CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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"WINNIE, DARLING, who is it?" her mother's voice called from the kitchen, her head peeking around the corner curiously as James and Sirius made themselves comfortable in the hallway.

"Just some friends from school," Winnie replied, directing them where to hang their coats wordlessly as she desperately hoped that her mother would leave it at that.

"I thought you said that Louise wasn't coming over for the holiday?" Eleanor pushed further, stepping out into the living room where they all now stood. Her eyes traveled to the two teenage boys standing next to her daughter attempting to shake the snow off of their heads. "Oh! And who are these young men?"

Winnie looked around awkwardly, about to introduce herself before James and Sirius stepped in themselves. "I'm Sirius," he introduced, holding his hand out for her to shake with a smile. Eleanor glanced over at Winnie in near shock before taking his hand and shaking it.

"And I'm James," James said, following suit with a handshake.

"You have a beautiful home," Sirius complimented, causing Winnie to gawk at him like he had just sprouted wings.

"Why, thank you," Eleanor accepted with a smile. "Would you like anything to drink? Milk? Eggnog? Butterbeer?"

"Milk would be lovely, Mum," Winnie told her with a nod and a grateful smile as her mother left with a quick thumbs up when James and Sirius couldn't see her. For a long time, her mother had always been worried since it seemed that to her, Louise was her only friend. And while Winnie insisted that was not true at all, Louise was the only friend that she ever had over. So she could see where her mother's concern came from.

"What in the fuck is this?" Sirius questioned, pointing at the television in her living room. Winnie rolled her eyes and walked over to where he and James were glancing at the box, confused.

"I knew you weren't that polite," she remarked, pointing out the reappearance of his foul mouth the minute her mother had left the room. Sirius feigned a wound to the chest, gripping his shirt dramatically.

"I'm wounded, Winn," he gasped. "I am always that polite. Euphemia Potter raised me right, thank you very much. Also, there's no crime in wanting to win over your mother."

Winnie furrowed her brows. "Now, why on earth —"

"I've seen these before," James interrupted, pointing to the television set with a firm nod. "The muggle moving pictures? This is how they watch them, I think."

"It's a television. You're right, James," Winnie agreed, picking up the remote and turning it on, causing Sirius to flinch next to her. "Now, I'm going to go grab our milk."

"Wait, Winnie, who's this green bloke?" James called out after her as one of the many yearly Christmas specials began to play. She shook her head and tried to keep her smile in check as she entered the kitchen.

"Thanks, Mum," she said as she picked up the glasses filled with milk and nodded at her mother.

"I'm very happy for you, darling," Eleanor gushed as she continued to make dinner. "I knew Louise was a good influence, after all."

Winnie snorted before she could stop herself. "Would it have mattered anyway?" she questioned with a slight laugh, knowing that Eleanor couldn't hate Louise if she tried. "How do you know this was her?"

Eleanor simply smiled at her daughter and shrugged. "Fair enough, fair enough," Winnie dismissed, leaving the kitchen.

When she entered the living room again, she found James and Sirius heavily invested in the television and what was transpiring on the screen. She set down the glasses on the table and began to laugh at how interested they were.

"You can't steal Christmas, what's he playing at?" Sirius asked, ignoring her laughs and she sat down in between them, attempting to explain that it was a children's cartoon.

Winnie, in hindsight, should have known what she was getting into and only realized when Sirius and James both demanded to know what a cartoon was.

About an hour into the festivities, after everyone aptly understood what a muggle cartoon was, James found himself quite distressed.

"He's just a little reindeer, why are the other ones such assholes?" he asked, sadly biting into one of the cookies he had dipped in his glass of milk.

"James are you crying?" Winnie asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. She couldn't have predicted that a reindeer getting bullied would have made him this emotional.

"No!" he denied rather loudly before adding quietly, "He's just different. Don't listen to them, Rudolph."

Winnie covered her mouth in attempts to hide her giggles, glancing over at Sirius expecting to find him just as ready to tease James about it. But he too was watching the screen in rapt attention just as James was. If she hadn't watched those specials countless times as kids, she might have held the same sort attention toward it. But Phil, growing up with a muggle born father, had retained much of what he was shown as a child.

When the special ended, Winnie grabbed the remote to turn off the television but James put up a hand shook his head vehemently, cookie in hand. "No, look, there's another one on!" he protested.

