“'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; the children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; and mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, had just settled down for a long winter's nap”” Sirius stops abruptly. “Lily, do people seriously read this?”
“All the time -- it’s a classic Muggle Christmas poem. Can you continue please? Harry likes it,” Lily says patiently. She wonders who is more trouble, her five-month-old son or his twenty-year-old godfather.
“Lily, he isn’t even one. He doesn’t know what he likes. He doesn’t even know what I’m saying,” Sirius complains. “This story is lame! My godson deserves a story with adventure, thrill and motorbikes”
“Oh, Harry knows what he likes. Don’t you, Harry?” she says to her son in baby talk. Harry blows bubbles in response. “See, that means yes. And Sirius, no matter what you say, Harry will not ever get on that motorbike of yours. Nor will I.”
“Lily, I am shocked. Did I say anything about my motorbike? I just said the story could be helped if it had a motorbike, any motorbike. It could be mine; it could be Dumbledore’s. That is, if Dumbledore owned a motorbike…” Sirius declares in mock horror. “Though, while we’re on the subject… Why won’t you let me take Harry out on the motorbike? Or better yet, why won’t you fly with me? James does, all the time.”
“You know the answer why Harry can’t go with you, with our luck you’d drop him.” Sirius’s mouth drops to the floor when Lily says this. “Not that you’d do it intentionally. I know you love Harry like he was your own son. But, besides having Harry, we haven’t been so fortunate, have we? And Sirius, I refuse to get on that motorbike of yours. I have refused to get on any motorbike” flying or grounded” since I saw a neighbor of mine almost get killed by a car. With my luck, we’d run across a flying car or something…”
“Lily, I feel like your insinuating I’m a bad driver. I will have you know I have only hit a few birds and nothing bigger than a pigeon,” Sirius laughs.
“I’m sure you’re a fine driver, Sirius. I’m just saying I’m not the luckiest person on earth,” she sighs. She looks around the nursery she and Sirius are sitting in. It was barely decorated, they had just moved in from their previous home. Dumbledore though it might be best if they moved from time to time so the Death Eaters could not track them down. She and James had not had time to decorate Harry’s new nursery. Looking around, she feels tears welling up in her eyes. She had liked her old home; it was the first one she and James had lived in as husband and wife. It was the one she had pictured getting old in and having her grandchildren visit.
“Lily, what are you talking about? You are one of the luckiest people I know. You have James and Harry. You have a family. You have me, Remus and Peter. You have friends. You have Dumbledore looking out for you. You are brilliant. Just because some prophecy has made a madman want to kill your family…” he pauses and looks at Harry. “Wow, you are pretty unlucky. I mean, look at your son. He looks exactly like James. That’s the worst luck you could get,” Sirius laughs. Lily has to laugh, too. Sirius has a knack for making even the worst situations bearable. But still, she felt pretty unlucky.
“He has my eyes though. Don’t you, Harry? Those eyes are going to break hearts someday. Though promise me, you’ll find a girl to settle down with like your dad did. Don’t follow Uncle Sirius’s example jumping from girl to girl. It’s not a satisfying way to live.” She shoots a look at Sirius that says Harry wants an aunt who likes him. Sirius laughs; he has gotten good at reading Lily’s looks over the year.
“Lily, someday when this war is over I will find a woman to settle down with. But I warn you -- I plan on asking the first desperate woman I find. The marriage may not last longer than a week. And who says she’ll like Harry?” Sirius laughs again. His conversation with Lily just took a turn that left her speechless. It was a rare feat to make Lily Potter speechless. Sirius takes this opportunity to scoop Harry from Lily’s arms. “Don’t worry, little man,” he whispers to Harry, who has started playing with Sirius’s hair, “nobody could dislike you. And when I’m through with you, no woman will be able to resist you. You see, your dad may have the wife, but I have the actual skill with women. Speaking of your dad, where is he?” Sirius looks around and listens to hear any sign of James. “Lil -- shouldn’t James be back by now?” Sirius asks, starting to get a little worried that his friend isn’t back yet.
“He went with Remus to get a Christmas turkey after his Order work was done. He can’t do much now with Voldemort looking for us, but if Dumbledore ever needs someone to keep watch over something in secret, he uses James. Dumbledore still doesn’t know about the Cloak. He just thinks James can perform a very powerful Disillusionment Charm, so either way, he thinks it’s safe for James to do that. Thank God, too; you know how restless James can get. But back to your question, he and Remus were getting a turkey for our Christmas Eve meal, and then picking up Peter.”
“It’s Christmas Eve?” Sirius asks seriously. He had lost track of the days since Lily and James went into hiding. When he wasn’t doing Order work, he was with the Potter clan, keeping them company.
“Yes it is, Sirius. Seriously, I don’t know where your head is sometimes. We told you this. We’re having a Christmas dinner with Peter, Remus and the Longbottoms. They’re bringing their son Neville, so Harry will have company. You know, the prophecy could have meant their son. He’s a day older than Harry. Is it terribly horrible that I wish Voldemort chose their son?” Lily confesses. She hates to think about the prophecy. Dumbledore had told them right before Harry was born that there was a prophecy that could apply to either their son or the Longbottom’s. Whenever she thinks about it she feels horrible, so she tries to avoid thinking about it.
“No, not terribly. You’re a mother, Lily. You want to protect your family. You don’t want little Neville dead; you just want Harry to live.” Sirius leans over to comfort Lily and hands Harry back to her. She holds Harry tightly in her arms, whispering kind, motherly things to him. She stands up and places him on a blanket with some of his toys.
