Fic: Deck the Halls for Peskywhistpaw
Title: Deck the Halls
Author: brighty18
Recipient: peskywhistpaw
Rating: PG-13
Highlight for Warnings: *Swearing, David Sedaris references, cultural insensitivity, tacky décor, Gone With the Wind references, silliness, etc.*
Word Count: about 2,200
Summary: Remus decorates, Sirius frets, and an old enemy returns.
Author’s notes: This story refers to THIS and THIS, but it is hardly necessary to read them to understand. And a huge Merry Christmas to peskywhistpaw. This is silly and based on your second prompt; I really hope you like it!
The last thing Sirius heard as he walked out the door was the dim rustle of aging newspaper as Remus rummaged about in the cardboard boxes - most of which had been sent over from the Potters. Today was meant to be an exceptional day and Christmas was, as always, an exceptional season! Unlike Sirius, who actually enjoyed cooking (Night of the Undead Soufflé aside), and genuinely cared about decorating (damn, but that fuzzy, zebra-striped rug pulled the whole room together), Remus took little to no interest in domesticity. He could happily live in the chaos of unwashed teacups and mis-matched furniture. He failed to notice the irony of the fanged-carrot-printed curtains at the kitchen window and had been known to eat the same, tasteless meal - dry toast and cheap, tinned stew - for days on end if Sirius did not intervene with a roast, a bottle of merlot, and his exceptional culinary skills. The fact remained that, despite Remus’ wit, kindness, and truly phenomenal arse, he was, as a domestic partner, an utter domestic failure.
Until today.
Motivated, perhaps, by some small amount of guilt at the fact that he virtually never washed a dish or raised his wand for a cleaning spell, Remus had suddenly offered to decorate the house for Christmas whilst Sirius slaved away at his dull-as-dust job in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. In a perfect world, Sirius would have been perfectly happy to let Remus work outside the home while he stayed home doing projects, preparing elaborate dinners, and testing out new color schemes for the living room, but the Ministry and their misguided dedication to persecuting adorably bookish werewolves made that impossible. So Sirius was left to both bring home and cook the proverbial bacon, while Remus puttered about the house reading books and making messes. Well, when Remus was actually home, that is. Too often of late, he’d been sent gallivanting around the world on super secret Order missions, leaving Sirius to stew in his own sadness and perfect his recipe for raspberry trifle.
The first owl arrived around nine in the morning, just as Sirius was finishing his first cup of coffee. Smiling, Sirius removed the scroll from Balthazar’s leg, and sent the brown barn owl on his way.
Darling, Padfoot,
Fabian just delivered the tree… and it’s HUGE.
Love,
Remus
The next owl, Melchior, arrived about a half-hour later…
Padfoot -
Opened the boxes from the Potters. Found a smallish bag of stuff from school, too. Did you know we had mistletoe? Think it’s left over from Gryffindor.
Holiday cheer and decorative hopes,
Remus
Though later he would come to regret it, Sirius was so immersed in the pile of Magical Spreadsheets (detailing the age, markings, personality quirks, and gender of each Jarvey sold in Britain for the past decade) that he failed utterly to recognize the potential danger involved in that particular missive. Instead, he quickly scribbled a short reply…
Ooooh, mistletoe! One can never go wrong with a plant that demands physical affection, can one? Hang it over the bed, I say!
Little did he know of what holiday horrors were in store.
Forty-three minutes later, Caspar, the snowy owl, arrived.
Any preferences on a theme, love? The Potters sent over quite a selection, but I was wondering if you’d prefer something clever and fun or elegant and understated. Maybe a bird theme? Rainbows? Explosives? Snowflakes? Bondage paraphernalia? The tree is our holiday oyster ripe for the picking!
- Remus
Ignoring the questionable (and utterly unRemus-like) mixed metaphor, Sirius put quill to parchment as Caspar waited, impatiently pecking at the crystal candy dish on his desk.
Dearest Moony,
As tempting as a kinky conifer might be, we must not forget that we agreed to host this year’s Order Christmas party. Remember Minerva’s near-apoplexy when she inadvertently wandered into the spare room at your birthday bash? It might be best to avoid a repeat of that performance. That aside, it’s all you! Cheers!
Sirius paused for a moment, sucking thoughtfully on the tip of his quill. His childhood Christmases had been fraught with perfectly placed decorations in a subdued and nearly monochromatic palette of white, silver, and crystal spread upon a sea of pine. So dull, it was!
