"I'll take the breath you breath

Make the dream come true

Show me how to comfort you

Indulge me please

I'll take the breath you breath"

~ Indulge, Olive

The rest of the term went by in a blur for Sirius and before he knew it, they were halfway through the Christmas holiday. He'd been called back to Dumbledore's office to talk to Auror Moody again, but thankfully the idiot who'd been with him last time hadn't come with him again. Apparently Sirius still hadn't been all that helpful and Moody had left after only twenty minutes.

Sirius sat down for breakfast at the sole table in the Great Hall. Only six students had stayed at Hogwarts over the holiday, so the few who remained had the dubious pleasure of eating with the teachers. Sirius finally snapped out of his daze enough to realize he was the only one at the table, the only one in the Great hall for that matter. 'I didn't get up that early, did I?' He looked up at the false ceiling to see that the sun was indeed up and that the bright blue sky was blotted out on one side by the gray-white clouds that usually promised snow.

'Where is everybody?' He thought, puzzled, and then frowned. He didn't really care where 'everybody' was. Better question: Where was Remus? Sirius was always able to think better when his boyfriend was around and he smiled just thinking about him.

Truthfully not much had changed between them. It was just that it was permissible to hold hands under a desk and sneak in a kiss when no one was looking. All things he'd been doing before, he just didn't get hit for them now. And the best part was the way Remus would look at him sometimes, like he was the only thing in the world that mattered.

"There you are!" Sirius jumped as he was startled back to reality by none other that the object of him musings. "What on earth are you doing here? You haven't even opened your presents." Remus said, coming to a stop to the left of Sirius, looking rather stern as if forgetting presents was some sort of capital offence. Wait, presents…?

"Presents?" Sirius echoed, confused.

"Yes presents," Remus said, sighing in defeat and shaking his head. "I swear one of these days I'm going to track down just where it is you left your brain." He muttered, more to himself that to Sirius. "It's Christmas, you dolt. There are unopened presents sitting at the end of your bed."

"Is that were everyone is? I thought that was tomorrow," Sirius said thoughtfully as he got up from table. "I guess it's a good thing I wrapped your present a day early then," he said, smiling at Remus, who looked rather bewildered.

"You got me a present?" Remus asked, a rather endearing, lopsided smile tugging at his lips.

"Of course I got you a present," Sirius said with a laugh. "Now which one of us is being a dolt?" Remus answered by giving him a quick kiss on the lips before pulling him out of the Great Hall.

"Then lets go back to the dorm and open our presents," he said smiling. From anyone else, the tone that Remus had said that would have made it an innuendo, but Sirius knew better than to read anything but the literal into Remus' comments.

When they got to the dorm, Sirius saw that he had indeed missed the pile of brightly wrapped boxes at the end of his bed. He looked over to Remus' bed and saw three packages perched neatly on top of the trunk at the end of Remus bed, which is probably why he'd missed them earlier.

Sirius started opening his presents; chocolate frogs and dungbombs from Peter, a book of prank spells from James, various articles of wizarding clothing from his mother. But he was paying more attention to Remus and his reaction to his presents. He was apparently saving Sirius' for last. He looked puzzled at the dungbombs tucked in with the sugar quills from Peter.

"It's sort of a tradition, Peter always gets us our favorite candy from Huneyduke's and Dungbombs from Zonko's," Sirius explained. Remus smiled and opened James present. He frowned in confusion as he pulled out, what looked to Sirius like a tangle of leather and brass. Remus blinked a couple of times and then burst out laughing so hard he nearly fell off the bed.

"What is it?" Sirius asked. Remus, still laughing, hauled himself over to Sirius' bed and help up a…dog collar and leash? The part that was closest to him held a loop with a brass tag hanging off of it and with a start Sirius realized there was writing on it.

My name is:

Padfoot

My owner is:

Remus J. Lupin

And on the back was written.

If found, please:

Return me to

the Gryffindor

boy's dorm.

"T-there are instr-structions," Remus managed between chuckles, waving the parchment card that had been attached to the gift. Sirius took the card from him and read that as well, just as Remus sat down on the edge of Sirius' bed, unable to stop laughing.

~ Remus,

I hope you like the present. It's for after we do what we've been planning. (You know what I mean) This is so you can keep that overgrown puppy in line, or in case he gets lost or something. With him you never know. If he gets out of hand, just whap him on the nose with a role of parchment until he behaves.

James

P.S. - show it to him and owl me his reaction. ~

Sirius glared at the card for a few moments. He was definitely going to have to think of a way to 'welcome' James back when he returned to Hogwarts. Remus had finally gotten control of himself and was watching Sirius, smiling at him broadly. Sirius transferred his glare from the parchment to his boyfriend.

"Think this is funny, do you?" he asked, trying to look threatening and failing miserably. This, unfortunately, just set Remus off again and he fell back onto Sirius' bed, giggling helplessly.

Sirius really couldn't help himself, there was his absolutely gorgeous boyfriend, laying on his bed, hair mussed and cheeks flushed from laughter. With Remus presenting such a delectable picture nobody could really blame him for leaning over his still laughing boyfriend and kissing him soundly on the lips.

Remus' laugher cut off abruptly and was soon replaced by a low moan as he wrapped his arms around Sirius' shoulders and pulled him closer. Their lips slowly moved against each other, tongues twining down over and around one another.

