Presented as the contents of an old shoebox under Remus Lupin's bed, The Shoebox Project tells the story of Marauders-era Hogwarts through letters, photographs, and diary entries.
"This story will lift you up and make your life a little better, and...
Part Eighteen: December, 1976. One Invitation, A New Flat, Cockroaches, and Christmas Spirit.
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"Sirius," Remus says, "the mistletoe in your bathroom is trying to kill me." He pauses for a moment, to reflect on the oddity of the sentence, and then shrugs it off as part and parcel of displaying Christmas Spirit. It doesn't dismiss the fact that the mistletoe -- growing wild between the few forlorn tiles in Sirius' bathroom -- went for the ankles and, after formulating a better battle tactic, attempted instead to gnaw off his toes.
Sirius, who has donned a rakishly angled red hat with an enormous, shedding white pom-pom, waves his hand dismissively. "You know mistletoe," he says. Remus gives him a look. "Well, there was an accident," he admits. "I wanted them fresh, more feisty that way, but then a pot spilled, didn't get to it right away -- anyway, it doesn't matter.
It's Christmas! Have some pudding."
"How you can think of pudding," Remus mumbles, "when I was nearly killed–" "Oh, it won't kill you," Sirius says cheerfully. "It just holds you there for hours waiting for someone else to come along so it can have its perverted way with the both of you. I was on the toilet for half a day before the landlord heard my screaming."
"That must have been perfectly earth-shattering experience for both of you," Remus says, rather shaken. He recallsSirius' landlord: a man with the general shape, coloration and demeanor of an angry lemon. The idea of his force- kissing Sirius in a toilet is simultaneously horrifying and intriguing and one which he will spend many hours mentally scrubbing from his subconscious for years to come, while the sight of mistletoe only revives it in the very back of his mind, resulting in a perpetual holiday agitation.
"We do not speak of the outcome," Sirius says. "It is That of Which We Do Not Speak. Oh come on, have a pudding, you've been looking even more like a weed than usual lately. Peter's already had three!" "Ungh," Peter agrees from the couch. The couch is the only piece of furniture in the living room, unless one considers the enormous Yule log humming away merrily in the fireplace.
As Peter shifts and makes sounds reminiscent of large, blubbery, dying creatures, the cushions let out an equal groan: of pain, of turmoil, of desperation to escape. Remus touches his fingers to his forehead in a silent salute. The poor couch never had a chance. Springs collapsed, frame shattered, cushions carved forever into the shape of Peter's backside, insult will later be added to injury when at least three pints of eggnog will be spilled on it in what Sirius labels "general festivities" and the police more appropriately title "indecent exposure."
"What are you doing, Moony, man?" Sirius asks. "You look mad. Here: take this. Pudding!" "If I'm mad, it's because your mistletoe is diseased," Remus mutters, but takes the offered pudding as a sign of peace on earth and good will to men.