PS Other than Peter’s rather questionable choice of tree topper last year (I still cannot believe he was too innocent to recognize a glow-in-the-dark sex toy when he saw it), I’m quite in favor of letting your imagination run wild. Go for it!
Much later, he would come to regret those words - especially when Balthazar returned with Remus’ response.
Funny, that’s what the mistletoe said as well!
Had be been thinking about his personal history - rather than dealing with a frantic Floo call about a Doxie invasion in a “house of ill repute” in Soho - that simple sentence would have sent shivers down Sirius’ spine.
The day progressed slowly as owl after owl arrived in a near constant parade of Strigiformesian Magi.
Padfoot, How many reindeer does the American Santa have?
- Remus
Eight, plus that queer, red-nosed bloke, Rudolph.
Cheers! Pads
Does the Dutch Santa have nine reindeer, too?
No, my understanding is that he’s accompanied by six to eight black men. He also travels by boat and white horse, though presumably not at the same time.
Is a Japanese Santa somehow culturally insensitive?
I’m not Japanese, but he’s an elderly fat man who enjoys small children sitting on his lap and performs yearly home invasions in the questionable name of gift-giving. You decide what culturally insensitive means.
And on and on it went. The final owl should have been a massive clue, but Sirius was so immersed in a long diatribe from a frizzy-haired witch from Activists Refuting Sphinx-based Entertainment (A.R.S.E.) that he hardly even thought about the potentially dangerous implications of the question scrawled across Melchior’s scroll.
The mistletoe wanted me to ask you if you could remember the spells for magicking wallpaper and making wreathes sing.
Unthinking, he scrawled back the answer whilst managing to convince the witch before him that he was as thoroughly repulsed by the use of Sphinx questions for gambling purpsoses as she was.
Finally, the clock struck six and Sirius was able to disengage himself from the tangle of tedious parchment work and mind-numbing client tirades. Though a light snow was falling, the evening was relatively comfortable (for a London December), so Sirius decided to walk the ten blocks to their cozy flat in a half-Muggle, half-Magic neighborhood. Along the way, he thought about Remus, who, despite being entirely unable to cook as much as a decent soft-boiled egg, was truly the light of his life. The world was a brighter (though far messier and presumably less color-coordinated) place when Remus was home rather than out on some mysterious mission for the Order. Life was, in fact, better.
Sirius was still immersed in his musings when a flash of bright green light splashed across the snow of his doorstep caught his eye. This was soon followed by a rainbowed kaleidoscope of blues, reds, oranges, and purples. “What in the name of Merlin’s ball sac?” he asked under his breath as he dashed up the stairs.
Reaching the door to his flat, Sirius was accosted by an enormous, leering, holly wreath, rife with strangely cubic, ruby-red berries. “YOU’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS… WE CAN COUNT ON YOU…” it bellowed tunelessly, but Sirius just ignored it, yanking open the door with all his might.
He was greeted by a blinding array of primary colors, not to mention a cacophony of carols. “Stille Nacht,” blared from the Wizarding Wireless Console upon which was sitting a trio of scarlet-garbed fairies singing, “Feliz Navidad.” In the far corner of the room, a blindingly white, seven-foot tall snowman played, “Winter Wonderland,” on the bag-pipes whilst rotating slowly on a bed of silver-tinseled evergreens. Neon-hued cherubs bearing candles flitted across the ceiling trilling “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” in a variety of Southeast Asian and North African languages.
And then there was the tree, a towering monstrosity of spinning bulbs and singing fairies interspersed with a retina-searing array of rainbow lights. Squinting against the colorful onslaught, Sirius was able to discern a dizzying garland of flags and banners rotating itself across branches. “Leave it to Remus to go for an international theme,” he growled, batting aside a particularly aggressive blue cherub.
“Don’t look directly at the snowman!” Remus cautioned from the corner, “I suspect it might cause severe eye damage.”
“Is there anything in here that wouldn’t?” asked Sirius, taking in the rest of the room. He allowed himself a surreptitious peek at wallpaper and shuddered. What was once a tasteful expanse of textured black and white linen, was now crazed landing path for a bewildering array of sleigh-driving, racially diverse Father Christmases, including a rather problematic Hasidic version wearing a fur-trimmed yarmulke. “Now that is culturally insensitive,” he declared.
Remus said nothing, but made a slight squeaking noise as he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
Following Remus’ gaze, Sirius spotted a quivering mass of giggling vegetation. The mistletoe! The most cold-hearted, revenge-obsessed example of Viscum album magicalis ever to grace the earth. Sirius remembered well their years of magical and psychological warfare; it was not something one could forget. “Well, if isn’t our old nemesis, GT-507,” he spat.