"All right, James," Winnie conceded, putting her hands up in surrender. "I'll give you one more." It was a partial lie, because she truly did not remember if there was one more after that. All of the cookies and milk had made her quite drowsy and halfway through the one about stolen Christmases, she fell asleep right there.

When Eleanor finally came in to turn off the lights, she smiled softly at the three slumped over with the dull light of the television illuminating their calm features.

__________

Feeling a dull ache in her neck, Winnie blinked a few times and realized that the source of her discomfort was a result of her head slumped awkwardly over Sirius' shoulder. Suddenly feeling quite embarrassed, she quickly corrected her posture and rubbed her neck. The nearest clock told her it was about three in the morning.

When she looked over, somehow, Sirius was grinning lazily at her. "I'm sorry," she apologized in a whisper. "For waking you up, and for..." She gestured to his shoulder, truly hoping that he couldn't see how red her cheeks were in the dark.

"Not your fault. I've been up a few times, here and there," he dismissed, looking over at the wall now instead of her. She wasn't sure why. Her eyes drifted down to James, still fast asleep on the floor on the other side of her.

Suddenly, she felt strange. That sort of feeling where it's three in the morning and life feels off yet completely right at the same time. When you're outside of the world, completely alone. Standing up, she muttered, "Don't want to wake James."

Walking into the kitchen, her bare feet tapping against the tile, she wasn't sure what she was doing, exactly. But she knew that she didn't want to go back to sleep, for whatever reason. She leaned against the counter and looked outside the window to find that it was snowing lightly outside. The world around her was grey, the moonlight reflecting on the snow.

"You alright, Winn?" Sirius' voice asked quietly from the door frame. Looking down at the tiles, she smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Can I ask you a question?" she said, looking up as he moved past the door frame next to her by the counter.

"Of course you can, darling Winnie," he responded, with that same flourish to his words that always made her unsure if he was joking or not. There was a small pause as she looked in the direction of the other room where James was still fast asleep.

"Why do you always stay with James? You never mention your family," she pointed out, finding it strange that they had both just decided to show up at her doorstep. Sirius shifted next to her and laughed, not loudly, but he laughed.

"You had every question in the world at your disposal, and you had to pick that one?" Winnie shrugged and Sirius sighed deeply. "Well, James is my family. And that's just how it's been. I do everything I can to stay away. It's a bit like Louise's situation. They're not good people."

Nodding silently, she felt as if she had overstepped her boundaries. "Can I ask you another question?"

"I only hope it's any other question in the world," he joked, not quite meeting her eyes after having spilled information she could only guess he wasn't comfortable sharing yet.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" Sirius asked, looking at her directly now with a smile, a real, genuine smile, as a light laugh escaped him.

"'Darling Winnie' and 'love'," she clarified, shifting her weight between her feet uncomfortably, suddenly doubting herself. "I don't understand it."

Sirius stepped closer by a few inches, and was now looking at her with the intensity of the sun. "I thought it would've been obvious by now, Winnie," he told her in a low voice that was barely audible.

Shrugging, she took a step closer herself. Sirius' breath caught, and he looked almost confused. Her brain didn't consider why she shouldn't, she just knew that her gut wanted her to. Closing the gap between the two, she pressed her lips against his. He responded eagerly, and she ended up so dizzy so almost forgot where she was.

And then she remembered where she was. And what she was doing.

They broke apart, breathless, and Winnie leaned her head against Sirius'. "What are we doing?" she breathed, in almost disbelief of herself.

"Nothing, if you don't want to," he responded simply, brushing her hair out of her face gently to get a better look at her expression.

"I do want to..." she began, not really sure what she was feeling since it all happened so fast. She took a hesitant step back. "But I'm not going to be one of those girls that you have a little fun with and then decide you don't want to anymore."

Winnie had heard the whispers, everyone had looked at her strangely and asked her more questions the more she was around him. And she knew why.

Sirius seemed to be battling with himself, he didn't respond right away and she stepped all the way back. She scolded herself for being so foolish.

"I think I'm going back to bed," she said quietly, moving to the doorway of the kitchen. She stopped and added, "Goodnight, Sirius."

"Winn, please, wait —" he attempted, but she was already gone.

Winnie had a pit in her stomach that had begun to blossom into a pool of regret. Kicking herself, she knew that she would have to face the consequences of what had just happened soon enough.