Christmas matchmaking

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The months passed more quickly until before anyone quite knew it Christmas was upon them. The Lupin cottage was alive with chaos in the form of one, Sirius Orion Black. Later they would be joining the Weasleys at the burrow but for now their own festivities were underway. Nuntis stumbled into the room gesturing rudely at Sirius for waking her. Remus sat drowsily on the sofa, hardly noticing when a mug of warm cocoa was pressed into his hand. Caelen for her part was just as excited as Sirius and the duo rushed around delivering gifts to their intended recipients and throwing bits of tinsel and Christmas baubles at one another.

Fetching the tree had been an ordeal in and of itself. Sirius, insisting it would be his first Christmas as a free man in an inordinate amount of time, wanted the largest tree he could find. Remus's points that the cottage was not in fact big enough to accommodate the tree Sirius wanted hadn't deterred him in the least. The resulting compromise was, in Remus's opinion, nothing short of garish. The tree in question stood just barely six feet tall and was positively drooping under the weight of too many decorations. Nearly daily since its arrival in the cottage Sirius and Caelen could be found in the kitchen popping popcorn to string, baking gingerbread men for hanging, or glueing and painting random things until every branch had at least three separate decorations hanging from their ends. One cold morning the week before Christmas had seen Sirius struggling to tie a gnome, adorned with tiny Santa hat and makeshift cotton ball beard, to the top of the tree. The previous adornment, a silver metal star, lay where it had been flung on the sofa.

It had become a bit of a game since then Caelen would climb onto whatever piece of furniture she could push over and feed the little creature bits of Christmas goodies. While Nuntis, insistent that Santa's hat should be green, spent her days changing the color. Sirius on the other hand refused to celebrate with a, "slytherin Santa!", and would change it back as often as he noticed.

Remus was startled from where he'd been dozing when Caelen pounced excitedly into his lap. Sirius turned away to hide his laughter as Remus grunted in surprise. "Hello cub," The man murmured as he brushed his daughter's hair back gently, "happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas daddy," Caelen greeted in return, a small contented smile gracing her lips. "We've passed all the presents out," she indicated a small pile next to Remus's feet.

"So you have, shall we-"

"-Caelen first!" Sirius interrupted scooping the girl into his arms and spinning her around the room to where he'd piled her gifts. "Here puppy try this one."

Caelen tore the paper away excitedly. She wasn't certain what she'd been gifted but anything she didn't know about resulted in quality time with the ones she loved and that was always a welcome present. She squealed happily earning fond smiles and laughter from the adults in the room.

"It's a Walkman," Sirius informed tugging his goddaughter into his lap, "see these go on like this," he explained placing the headphones over the girl's ears gently. He fiddled with the buttons until music began playing quietly through the machine. "You won't be able to take it to Hogwarts when you go, magic interferes with muggle things, but I wanted you to have it."

Caelen smiled tucking herself deeper into her Uncle's embrace as she listened happily to the cassette.

"And now that you've effectively captured her full attention away from the rest of us," Remus began with a soft chuckle, "we'd best finish opening these hadn't we?"

Caelen passed her new music player to Sirius for safe keeping before running over to her father and pulling a present from his pile. "Open this one daddy, uncle Sirius bought the frame but I made it. It's our pack! You're the big wolf there, uncle Sirius is the doggy obviously, I'm the smallest wolf between you and uncle Sirius and aunt Nuntis is the wolf next to you!" She pointed them out individually.

Lupin's cub (Remus Lupin's Unknown daughter)Where stories live. Discover now