“Enjoying your Christmas cheer, you Vainglorious Nutcase?” sneered the vile, holiday parasite. “I’ve been hiding in that dusty trunk all year just to get back at you and your Swotty Hypocrite of a boyfriend.”
“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” sang Remus, dazedly attempting to light a mantle candle in with his wand, but only managing to set the entire garland aflame. Clearly, he was still under a spell.
Sirius was able to douse the fire and pull Remus close without taking his eyes off the ever-angry obligate semi-parasite that still hovered near the ceiling. “Finite Incantatem,” he muttered, and Remus breathed a near-audible sigh of relief.
“Sweet Circe on toast!” he screeched looking around the room as if for the first time. “What the hell happened in here? It looks like Santa threw-up! In the name of all that is magical, please tell me that I didn’t do this.”
“It looks like Santa chucked his Psilocybin mushrooms,” Sirius clarified, “and it’s all his bloody fault.” He pointed his wand threateningly at the laughing mass of poisonous vegetation that was scowling at him from the rafters.
“GT-507! How on earth did I miss him?” groaned Remus.
“Got you when I you first opened the bag, you Swotty little Hypocrite,” the mistletoe answered gleefully. “And I won this time! I won! Now if that doesn’t make my berries glow with pride, I don’t know what would!”
“Eat snow and die,” cried Sirius, shooting a bright red ball of light toward the ceiling.
But GT-507 dodged quickly to the right, his only damage a lost tendril and a couple of singed berries. “Screw you!” he spat.
Sirius raised his wand again, and the game ensued, spells flying as the mistletoe scurried about the room, twisting and juking in a frenzied attempt to avoid certain death. Eventually Remus seemed to grow weary of watching the seemingly unwinnable battle and joined the fray. Within minutes the mistletoe was cornered, cowering pathetically between the bag-piping snowman and a particularly helpful, fuchsia cherub. “Kristus lahir di Betlehem,” it sang in a language Sirius vaguely recognized as Indonesian.
Sirius prepared for an Incendio, but paused when he felt Remus’ gentle hand on his arm.
“Wait, Pads,” he said, “In the spirit of Christmas, let’s show the bastard some mercy.”
“Mercy?” growled Sirius. “He never showed us any Christmas mercy. Or have you forgotten our little adventure with the Frog Pimp?”
“Fractured fairy tales aside, this must end somewhere.” Remus’ calm resolve seemed to permeate the entire room, overcoming the holiday tackiness and ill-advised décor.
Smitten as always, Sirius gave in. “Fine,” he sighed, “the parasite can live.”
GT-507 grunted an unintelligible response and a welcome silence flooded the room, punctuated only by a fresh round of Spanish Christmas carols from the Red Fairy Trio.
“But you must leave and never return,” said Sirius finally.
“But where will I go? What will I do?” begged the mistletoe.
“Well you can start by not quoting American movies,” suggested Remus. “but as long as we’re going that route, I’ll admit that I frankly don’t give a damn. ”
GT-507 shook with fear. “But it’s cold out there!” he whined. “And I’d have to live in a bloody tree…”
“Well, that is your ecological niche,” Sirius reminded him. “And if I recall correctly, you can provide nests for owls.”
“Hoo hoo!” chorused Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar, who’d previously been hiding in the kitchen to avoid the Christmas chaos.
Eventually, after much threatening and cajoling - not to mention a few threatening nips from Melchior - GT-507 agreed to go.
“Go bother some other fools,” shouted Sirius as they watched their multi-berried nemesis scurry off into the winter night. Satisfied with the outcome, but still dreading the inevitable clean-up of their living quarters, he turned to find Remus sprawled out on the sofa, nose buried in a discarded copy of Witch Weekly.
“I hope you’re searching for more decorating ideas to repair this mess,” Sirius began with a laugh.
“Mess? What mess?” asked Remus, patting the sofa next to him and giving Sirius that wolf-eyed look he knew well was irresistible.
And, so, on that cold December night, Sirius gave up on his hopes of a tasteful Christmas. Visions of homemade sugarplums no longer danced in his head alongside trendy wreathes and tasteful table arrangements. Instead, the snowman blinded, the fairies sang their multi-linguistic mélange, and the myriad of questionably appropriate Father Christmases drove their snow-based vehicles across what was once Sirius’ favorite wallpaper. And yet none of it mattered. Remus was home and snuggled by his side, the very definition of true domesticity.
