To the Mods: I hope I haven't bent the rules too much. =D If you feel I've taken too many liberties, I understand, and please don't hesitate to change the category for me; just give me points for trying! ;)



Disclaimer: Cry as I might over it, neither Sirius nor Remus are of my creation.

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There was a solitary pine tree standing self-conscious, erect, and evergreen amidst its disrobed neighbors. The forest there was thick with ash trees, but in a small clearing, next to a little brook where iris flowers bloomed in season, stood the shy and unpretentious fir.





Beneath the tree rested an oversized dog, a spot of black against the glistening snow, nuzzling its own paw at the end of a trail of red - a trail of blood and footprints, not all his own.





Around the dog, circling ceaselessly, like a tufted shadow, was a wolf-like creature. It circled and circled, as though running from something inside of it, as though harnessed by some inner restraint. Its downy, light-catching fur was stained with crimson around the collar; every now and again it would pause, and poise itself to bolt, and the bigger dog would lift its head, and check the impulse of its fellow.





That night the moon waltzed her Christmas waltz across the bending sky, sparkling in her mantle of diamonds and sweeping along her long silver cloud-train as she danced.





The wolf-creature danced with the moon all that night, and Sirius' mind was whirring along on its own.





Many moons had waxed and waned since he had come to be with Remus. Werewolf- watching had not been a priority since Lily and James had gone into hiding. James was too busy, with his family, and Peter was busy elsewise; of course Remus, rather than inconvenience Sirius, volunteered to be alone - at least when Sirius had a mission from Dumbledore to see to.





Sirius was not sure that it was only for convenience that he had took Remus’ word for the way; he told himself that there was no other earthly reason to avoid Remus, but it was not what he believed. Not anymore.





But this was Christmas week. Remus had showed up for tea at Godric’s Hollow with dark semicircles beneath his eyes, so pale that Lily feared for him. There was nothing but patience in his eyes; and Sirius, remembered - or remembered again - that there were so many things about Remus that he could not comprehend. It would have been depraved to let him suffer at Christmas alone.





Such were the thoughts that tumbled through Sirius' mind as he waited for the moon to set. They looped together and gave rise to old memories and new wishes, until Sirius realized that his shadow had disappeared; the long-stretching moon rays were eclipsed by the rim of the forest. He lifted his ears, and realized the wolf's restless pacing had ceased. A ragged breathing had taken its place.





Quicker than thought, Sirius was on his feet - scrambling up in limbs now drowning in snow-flaked robes, and not fur. Remus lay in a heap at the brookside, taking the icy air in gasps and blinking his eyes as though disoriented.





"Remus! Are you all right?"





Sirius grasped his friend's arm helped haul him out of the snow.





"Fine," whispered Remus, wincing slightly as he tried his weight on unsteady feet. He kicked the snow from his robes and pulled his coat tighter around him.





"How are you feeling?"





Remus smiled weakly. "Relieved."





Involuntarily, Sirius grinned. A quietly exultant spirit was brimming inside of him. "You made it, mate. It's Christmas Eve!"





"No more little problems until 1981," said Remus. He managed a lighter tone, though his teeth chattered. His breath drifted upwards like a cloud, almost seeming to crystallize around his head.





"Cold?"





Remus shook his head, continuing to button up his long overcoat through his clumsy woolen gloves.





"Want to head back?"





"Do you mind staying here a bit longer?"





"Sorry," said Sirius. "I forgot."





Lupin gathered his dragging scarf from his feet and wound it around his neck. He noticed the sanguine stain, encrusted and spoiling the pattern. Then, flinching reactively, he brought his stiff fingers up to the curve of his chin.





"Here," said Sirius, drawing out his wand and taking a step towards his friend. He pointed it at Remus' neck. "Episkey." Remus felt where the gouge had been, and there was only smooth skin.





"Thank you," said Remus. "I don't know where mine went."





"It's probably still back at the house."





Lupin, like a thing overstretched, dropped tenuously against the trunk of an ash tree. "It was worse tonight than it's been. I don't know why I broke out like that."





Sirius sighed, precipitately dropping; he sat four meters away in the snow, facing Remus, basking in the ambient, reflected blue light, like a sunbather in the sand. "We're all feeling a bit frenzied."





Remus' eyes fluttered open for a moment; his gaze lingered on his friend's serious countenance, so at variance with his untroubled posture. Remus, too, sighed, then said thoughtfully, "I'm so worried for James and Lily. Horrible, isn't it, that they have to spend Christmas in hiding?"





