𝐽𝑈𝐿𝐼𝐸𝑇-
Thankfully, we arrived at James's house in one piece.
Although, I found myself being utterly shocked when I looked at his house.
It was huge, the house was grand on the outside, made of red brick with loads of large windows and many Christmas decorations littering the lawn.
I should've known James had rich boy energy
James parked the care along the circle driveway which bent around a large, currently empty fountain.
Sirius pushed me through the door and straight up the velvet carpet covered spiral staircase
The boys pushed me into a bedroom quickly and James Jumped face first onto the large four poster bed dramatically, causing the pillows to fly off the bed.
"Welcome Juliet, to casa de Potter" Sirius presented, he looked so much happier now, the same energy he had the majority of time at school
"Wow" I looked back at Sirius who was nodding proudly, even though this was James's house, not his.
"This is your room" he told me.
"Mine, is next door" James said, muffled, due to his body laying face first on top of the bed.
James pushed himself up and turned to me with a serious expression, he hadn't looked this serious since the Quidditch game.
"Sirius's is across from mine, and if you're going to do the nasty"
"That won't happ-"
"PLEASE CAST MUFFLIATO" James stressed
Sirius who was leaning up against the door, looked at me peculiarly, as if he were looking for what sort of reaction I was going to have to the statement, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of being flustered.
"Noted" I said simply.
After that incredibly weird conversation the boys carried my trunk up the stairs, I crashed on the bed. Passing out immediately.
𝑆𝐼𝑅𝐼𝑈𝑆-
I woke up late, buried in silk sheets, to pounding on my door.
I was incredibly irritated. Everyone knows I hate being woken up, but of course they still insisted on doing it.
"WHAT IS IT!" I shouted from my bed
"Get up mate!" James Potter yelled
"Fuck off Prongs!"
"Is that any way to speak to your best friend!" He shouted from outside the door.
I groaned in response.
"Are you decent?" He asked me, opening the door with his hands over his eyes, I groaned once more, "are you going to care if I say no?" I asked him
"Nope"
And with that, James walked into my room, suddenly skipping with joy. He threw a throw pillow from the sofa at me and demanded once more that I get up.
"give me like 5 minutes" I told him
"You're no fun Sirius, you used to be fun"
After I heard the steps of James Potter fall to silence after leaving my room.
I got up and debated getting dressed, landing on a solid no.
Juliet had sat herself in the dining room awkwardly while James's parents asked her a bunch of questions.
She looked at me, but turned away quickly.
"She's been awfully quiet" I muttered to James as he walked by with his pancakes
He shrugged
"You're overthinking it"
Suddenly our silent morning was interrupted by a assload of knocking at the door.
I turned on my way to the table and went to open it.
When I opened the door, the faces of Lily Evans and Remus Lupin stood about 3 feet in front of me
"Moony? Evans?"
"happy Christmas!" Remus yelled, immediately hugging me tightly
"What are you doing here?"
"We're moving in, well just until after Christmas. James invited us!"
Remus shouted joyously
"I debated coming, but it was better than Christmas with Petunia and her ugly boyfriend" Lily told me
"Come in!"
Remus noticed Juliet immediately, the girl struggled to put down her pancakes quickly and ran into his arms.
Remus spun her around and she ruffled his hair playfully.
I narrowed my eyes, but shook myself out of it.
Lily and James did an awkward half hug turned high-five thing and I almost bursted out laughing.
Juliet was just beaming with joy, she looked even happier than James who might as well been bouncing off the walls, my hope for the holiday season seemed to return looking at the majority of my friends in one place, spending the holidays together.
That was until Remus pulled out matching jumpers for all of us...
"You've got to be kidding me moony!"
"Look! Our names are on the back!"
Remus turned mine around, knitted into the back was "Padfoot"
"You're joking?" Juliet asked
"Nope" Remus threw me my jumper and handed Juliet one.
she turned it around and laughed at the large word "Crescent" on the back
Even Lily got one, hers had said "flower" on it, which Remus must have thought was the cutest thing on earth, I wouldn't be surprised if it was Peter who helped him decide on the designs.
𝐽𝑈𝐿𝐼𝐸𝑇-
Things were looking up.
I had hope that Christmas wouldn't totally suck now that my favourite people were all here.
I pulled my new "jumper" over my head, messing my hair up immensely.
I snuck upstairs passed the chaotically loud group up to my bedroom to fix my hair and unpack a bit.
"Don't think I didn't see you sneak off Crescent"
I turned to see Sirius standing in the doorway wearing his black coloured knit sweatshirt, I'd noticed that Sirius must have gotten a haircut when he got here because his hair looked really good, it was still scruffy but much shorter, it made him look happier in a way, more put together.