Author: brighty18
Recipient: peskywhistpaw
Rating: PG-13
Highlight for Warnings: *Swearing, David Sedaris references, cultural insensitivity, tacky décor, Gone With the Wind references, silliness, etc.*
Word Count: about 2,200
Summary: Remus decorates, Sirius frets, and an old enemy returns.
Author’s notes: This story refers to THIS and THIS, but it is hardly necessary to read them to understand. And a huge Merry Christmas to peskywhistpaw. This is silly and based on your second prompt; I really hope you like it!
The last thing Sirius heard as he walked out the door was the dim rustle of aging newspaper as Remus rummaged about in the cardboard boxes - most of which had been sent over from the Potters. Today was meant to be an exceptional day and Christmas was, as always, an exceptional season! Unlike Sirius, who actually enjoyed cooking (Night of the Undead Soufflé aside), and genuinely cared about decorating (damn, but that fuzzy, zebra-striped rug pulled the whole room together), Remus took little to no interest in domesticity. He could happily live in the chaos of unwashed teacups and mis-matched furniture. He failed to notice the irony of the fanged-carrot-printed curtains at the kitchen window and had been known to eat the same, tasteless meal - dry toast and cheap, tinned stew - for days on end if Sirius did not intervene with a roast, a bottle of merlot, and his exceptional culinary skills. The fact remained that, despite Remus’ wit, kindness, and truly phenomenal arse, he was, as a domestic partner, an utter domestic failure.
Until today.
Motivated, perhaps, by some small amount of guilt at the fact that he virtually never washed a dish or raised his wand for a cleaning spell, Remus had suddenly offered to decorate the house for Christmas whilst Sirius slaved away at his dull-as-dust job in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. In a perfect world, Sirius would have been perfectly happy to let Remus work outside the home while he stayed home doing projects, preparing elaborate dinners, and testing out new color schemes for the living room, but the Ministry and their misguided dedication to persecuting adorably bookish werewolves made that impossible. So Sirius was left to both bring home and cook the proverbial bacon, while Remus puttered about the house reading books and making messes. Well, when Remus was actually home, that is. Too often of late, he’d been sent gallivanting around the world on super secret Order missions, leaving Sirius to stew in his own sadness and perfect his recipe for raspberry trifle.
The first owl arrived around nine in the morning, just as Sirius was finishing his first cup of coffee. Smiling, Sirius removed the scroll from Balthazar’s leg, and sent the brown barn owl on his way.
Darling, Padfoot,
Fabian just delivered the tree… and it’s HUGE.
Love,
Remus
The next owl, Melchior, arrived about a half-hour later…
Padfoot -
Opened the boxes from the Potters. Found a smallish bag of stuff from school, too. Did you know we had mistletoe? Think it’s left over from Gryffindor.
Holiday cheer and decorative hopes,
Remus
Though later he would come to regret it, Sirius was so immersed in the pile of Magical Spreadsheets (detailing the age, markings, personality quirks, and gender of each Jarvey sold in Britain for the past decade) that he failed utterly to recognize the potential danger involved in that particular missive. Instead, he quickly scribbled a short reply…
Ooooh, mistletoe! One can never go wrong with a plant that demands physical affection, can one? Hang it over the bed, I say!
Little did he know of what holiday horrors were in store.
Forty-three minutes later, Caspar, the snowy owl, arrived.
Any preferences on a theme, love? The Potters sent over quite a selection, but I was wondering if you’d prefer something clever and fun or elegant and understated. Maybe a bird theme? Rainbows? Explosives? Snowflakes? Bondage paraphernalia? The tree is our holiday oyster ripe for the picking!
- Remus
Ignoring the questionable (and utterly unRemus-like) mixed metaphor, Sirius put quill to parchment as Caspar waited, impatiently pecking at the crystal candy dish on his desk.
Dearest Moony,
As tempting as a kinky conifer might be, we must not forget that we agreed to host this year’s Order Christmas party. Remember Minerva’s near-apoplexy when she inadvertently wandered into the spare room at your birthday bash? It might be best to avoid a repeat of that performance. That aside, it’s all you! Cheers!
Sirius paused for a moment, sucking thoughtfully on the tip of his quill. His childhood Christmases had been fraught with perfectly placed decorations in a subdued and nearly monochromatic palette of white, silver, and crystal spread upon a sea of pine. So dull, it was!
