Remus was allowed to spend the Christmas holidays at Hogwarts as long as he came home for Christmas Day, which he happily agreed to. He wanted to see his grandparents and his aunt and uncle, but he also wanted to spend the holidays with his friends, so it was a good compromise. Sirius was staying, and so was James while his parents went away. With a bit of convincing, Peter was able to join them, so it was a fun atmosphere. All four of them together, without lessons and without homework.
In fact, it was quite a full school that year, mostly down to those with muggle families or family members, because tensions outside of Hogwarts were starting to get increasingly prevalent. Muggle attacks were becoming more frequent, and Lord Voldemort's followers were getting more and more restless. People stayed at Hogwarts for their own safety. Tobin was one of those people, and Owain and Jethro stayed behind so they could all stay together, so the Gryffindor second year dorm room was completely full. Lily was another muggleborn who was staying at Hogwarts for her own safety, although she walked around more nervously these days, worried about her own family who didn't have the safety of Hogwarts to protect them.
Remus, therefore, allowed her refuge in the group of boys so she could be distracted by their own activities. It offered her a chance to get to know the others more, rather than just Remus. She got on well with Peter, and Sirius somewhat, although she had admitted to Remus once that she basically saw Sirius and James as clones of each other.
"Too confident for their own good," was her conclusion. Remus couldn't help but agree, but in more of a fond way than Lily. It was true, after all, that they were usually the loudest in whatever group of people they were in. They were also the most competitive. When Jethro set up a game of spin the dreidel, the two got pretty heated over it. They were all using knuts as game pieces, and every time Sirius and James had to either put a knut in the pot or take one out, everyone in the near vicinity knew about it.
That being said, their shouts eventually become unnoticeable, since they were playing in the Great Hall and it piqued the interest of people sitting around doing nothing. According to Jethro, there was essentially an unlimited amount of players allowed, so by the time the students had to disperse to their dorms at least twenty people were partaking, and everyone was getting invested, shouting over each other's heads. Various cheers and groans went up from the group whenever someone won a round, which happened when someone span the dreidel and it landed on the Hebrew letter gimel (which Jethro said meant "everything"). When that happened, the person got everything in the pot. James managed it a few times, and hardly anyone lost because there were eventually so many pieces that it was difficult to lose all of them.
Sirius lost, but he begged Remus for a loan, and Remus couldn't exactly refuse because he and Sirius (and Peter and James) were on an unspoken team of their own. If any of them asked for a loan, they had to agree. So Remus gave him half his pieces, which only ended up being two. Sirius landed on the letter meaning "put in" twice, and he quickly lost his remaining pieces. He was the only one there to have lost twice, but he still had James and Peter as a back up, so he managed to remain in the game until it ended. He even ended up with quite a few knuts.
The ultimate winner, who was the person who won the round before six o'clock and before they were all ushered out of the hall, was the Gryffindor prefect Arthur Weasley. He left with fifteen knuts and looked very proud of himself, puffing his chest out in a rather comical fashion.
***
The first full moon after the others found out that Remus was a werewolf was at the end of December, a few days after Christmas. Remus had spent the day with his family, and luckily there were no arguments this year. Now that his parents were living apart, they were able to be amiable on the days they did spend together, so Remus could enjoy his Christmas at least. He did miss the others though, and he had to wait until the next day to give them presents. His gift to Sirius was a portable radio, which aunt Selene had charmed so that it worked in Hogwarts. Remus turned it over to Radio 1, which played all the current songs for Sirius to keep up with.
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Boys Will Be Bugs
Fanfic[REUPLOAD] Remus Lupin has more than one secret, and there's no way of knowing who he can trust. All he has are his parents, but they can't protect him when he goes off to Hogwarts. But then Remus meets a boy and his two other friends, and soon real...