"Maybe I was just setting a trap, luring you up here" I told him, while pulling my hair up into a ponytail
I looked at myself in the mirror, examining my features excessively.
Sirius showed up behind me in the mirror, barely in frame due to his height.
"Damn I'm hot" he said, looking down at himself, sleeking back his black hair.
"Or just egotistical" I told him
"Oh look you're there too" he joked
I turned around and pushed him backwards
"In case you were wondering, I didn't miss you" I told him proudly, although this was a total lie
"Oh I'm sure, I'm guessing Regulus was just excellent company" he joked
"He wasn't the worst, not nearly as intolerable as I thought"
Despite his jokes Sirius looked a little discouraged, maybe a little jealous, after all his relationship with his brother was almost entirely built on jealousy at the moment, as I'd already determined.
"Don't look at me like that, nows not the time to be envious of your brother"
"I'm not envious of him" Sirius retorted.
"Yes you are, don't pretend you're not, you're more honest than he is, I assume I won't have to force it out of you like I did to him"
"Did you torture my brother?" He asked, confused
"Nope, just over analyzed him"
"Come on sad boy, I'm here now, This Christmas is going to be great" I assured Sirius, wrapping my arms around his neck, I suppose I was just testing the waters.
"You've got that right"
"What do you have planned Dog-star" I asked him suspiciously
"Nothing, nothing" he tried to reassure me.
———————————————————
We spent the majority of Christmas Eve day having a giant snowball fight in the backyard of James's house, the snow was thick and hard to walk through, Sirius laughed when I fell face first into the snow.
Remus had exceptionally good aim, he teamed up with Lily and together they were excellent strategists which left James, Sirius, and I running around like idiots dodging snow balls and accidentally running into each other
"We Surrender!" James yelled, practically crying with exhaustion and tossing himself into the snow.
"Mate! Are you kidding? We can't let them win!" Sirius yelled
"There's no winning" I told him, tossing myself just as James had into the snow
"Victory is ours!" Remus yelled, jumping up and down enthusiastically, that was short lived when Sirius tackled him like a wrestler.
Lily laughed and corrected him "don't you mean, victory is mine"
After coming inside, we all downed hot chocolates except Sirius who just pulled out a flask.
That man really has a drinking problem doesn't he.
The rest of the afternoon was quiet, Remus went up to his room to read and Lily and James disappeared upstairs which Sirius and I thought was incredibly suspicious.
I retreated to my bedroom where I got extremely bored.
I walked down the hall, listening into James's room quickly for any noise, but there was dead silence
I knocked on Sirius's door softly snd heard a mumble of "come in! Unless you're James"
𝑆𝐼𝑅𝐼𝑈𝑆-
I laid in my bed, staring at the ceiling while I thought about the dumbest of things, after a knock at my door, Juliet walked in nervously saying
"Definitely not James"
I smiled
"What's up?" I asked her
"I'm bored, everyone ran off to do their own thing"
She frowned at that.
"You're pathetic? Did you know"
"You've told me that before, yes" she responded
"Fine, come here" I told her, tossing up my sheets to she could get in.
She stopped dead in her tracks staring at the fact that I had no top on, had she really not noticed?
She climbed in the bed after a few moments of shock and laid herself on my chest, he head rested just underneath of my chin.
We laid like that in bed for most of the night, having casual conversations about James and lily, about my family and how it was after I left, she told me that She finally got a look at the family tapestry and my burnt out photo, she'd said that she only saw it as a good thing.
When the house got silent, with zero sounds of shuffled walking downstairs.
Juliet was still in my arms, I thought she might have been asleep until she began to speak.
"Hey Sirius?" she asked me
"Yeah?"
"what do your tattoos mean"
She guided her warm finger tiredly down my chest, pointing to a tattoo near my ribs
"Aeternum" I muttered
"It means forever in Latin."
"You speak Latin?" She asked
"No, I speak French, but Remus does, even if he only uses it to read really old books. he taught James and I some. It's supposed to symbolize our friendship"
She smiled.
"I like when you speak French, it sounds ridiculous coming out of your mouth." She revealed
"Vraiment?" I teased her.
"Yes, really"
Her finger made its way towards a rune on my chest. "And this one?"
"Chaos"
"Why?"
"Because that's what I seem to cause isn't it? Chaos."
"I suppose you're right about that, but I don't see it as a bad thing."
Those words seemed to warm the feeling of emptiness I always carried.
"I don't see it as a bad thing"
Juliet may always think of me as immature and childish and of course she was right.
But in the end I suppose she saw me as more than that.