Remus dug his fingers into Sirius' shoulder blades as Sirius started to kiss his way down the side of his neck. Sirius fitted himself more closely to Remus' body, loving the way the other boy shifted underneath him. He ran his hand down Remus' side and then back up and then under the pajama top that Remus hadn't bothered changing out of when he went to go find him earlier. He splayed his fingers against the warm flesh of Remus' stomach and caressed his thumb against the smooth skin.

"Stop, stop," Remus muttered, his hands no longer holding Sirius close, but pushing him away.

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked, propping himself up on his elbows and looking down at his now slightly agitated boyfriend.

"Nothing," the other boy said. "Just…" Sirius sighed and filled in the blank.

"Too far?" he asked, and Remus just nodded. Sirius was beginning to hate those words as much as he'd hated 'just friends.' That was the reason that nothing much had changed between then from when they had been just friend, every time Sirius tried to do something more Remus told him he was going 'too far.'

Sirius rolled off of him and stared at the his canopy for a moment, idly wondering if it was too early in the morning for a cold shower, But his pulse had soon slowed and the frustration soon seeped from his shoulders as he concentrated on breathing evenly and not looking at Remus.

"Sorry," Remus said as he propped himself up on his side and looked at Sirius apologetically.

"Don't be, I just got carried away," Sirius said, reaching up and tucking a strand of hair behind Remus' ear, even though it wasn't really out of place. "You're so gorgeous. Can you blame me?" Remus blushed and sat up.

"You didn't open my present," he said in a rather obvious bid to change the subject. Sirius didn't argue though, and obediently opened his present. It was a leather bound book with no title and it looked rather…familiar. Sirius stared for a moment and then looked back up at Remus.

"You're giving me your grimore?" he asked, stunned.

"I added some stuff since I let you looked at it last," Remus said, not looking at him again and twisting the duvet nervously in his hand. "Um…I couldn't think of anything else. I'm not used to getting people presents." Sirius hugged him, chuckling softly at how nervous Remus was.

"Thank you," he said, giving his boyfriend a light squeeze before sitting back. "And well, just don't be mad at me when you open your present." Remus cocked his head to the side looking puzzled. "When I got it, I thought you'd like it. But now that I've had time to think about it, you'll probably hate it." Sirius added lamely, looking rather nervous.

It was with an air of morbid curiosity that Remus went back over to his bed and picked up his last present. Paper was torn and Remus stared down into the box at his present long enough to set Sirius' nerves on edge.

"I-I guess I was thinking…that, well, if I couldn't take the real thing out of the sky for you, then it was sort of the next best thing, you know." He knew he was babbling but Remus still hadn't looked at him or said anything yet and he was beginning to think he made a rather major blunder. But then Remus looked up at him and smiled and rolled his eyes.

"I used to have one of these," Remus said as he pulled the Lunascope from its box and looked at the perfect miniature gibbous moon suspended in the glass sphere. "Do you remember what happened to it?" With a sinking feeling in his stomach Sirius shook his head. "You and James used it for Beater practice." Sirius winced, he'd had a feeling it was something like that. Remus laughed softly and moved back to Sirius' bed. "Thank you," he said, mirroring Sirius' actions earlier, but not only did he hug him, he kissed him on the cheek. Sirius sighed in relief and hugged him back.

After that they had a wonderful breakfast in the Great Hall and then went back to their dorm to plot mischief and work on the map. By the end of the Holiday they'd gotten it to show every ghost in the castle and any animal that had an IQ of over 50, which would show them both Mrs. Noris and Professor McGonagall in her animagus form. Sirius had quipped that it was a good thing that part of the spell only applied to animals or several of the Slytherins would no longer show up on the map.

And late on the last day of the holiday, James burst into the dorm room full of excitement.

Both Sirius and Remus were curled up on Remus' bed, reading. Well, Remus was reading and Sirius was just enjoying being a human blanket, reading snippets of Remus' books over his shoulder. Both boys jumped at their friends noisy entrance.

James paused for a moment, seeing the two of them wound round each other like that. He gave them an amused look.

"You guys are not going to believe what my dad got me for Christmas," James said, grinning from ear to ear. Peter walked into the room and waved and plopped his bags down on his bed.

"A new racing broom," Remus guessed, not really paying attention. "Hi Peter," he added. Sirius waved absently at the other boy.

"Nope, better," James said, still grinning. This caught their interest and both boys looked up.

"Is James still going on about his mystery present?" Peter asked, rolling his eyes. Remus nodded.

"Better? A lifetime supply of dungbombs," Sirius asked.

"Not even close," James said smugly.

"Just show us if it's so fantastic," Sirius grumbled. James seemed to have tired of the guesses anyway and reached into the bag he had slung over his shoulder and pulled out…a wad of cloth?

"What is that?" Remus asked looking at it skeptically. And Sirius would have had to agree, it didn't look all that great. James had found which way was up and let most of the fabric fall. Sirius stared at it for a moment and then looked at his best friend as if he had a few screws loose.

"James, that's a cloak," he pointed out. But this revelation didn't seem to dim James' enthusiasm one bit.

"Watch," he said and with a flourish he threw the cloak over his shoulders, pulled the hood up over his head and…disappeared.

Sirius and Remus scrambled to the end of the bed and Peter jumped and looked around wildly for James. His head reappeared a second later as he pulled back to hood and he was wearing a particularly evil grin.

"It's an invisibility cloak," he said simply. Sirius was the first to smile back just as evilly.

"How many of us can fit under there at once?" he asked, catching on to my James was so pleased with himself.

"I think it's big enough for all of us to hide under it if we're careful."

This was going to be a fun term.