“It doesn’t feel like Christmas,” Lily says suddenly as she straightens up from bending over to put Harry on the floor. “When we were seventh years, is this how you pictured spending Christmas? James and I married at eighteen and a son by the time we were twenty? Did you see us in hiding because Voldemort wants to kill us? Because, this is not how I pictured spending my Christmases. I pictured all of us together, a big group that didn’t have to worry about Death Eaters finding us. We could all go out and do stupid twenty-year-old things because we didn’t have to worry about having a baby to take care of or anything.” Lily starts to cry on Sirius’s shoulder, leaving snot marks on his robes.
“Ah, Lil. I didn’t know you felt that way. In all honesty though, I did kind of picture you and James with a baby soon after school. You just couldn’t keep your hands off of each other by the end of seventh year.”
This makes Lily feel better some, and the tears start to slow down. “Thanks, Sirius. I will tell you, though, if you had asked me sixth year how I expected my post-Hogwarts Christmases to be, they would not include you, or James or Peter. Maybe Remus if he wasn’t busy keeping the rest of you out of trouble.”
As Lily says this, Sirius thinks of the perfect idea to help cheer Lily up. “Tell you what, Lily. When all of this is over, we’ll get someone to look after Harry and we’ll go do stupid twenty-year-old things with Remus yelling at us to be careful. Just like you always pictured it.”
“That sounds perfect, Sirius,” says Lily with a sigh of contentment. “Now will you finish Harry’s story?”
“And I was starting to think you forgot about that.” Sirius laughs and picks up the book as Lily scoops up Harry and sets him in her lap.
“Harry says ‘go on, Uncle Sirius, and finish the story,’” Lily tells Sirius.
“Oh, does he now? How’d he get that smart? Look at his parents, they’re dumb as doornails,” Sirius teases and reaches in to tickle Harry, who giggles with delight.
“He says ‘just read me the story, Uncle Sirius’ and his mother says ‘yes, Uncle Sirius, read Harry his story or I will jinx you!’” Lily laughs as Sirius tickles Harry more.
They sit in peace for a little while as Sirius reads Harry the story. Lily makes him stop occasionally to do special voices and sound effects, ones that Sirius hates and Harry loves. He’s about to finish as James walks into the room with Remus and Peter. He puts his fingers to his lips so Lily can see him, but Sirius can’t. When Sirius stops to take a breath so he can read the ending with style, James jumps in. “He sprang to his flying motorbike, to his engine gave a start, and away they all flew like Severus from shampoo. But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he flew out of sight, 'A Very Sirius Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!’”
James now walks fully into the room and pats a disappointed Sirius on the back. He walks over to his wife and plants a huge kiss on her lips. He takes his son from her and gallops from the room laughing.
“You know, sometimes I don’t know what gets into that man,” Sirius says, a bit shell-shocked from James’ sudden appearance. “But I must say, he does know how to end a story.”
Lily lets loose and truly laughs for the first time in months. It takes Sirius and Remus a good ten minutes to calm her down. Soon there is a knock on the door and Frank and Alice Longbottom arrive with their son Neville. They crowd around the Potter’s small dining room table and eat until they could not take another bite. After dinner, Sirius transforms into a dog, and Frank and Alice pretend to turn their heads, seeing as they are part of Magical Law Enforcement and Sirius is an illegal Animagus. He gives Harry and Neville rides around the room until he has both shrieking with joy. All too soon, Frank and Alice decide it’s time to take Neville home. They thank the Potters for the wonderful Christmas dinner and ask to use their fireplace so they could use the Floo Network to get home. After they leave, Peter says he must go, too, as he has plans to meet some work friends for drinks.
Remus and Sirius remain and help James and Lily clean up. Well, Remus helps; Sirius makes a bigger mess. Lily goes and puts Harry to bed and rejoins her friends around the fireplace. Sirius has broken out a bottle of Butterbeer, which Lily appreciates as she is trying to limit the alcohol consumption with the baby around. They sit around the fire drinking the Butterbeer and singing carols and telling stories. They laugh and for a time forget about the war that is going on around them.
“Is this how you pictured your Christmas would be, Lily?” Sirius asks when they take a break from singing.
“Yes and no. Everything is almost perfect, except back in seventh year when I imagined it, there was Firewhiskey instead of Butterbeer,” she laughs at the thought of her old Christmas imaginings. “I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas,” she yawns.
“What time is it?” Remus asks.
James takes out the pocket watch his father left for him when he passed away. “Just about midnight. Remus, why don’t you go get Harry and Lily and I will get the gifts.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait, James?” Lily asks.
“I’m tired of waiting for things to happen. We’re going to live life as spontaneously as we can, given the circumstances. So I say we open presents now!” James declares, slipping his hand around Lily’s waist.
“Hear, hear!” Sirius chimes in.
Remus comes back into the room holding a sleepy Harry, with a look of terror on his face.
“You’re not going to hurt him, Remus,” Lily reassures him. “See, he likes you.” Everyone looks over to Remus and Harry. Harry has curled up and presses his little hand on Remus’ heart. As they all watch Harry and Remus, Sirius sneaks out of the room. It takes everyone a few minutes to notice he is missing along with all the gifts. When they start looking for him, they hear a pop! and he appears in the fireplace in a Father Christmas suit carrying a bag of stuffed to the brim.
He smiles as Lily recites “but I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,"A very Sirius Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"
A Very Sirius Christmas by rachelnotrach
Chapter Endnotes: Baby Harry loves reviews, Sirius too!
The poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" is a very old poem that most people know, but they actually don't know the author. I came up with James' alternative ending to it, but everything else is from the original poem.