Sirius hesitated, though he did not know why. "Yeah," he said, before the suspicious interval had become obvious. The idea that his friends could not be entirely trusted still seemed to catch him up like a whirlwind of hot sand and shards of glass. He felt breathless, just now, like an icicle had been plunged through his heart. He wondered if Remus ever felt the same way.





"I bought Harry an alphabet book with spells for every letter. I hope he likes it." Remus nestled his head against the tree's solid trunk and looked past Sirius at the tall fir and the tangled maze of trunks that blockaded it. "I wish I could package the royal guard and wrap it in silver paper for him... but I guess a book will have to do."





Remus said things, occasionally, that sounded so simple and sincere. Sirius wondered if, even now, Remus was only acting; if he was, he was a far better actor than Sirius would have ever suspected. Sometimes Sirius doubted himself for ever doubting his friend.





Sometimes Sirius liked it best just to forget that anything was wrong, to pretend away the dismantled trust and return to the days of their unassailable confidence in each other.





Remus, for his part, wanted nothing more than to have full faith in Sirius; and for tonight, he quelled reasonable doubt and let the Christmas spirit restore that faith within him.





They sat for a while in companionable silence - something they had not done since that grim afternoon in September, when James had sat him down and passed on an unsettling message from Dumbledore. Sirius brushed the snow from the turf around him, fiddling with the flowers and twigs he unearthed; Remus sat gazing at the stark treetops that reached forever for the blinking stars. Neither said a word, though many thoughts swirled through their heads. Their minds were free from suspicion - their worries were blessed away by the Christmastide, and they were content to be.





"You seem ... serene," commented Sirius, languidly, when silence became a waste of time. He had noticed Remus' calmness.





"Tomorrow is Christmas," said Remus, quietly. “It sets the world at right.”





“Yes,” said Sirius, “Things don’t seem so daunting.”





Remus nodded and stood.





"Ready to go?" tried Sirius, again. He pulled his sleeves over his aching, gloveless fingers.





"No," said Remus, decidedly.





"Why not?" Sirius snapped. "I'm getting cold."





There was a crackling sound, and Sirius felt a gentle warmth brushing against his face. Remus had conjured a flame - with one hand, he carved out a mound of snow, and eased the flame into the little hollow he made. Then, resolutely, he stepped towards the fir tree - and appeared to stare it down.





"I want to dress this tree."





"What?" asked Sirius. He was sure he had misheard him.





"Decorate it."





In disbelief, Sirius looked up a the massive tree, which seemed to swell in size before his eyes. "Why?"





"Well, it seems lonely, with all the other trees bearing down upon it."





"We don't have any baubles or anything."





"We don't need them," said Remus. He had recovered enough to seem a bit annoyed at Sirius' incredulous inquiry. "Here, summon my wand for me."





Sirius, still looking wary, slowly drew out his own wand and cried "Accio!" into the unstirring night. He shot Remus a questioning look as they waited for its approach. There came a whizzing noise and Remus extended his hand just as the wand came to halt midair before him.





"Thanks," he said, briefly. "Why don't we see what we can find?"





"I don't understand why we'd go through the trouble," said Sirius. "Have you gone mad?"





"It rather reminds me of James and Lily," said Remus, shortly, and Sirius swallowed his next impertinent remark. "And of Harry. Poor child, born into the fight... Hidden away, surrounded by the villains... Come on, Sirius, you can get into it. It deserves better.”





Sirius stared after Remus as the latter edged down to the brook bank, bending low to examine surface of the water. He pondered a minute, then quietly said, “Wingardium Leviosa!” A sparkling thread of icicles, cut from the skirt of the water- bed, floated through the air, directed by Remus’ wand, and, like a sparkling snake of the air, swirled around the tree up to its highest branches, and settled brilliantly on its emerald branches like a diamond coil.





“So we don’t need baubles,” said Sirius, conceding.





“Well, seeing as you’re a wizard,” said Remus humorously.





Sirius settled back on the ground and brushed the snow away with renewed vigor.





“You know, Lily told me that James reminded her of garlands.”





Remus raised his eyebrows.





“When everything reminded her of James,” said Sirius, catching the look. “She said the tinsel on a tree reminded her of how sometimes the silliest things show a strong person off best, because frivolities exaggerate grandness.”





Remus raised his eyebrows higher.





“Well, those might not have been her exact words,” said Sirius, grinning impishly. “Maybe she said ‘delicate things’ for a ‘strong nature’."





"You mystify me," said Remus, shaking his head.





"Because seeing James being gentle with Harry made her think that his greatest strength was reflected by his - weakness, you know - one thing being the most becoming thing to the other.”





