was the right thing to do – but there’s just this one lad suffering from it -”
“How do you know? Did you talk to him?”, Sirius demanded sarcastically.
“Yes, I did”, James said. “Why not? He’s a decent person.”
“A decent person? He’s an insidious, odious -”
“Your brother”, James hissed. “And I don’t remember you thinking of him like that when you continuously smuggled him into our dorm in our second and third year until we got in trouble for it.”
“He changed”, Sirius snarled. “He’s just like them -”
“He’s not!”, James blurted out fervently. “He didn’t want to go back to them because he has it as least as bad as you did now, probably much worse, and he’s got no one who cares!”
Sirius stared at him, half taken aback, half suspicious. “You seem to have quite emotional conversations with that little fiend”, he hissed in a dangerously calm tone.
“At least someone who doesn’t ignore him like his own brother does”, James shot back.
“He is not my brother”, said Sirius. “And I don’t know what to think of – you fraternising with this -”
“Merlin, Sirius, I’m not fraternising with him, don’t be ridiculous”, James groaned. “Just give him a chance. Moony and Wormtail don’t have a problem with him coming over to us for Christmas -”
“You’ve been planning this!”, Sirius called out, turning to his other two friends, looking hurt. “You’re all so -”
“Sirius, why don’t you just calm down, give Regulus another chance, and if he turns out to be what you think he is, you can still start despising him”, Remus suggested. “You know, because I think Prongs is right, if he was like his parents, he would’ve gone home. It’s even colder down in the dungeons.”
“Oh, is it? Have you been there?”, Sirius muttered, his arms crossed, but he seemed to be thinking about something.
“If you still consider him untrustworthy and evil after giving him a real chance, I promise I won’t talk to him again”, James suggested, trying to sound neutral, but something in his voice and eyes wasn’t quite right – he was hiding something. Sirius didn’t see that, however.
“Deal”, the latter nodded.
“But only if you actually give him a chance”, James added.
“Yeah, you know, I’d like to believe you’re right, and you’re my best friend, so – I guess I’d be – glad – if you were right”, Sirius sighed. “I just can’t quite believe you yet.”
“Just try”, James smiled.

“So now we’ve got everything out of the way”, James said cheerfully.
“You’ve got nothing out of the way”, Remus corrected him. “You got Sirius to give him another chance. You didn’t tell him you’re -”
“- shagging him?”, James suggested with a cocky grin.
“I hope that’s not what defines your relationship”, Remus sighed.
“Of course it’s not, but it’s quite impressive. I’m not even of age and I was the first one of us who got a go -”
“Sirius lost his virginity when he was fourteen”, Remus informed his friend.
“Oh gosh – you’re not talking about that one night? The common room party? Sirius actually succeeded?”
“Yeah, he bragged about it all night”, Remus sighed. “I guess you were too drunk to remember, lucky you. Peter hasn’t forgotten it either. It quite traumatised him. Both of us, actually, but mostly him.”
James nodded. “Anyway, back to the topic. My virginity. By the way, I don’t think Reggie was still a virgin – don’t ask me how, but it seems to run in the family.”
“Thanks for telling me that, I really didn’t want to know”, Remus groaned.
“Sorry.”
“So how are you going to tell him? Sirius?”
“I don’t know, but I guess it would be best to kind of get Reggie involved. And it’s supposed to happen after Sirius realised he’s still a lovely person.”
“And what’s the one thing you’d better not mention at all?”, Remus asked James, sounding a lot like a kindergarten teacher trying to explain the alphabet to a tortoise.
James shrugged.
“Okay, you’d better not say that you two are – well, that you’re -”
“That we’re shagging?”, James suggested.
Remus sighed again and just nodded.