PS Other than Peter’s rather questionable choice of tree topper last year (I still cannot believe he was too innocent to recognize a glow-in-the-dark sex toy when he saw it), I’m quite in favor of letting your imagination run wild. Go for it!
Much later, he would come to regret those words - especially when Balthazar returned with Remus’ response.
Funny, that’s what the mistletoe said as well!
Had be been thinking about his personal history - rather than dealing with a frantic Floo call about a Doxie invasion in a “house of ill repute” in Soho - that simple sentence would have sent shivers down Sirius’ spine.
The day progressed slowly as owl after owl arrived in a near constant parade of Strigiformesian Magi.
Padfoot, How many reindeer does the American Santa have?
- Remus
Eight, plus that queer, red-nosed bloke, Rudolph.
Cheers! Pads
Does the Dutch Santa have nine reindeer, too?
No, my understanding is that he’s accompanied by six to eight black men. He also travels by boat and white horse, though presumably not at the same time.
Is a Japanese Santa somehow culturally insensitive?
I’m not Japanese, but he’s an elderly fat man who enjoys small children sitting on his lap and performs yearly home invasions in the questionable name of gift-giving. You decide what culturally insensitive means.
And on and on it went. The final owl should have been a massive clue, but Sirius was so immersed in a long diatribe from a frizzy-haired witch from Activists Refuting Sphinx-based Entertainment (A.R.S.E.) that he hardly even thought about the potentially dangerous implications of the question scrawled across Melchior’s scroll.
The mistletoe wanted me to ask you if you could remember the spells for magicking wallpaper and making wreathes sing.
Unthinking, he scrawled back the answer whilst managing to convince the witch before him that he was as thoroughly repulsed by the use of Sphinx questions for gambling purpsoses as she was.
Finally, the clock struck six and Sirius was able to disengage himself from the tangle of tedious parchment work and mind-numbing client tirades. Though a light snow was falling, the evening was relatively comfortable (for a London December), so Sirius decided to walk the ten blocks to their cozy flat in a half-Muggle, half-Magic neighborhood. Along the way, he thought about Remus, who, despite being entirely unable to cook as much as a decent soft-boiled egg, was truly the light of his life. The world was a brighter (though far messier and presumably less color-coordinated) place when Remus was home rather than out on some mysterious mission for the Order. Life was, in fact, better.
Sirius was still immersed in his musings when a flash of bright green light splashed across the snow of his doorstep caught his eye. This was soon followed by a rainbowed kaleidoscope of blues, reds, oranges, and purples. “What in the name of Merlin’s ball sac?” he asked under his breath as he dashed up the stairs.
Reaching the door to his flat, Sirius was accosted by an enormous, leering, holly wreath, rife with strangely cubic, ruby-red berries. “YOU’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS… WE CAN COUNT ON YOU…” it bellowed tunelessly, but Sirius just ignored it, yanking open the door with all his might.
He was greeted by a blinding array of primary colors, not to mention a cacophony of carols. “Stille Nacht,” blared from the Wizarding Wireless Console upon which was sitting a trio of scarlet-garbed fairies singing, “Feliz Navidad.” In the far corner of the room, a blindingly white, seven-foot tall snowman played, “Winter Wonderland,” on the bag-pipes whilst rotating slowly on a bed of silver-tinseled evergreens. Neon-hued cherubs bearing candles flitted across the ceiling trilling “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” in a variety of Southeast Asian and North African languages.
And then there was the tree, a towering monstrosity of spinning bulbs and singing fairies interspersed with a retina-searing array of rainbow lights. Squinting against the colorful onslaught, Sirius was able to discern a dizzying garland of flags and banners rotating itself across branches. “Leave it to Remus to go for an international theme,” he growled, batting aside a particularly aggressive blue cherub.
“Don’t look directly at the snowman!” Remus cautioned from the corner, “I suspect it might cause severe eye damage.”
“Is there anything in here that wouldn’t?” asked Sirius, taking in the rest of the room. He allowed himself a surreptitious peek at wallpaper and shuddered. What was once a tasteful expanse of textured black and white linen, was now crazed landing path for a bewildering array of sleigh-driving, racially diverse Father Christmases, including a rather problematic Hasidic version wearing a fur-trimmed yarmulke. “Now that is culturally insensitive,” he declared.
Remus said nothing, but made a slight squeaking noise as he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
Following Remus’ gaze, Sirius spotted a quivering mass of giggling vegetation. The mistletoe! The most cold-hearted, revenge-obsessed example of Viscum album magicalis ever to grace the earth. Sirius remembered well their years of magical and psychological warfare; it was not something one could forget. “Well, if isn’t our old nemesis, GT-507,” he spat.
