See The Rainbows In My Eyes

Goodbye Brother

Wednesday 24th December 1975

Sirius woke up that hazy Christmas Eve morning in complete darkness. Rain pattered against his window and the sky rolled in thick grey clouds, fluffy like cotton that shielding the sun. He would've mistaken the day for night and continued to sleep if his mother's screeching voice wasn't ordering people around downstairs.

"Espèce d'idiote! I said silver. Pas d'or, ARGENT!" Her words were tight and strained, throat presumably dry from an early morning of yelling.

"Oui madame, Oui madame," a trembling waitress assured.

"Oh don't oui madame me." Sirius could picture the mocking contortion of her face. "Take out the gold and replace it with silver."

There was no response, just the scurrying of shoes across the floor and more aggressive demands.

Shut up, I'm trying to sleep! But Sirius kept the words in the capacity of his head. He groaned, throwing a pillow at his door which landed with a hard thud, then a pillow over his face to drown out the noise, but nothing could silence his mother.

Today was the day he'd been dreading since the moment he'd seen his mother on the platform. Just the thought of seeing them, all of them, made Sirius sick.

One wrong move and they'd hex him on the spot. That was the thing about his family, they quite simply had no mercy or in simpler terms, did not give a shit.

Sirius yawned and got up, dread weighing his pride but in the darkness of his room, sitting at the foot of his bed, was a present. He never got presents.

The package was lopsided and a bit dented from owl talon marks, messily tapped in colourful wrapping paper of candy canes with a large red bow on top. It was a beautifully chaotic mess and he loved it.

He knew it wasn't from Andromeda, she only sent things to him when he was at Hogwarts. Then again, no package ever made its way to Sirius without going through his mother first.

He listened carefully to the outside of his room for any sounds and once confirming that no one was there, he hurriedly grabbed the present and set it on his lap.

Sirius' itching fingers gently tore apart the wrapping, then lifted the lid to a brown paper box. Inside it was a mess of red tissue paper like seas of blood but neatly placed on top was an envelope addressed to him. Sirius.

He picked it up and broke the seal. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the mayhem of slanted words and thick splotched ink on the letter, he knew who it was from. 

Happy Christmas Sirius,

Hope they haven't tortured you too badly- sorry, that was fucked up, let me restart. Hope your holidays are going well. Mum made you this when I told her you'd never had one- and yes, she also gave one to James and Peter so don't get cocky and think you're special.

Maybe next year you can spend the holidays or summer here, I know how much you love muggles and all that crap.

Try to make it back in one piece. Miss you.

-Remus

Sirius found his lips melting into a soft smile, running the pad of his thumb over the writing. Miss you too.

He set the letter aside and ventured into the tissue-filled box, hands reaching a soft webbed fabric that entangled around his fingers. Pulling it out and squinting through the dim light, Sirius couldn't help but laugh.

The sweater was knitted in thick green yarn with strings of cheap tinsel wrapping around the entire front and back. Small ornaments hung from gaps in the skitching and bulbs of multi-coloured light flickered like fireflies from amidst the tinsel. A Christmas tree.