Remus resumed his scavenging hunt, feeling pleasantly warm at the heart. “Well, I wouldn’t have called it five years ago, but James does well with Harry.”





“I’ll be surprised if Harry doesn’t take his dad for a hero growing up,” Sirius agreed, and then cried, “aha!” He had unearthed a patch of irises, perfectly preserved beneath the harsh frosting.





“How unusual!" Remus remarked.





“It was mild for weeks until yesterday,” said Sirius, plucking up the flowers at an impressive rate.





“Poor things were petrified by the snow,” said Remus.





“Well yes, but they’re pretty and frozen in time,” said Sirius, using a bullet charm to pelt them like little arrows into the tree. “See, these remind me of Lily. Beset by danger but still standing pretty.” Sirius laughed at his own wit.





“Remember the mission where she had to wear that horrible disguise infested with Chizpurfles?" added Remus, amused. "She was all bitten up next day, but she grit her teeth and didn’t itch.”





The two of them circled the tree, dotting it with the frosted flowers and talking as they had not talked for months. They collected berries and pebbles and strung them through with underbrush stems. Remus hatched the idea of fusing frozen blades of grass together to mimic stars and snowflakes, and Sirius returned from a a short expedition in the woods with an armful of ferns and ivy. “The ivy is like you,” said Remus, as they draped it from the reachable boughs. “Strangles you in the name of fellowship.”





“Oh?” returned Sirius, equal to the sport. “And you’re like the moss; orderly and overshadowed.”





Somewhere in the far-off forest came a chorus of wolves. The sun was beginning to make its ascent; a rosy stain was spreading from from the eastern margin of the sky.





"They mocking you, Remus?" asked Sirius lightly.





"No; they're singing their Christmas carol. All of nature rejoices."





Sirius laughed lowly.





“Really; listen.”





It did seem as though the distant pack was lifting up a rejoicing chorus. The canine carolers howled richly, resonantly, together, and not to the moon, but the sunrise. Remus and Sirius listened, enraptured, to the powerful voices from nature, until it dawned on Remus that the voices were growing stronger.





“We have to finish up,” said Sirius reluctantly. “Your friends will be at the door. Just one more touch,” he said, lifting his wand once more, closing his eyes to focus. Nothing seemed to happen, at first pass, but gradually the roughly- made stone-and-berry bunches morphed into pretty red and gold baubles.





“You’re showing off."





“Transfiguration’s a breeze,” said Sirius, with an easy toss of his head, reminiscent of his teenage self. Neither one could help laughing.





“Here,” said Remus, taking his turn. He circled the tree, trampling over the wolfen footsteps he had worn into the snow around it, conjuring up a swarm of fireflies as he walked. They nestled into the dark green crevices, amongst the orbs and icicles. Their throbbing glow was like a pulse; it it gave the tree life.





“Those can be for Harry,” said Remus, as he stepped back to admire their work. “A bit of light for us in this dark year. A new life - a bit of hope.”





The tree sparkled doubly with the light of the fireflies; the icicles reflected the gleam of the friendly hoverers while simultaneously absorbing the golden-red light suffused by the sun. The outsider tree was now proud in its gallant position; it seemed no longer like one ganged up on, but one admired.





It filled Sirius and Remus both with a hope that something hunted and hidden and humble could transform into something grander than the ones who tried to overpower it. The tree towered over them magnificently; truly an image that inspired hope in one’s heart.





"We'd better get back," said Remus, after a minute; his words were like the cutting ring of a bell, crashing through fragile, glasslike silence of the dawn.





"I guess so," said Sirius, more regretfully. Neither wanted to leave, lest this renewed spirit was temporary, or reliant on the tree. It was with only with a great force of with will that they collected their bearings and chose the path back, with one long, last look at the tree before going.





"What do you think the New Year will be like?" asked Remus.





"Can't tell, can I?" said Sirius, keeping perfect pace with his friend. "This year was pretty rotten, wasn't it? But we still got Harry; it was still happy enough. Next year can only be better; next year's the year we get him!"





They walked to the edge of the woods in silence, drinking in the strengthening sunlight. Sirius felt sixteen again, like he was returning from a Marauder romp; he was glad to have Remus back for a morning. Remus held a Christmas prayer in his heart that the war would not ravage his friendships; sometimes he felt as though it was distancing him from his friends, instead of drawing them together.





“Sirius?"





“Hm?”





“Thank you.”





Sirius paused; and then, “Merry Christmas, Remus.”





They said nothing more. Their feet crunched through the icy layer of the snow, and their long cloaks swept across the broken trail that wound towards their Christmas-spirit tree behind them.