“Enjoying your Christmas cheer, you Vainglorious Nutcase?” sneered the vile, holiday parasite. “I’ve been hiding in that dusty trunk all year just to get back at you and your Swotty Hypocrite of a boyfriend.”
“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” sang Remus, dazedly attempting to light a mantle candle in with his wand, but only managing to set the entire garland aflame. Clearly, he was still under a spell.
Sirius was able to douse the fire and pull Remus close without taking his eyes off the ever-angry obligate semi-parasite that still hovered near the ceiling. “Finite Incantatem,” he muttered, and Remus breathed a near-audible sigh of relief.
“Sweet Circe on toast!” he screeched looking around the room as if for the first time. “What the hell happened in here? It looks like Santa threw-up! In the name of all that is magical, please tell me that I didn’t do this.”
“It looks like Santa chucked his Psilocybin mushrooms,” Sirius clarified, “and it’s all his bloody fault.” He pointed his wand threateningly at the laughing mass of poisonous vegetation that was scowling at him from the rafters.
“GT-507! How on earth did I miss him?” groaned Remus.
“Got you when I you first opened the bag, you Swotty little Hypocrite,” the mistletoe answered gleefully. “And I won this time! I won! Now if that doesn’t make my berries glow with pride, I don’t know what would!”
“Eat snow and die,” cried Sirius, shooting a bright red ball of light toward the ceiling.
But GT-507 dodged quickly to the right, his only damage a lost tendril and a couple of singed berries. “Screw you!” he spat.
Sirius raised his wand again, and the game ensued, spells flying as the mistletoe scurried about the room, twisting and juking in a frenzied attempt to avoid certain death. Eventually Remus seemed to grow weary of watching the seemingly unwinnable battle and joined the fray. Within minutes the mistletoe was cornered, cowering pathetically between the bag-piping snowman and a particularly helpful, fuchsia cherub. “Kristus lahir di Betlehem,” it sang in a language Sirius vaguely recognized as Indonesian.
Sirius prepared for an Incendio, but paused when he felt Remus’ gentle hand on his arm.
“Wait, Pads,” he said, “In the spirit of Christmas, let’s show the bastard some mercy.”
“Mercy?” growled Sirius. “He never showed us any Christmas mercy. Or have you forgotten our little adventure with the Frog Pimp?”
“Fractured fairy tales aside, this must end somewhere.” Remus’ calm resolve seemed to permeate the entire room, overcoming the holiday tackiness and ill-advised décor.
Smitten as always, Sirius gave in. “Fine,” he sighed, “the parasite can live.”
GT-507 grunted an unintelligible response and a welcome silence flooded the room, punctuated only by a fresh round of Spanish Christmas carols from the Red Fairy Trio.
“But you must leave and never return,” said Sirius finally.
“But where will I go? What will I do?” begged the mistletoe.
“Well you can start by not quoting American movies,” suggested Remus. “but as long as we’re going that route, I’ll admit that I frankly don’t give a damn. ”
GT-507 shook with fear. “But it’s cold out there!” he whined. “And I’d have to live in a bloody tree…”
“Well, that is your ecological niche,” Sirius reminded him. “And if I recall correctly, you can provide nests for owls.”
“Hoo hoo!” chorused Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar, who’d previously been hiding in the kitchen to avoid the Christmas chaos.
Eventually, after much threatening and cajoling - not to mention a few threatening nips from Melchior - GT-507 agreed to go.
“Go bother some other fools,” shouted Sirius as they watched their multi-berried nemesis scurry off into the winter night. Satisfied with the outcome, but still dreading the inevitable clean-up of their living quarters, he turned to find Remus sprawled out on the sofa, nose buried in a discarded copy of Witch Weekly.
“I hope you’re searching for more decorating ideas to repair this mess,” Sirius began with a laugh.
“Mess? What mess?” asked Remus, patting the sofa next to him and giving Sirius that wolf-eyed look he knew well was irresistible.
And, so, on that cold December night, Sirius gave up on his hopes of a tasteful Christmas. Visions of homemade sugarplums no longer danced in his head alongside trendy wreathes and tasteful table arrangements. Instead, the snowman blinded, the fairies sang their multi-linguistic mélange, and the myriad of questionably appropriate Father Christmases drove their snow-based vehicles across what was once Sirius’ favorite wallpaper. And yet none of it mattered. Remus was home and snuggled by his side, the very definition of true domesticity.