𝐽𝑈𝐿𝐼𝐸𝑇-
I seemed to have passed out last night,
The morning came with a bright white light flooding through the window followed by a wake up call who burst into the room, I quickly realized where I was when I took notice to the scent that engulfed me, I was still in Sirius's room, buried under comfortable silk covers next to him.
"MERRY CHRISTMAS MATE" he yelled
He soon realized I was there when I said
"James shut up, it's early"
"Juliet?"
"Merry Christmas James" I muttered
"Why are you- you know what, I don't want to know." James stated.
"Merry Christmas Prongs" Sirius said tiredly
"Come on get ready you two!" James yelled
James liked Christmas, it was all he'd been talking about since the end of November.
He seemed especially energized today.
I knew I didn't.
I'd had the perfect Christmas Eve with Sirius, much better then I thought it would be.
Considering I believed I'd be waking up to Regulus's snarky comments right about now.
But instead I was with my friends, and whatever Sirius was to me.
I got up, and stretched my body out.
I realized quickly that I was wearing his shirt, I remembered that walking over to his wardrobe last night and flicking through all the black band tee shirts, he had a lot of them.
Sirius stared at me intently, a smirk upon his face, I wondered if Sirius thought I was a tease, the girl who'd only just kissed him.
I pushed the thought away.
"Are you just going to stare or are you going to get out of your bed?"
"Alright bossy"
I descended the stairs and Lily handed me a mug of hot chocolate, she seemed chipper too.
She kept glancing over at James, her cheeks grew a distinct shade of red.
James looked back at her blushing the same way.
I turned to Sirius, who looked back at me, and then we both looked towards Lily and James who were now trying awfully hard not to make eye contact.
"Something happened" I told him surely
"Mhm..." Sirius muttered
I squealed and Sirius quickly put his hand over my mouth.
We all sat on the couch together, James was on the floor ripping apart gifts while Remus watched with his coffee in hand from behind the sofa, like a respectable father, which we loved to joke with him about.
Sirius sat next to me, upside down on the couch, he could never sit still
I kept dropping holiday chocolates into his mouth, which he caught with exceptional accuracy.
James opened up all sorts of things, Sirius gifted him hair gel as a joke towards the fact that James's hair had a mind of his own.
Lily bought him a focus potion for his quidditch games, which she assured after reading the Quidditch handbook, was perfectly legal.
Remus gave James a whole load of chocolate which he hid around his house, we had to all go on what was practically an Easter hunt to find them.
I'd enchanted a pair of his glasses to never break and gave them to him, his parents were thankful for that one.
Sirius received gifts from all of us too, including James's parents.
We all laughed and drank our respective drinks over all the gag-gifts.
Lily had gifted Sirius a large painting of the photograph she took at the gala of us. She thought it was a rather hilarious idea knowing full well Sirius didn't like photos or dancing, especially not a blown up image of both those things.
I didn't know how I felt about that painting, it made the idea of Sirius and I seem much more real than I was ready for us to be.
Sirius laughed at it, shaking his head at Lily.
"Can I burn it?" I joked
"No! That's excellent photography right there!" Lily exclaimed
after we were all done opening gifts
we started talking about all the stupid things James had done growing up, all the pranks Remus bailed Sirius and James out of, and secretly masterminded.
James's parents had decided to go into the kitchen to make breakfast and we all sat around the living room, talking and simply enjoying the morning.
"Juliet" James called
"There's one here for you" he told me, looking under the tree.
Sirius smiled as James handed me the small box shaped gift.
"It's from me" Sirius blurted.
"Sirius, is something going to jump out at me because I'm not opening this if it is"
"I thought we were over that" He told me
"I wouldn't put it past you"
"That's probably smart, but Seriously just open it"
I unwrapped it quickly and was greeted by an ornate box, I pulled it opened and stared down at the prettiest necklace I'd ever seen.
It was completely different than most jewelry I'd seen women wearing in the streets and magazines, it wasn't loud or bright, or even big.
It was a small, almost dainty gold chain with a pendant of the "canis major" constellation on it.
I looked back at Sirius and remembered our first astronomy class when he had asked me what my favourite star was.
I had thought he was trying to mess with me or be sarcastic at the time. Even if he had been.
He remembered it and the poor guy probably had to ask Remus what constellation that was in.
James's parents came in and insisted that they take a photo for us.
We all piled onto the sofa, I still sat next to Sirius, who had his arm around me now, James was next to him making a stupid expression.
Lily smiled next to James, trying to suppress her laughter.
Remus stood behind the couch, leaning over between James and Sirius.
After a few photos were snapped, most of which included us messing around
I ran upstairs for my marker and marked my favourite photo "Christmas at the Potters 1976"