A large brown and white owl swooped over the Gryffindor table and dropped a rectangular box into Sirius' eggs. He looked down at it confused until a flicker of recognition went off in his head. That owl was the same one his favorite cousin Andromeda had the last time she sent mail-- which was awhile ago, seeing as she cut ties with the Black family.

"What's that for?" James queried, scooting closer and inspecting the package. There was a small letter attached, with messy cursive handwriting.

Dear Sirius,
It's Andromeda. Sorry for not writing, I'm sure your parents would send away anything from my owl. But here are some muggle things Ted has introduced me to. I know our fanily doesn't do birthdays but seeing as you are no longer home, I thought it was time for you to have a real birthday present for once. Hope you are doing well in school, I'll try to write as much as I can.

Happy birthday,
Andromeda Tonks

PS. I heard you got into Gryffindor, well done. Bet my aunt and uncle loved that.

"It's your birthday? Why didn't you tell us?" James said shocked.

Sirius shrugged. "Didn't think it was a big deal, I suppose." This was the truth. Birthdays were not something celebrated in his house, along with most other occasions like Christmas and the sort.

"Not a big deal? We have to throw a party for you!"

"A party? Who'd wanna go to that?" James just stared at him, confused. Sirius decided the conversation wasn't something he wanted to be having at the moment and opened up the box. The first thing Sirius noticed was inside, was a large, black leather jacket. It had more zippers than seemed necessary, but looked comfortable and stylish. Sirius smiled.

The next thing he saw were what looked like several smaller vinyls. He was about to ask Remus why these were so small, when he realized Remus had still not come down to the hall. In fact, he hadn't seen Remus that whole morning.

"Have you guys seen Remus today?" Peter shook his head, James didn't move for a second, then stood up.

"I'm going to go get him." He turned around, not looking back.

Sirius turned back to his present, trying to ignore how weird this had been. He folded up the leather jacket and looked at the small records. He began to read them. The Rolling Stones was written on one, one read John Lennon, and the last one reading Led Zeppelin.

"Pete, I'm gonna go back to the dorm and put this stuff away. Don't wait for me, just go to class." Sirius did not wait for Peter to respond and stood up without looking back. As he walked up to Gryffindor tower, he was stuck in his head about Remus disappearing again and how James reacted. James had been acting weird with Remus the past few days. Asking how he is to the point Remus stopped answering, being jumpy, and choosing to sit next to Remus instead of Sirius and Peter, who he was closer to. At first Sirius just thought it was because he wanted Lily to see how nice he was, but it wasn't just in classes and common rooms, it was in dorms, bathrooms, everything. Something was going on.

"Chelidonium Miniscula," Sirius said to The Fat Lady's sleepy-looking portrait.

"Back so soon?" Said the Fat Lady. Sirius didn't reply, stepping through the portrait. He was sure she had said something back to him but didn't really care. He didn't like paintings much, although the ones at Hogwarts were a vast improvement from the ones at his own house.

When he made it to his dorm, he found it vacant. James' things looked the same as they had been, as of he never went into the dorms. Maybe he didn't, after all Sirius had left just shortly after him and never saw James. Sirius turned to Remus' bed, which was made minus some things such as the book that was normally on his table.

Were James and Remus hiding something? Maybe they had started hanging out in secret. Sirius felt a sharp pang of jealousy in his abdomen, although he couldn't make up in his mind which boy he was jealous of.

He sat the presents down and followed the same path back, but when he got to the stairs leading to the great hall a thought occurred to him. He changed directions and headed down to the hospital wing.

Knock knock. Madam Pomfrey opened the door, then glanced sideways.

"You've come to see Mr. Lupin, have you?"

"So he is here! Is James in there too?" Sirius tried to look behind Pomfrey, who looked regretful and hesitant.

"It's fine, he can come in," called a gravelly voice from behind her. Sirius stepped in to see Remus, looking absolutely dreadful. He had a bandage on his head and his eyes were sunken in. "I know, I've looked better."

"What the bloody hell happened to you?" He looked between James and Remus, trying to make sense of the looks on their faces.

"I saw Remus leave last night, thought he may have gone here," James said after a pause.

Remus looked at James with scrunched brows. "Yeah, he just came in here to talk about-"

"Your birthday, suprise! Sorry to ruin it, I've always been a bit of a blabbermouth," James chuckled, while Remus' expression hadn't changed.

"That doesn't explain why Remus is all messed up."

Madam Pomfrey cut in here. "Most unfortunate, Mr. Lupin was reading late last night and found himself hit by the Whomping Willow. I warned him to not be out too late from now on, he's awfully clumsy."

"Oh, I see." Sirius felt foolish for thinking something nefarious was happening. What reasoning for lying to him would there be? His two best friends wouldn't keep secrets from him, they couldn't. "Is he going to be alright?"

"Oh yes, don't you worry, dear. But a bit of company would be nice."

Sirius sat down in a chair next to the bed, while James shot up from his own chair. "I should go," he said, "birthday party planning and all. Remus, make sure to keep the birthday boy occupied!" James left with a small smile to Madam Pomfrey.

Sirius turned to Remus. "How are you feeling?" Remus shrugged but didn't speak. "I got some birthday presents from my cousin, Andromeda. She's cool, one of the only Slytherins I've liked, especially in my family. She gave me some small vinyls and a leather jacket. It's a little big but I think I'll grow into it. Just imagine me, twenty with tattoos and that jacket." Remus smiled with an indisputably genuine face. Sirius did too. Remus didn't smile like that often.

"They're called 45's. The small vinyls. They normally play one song of the front and one on the back. I have a few but not very many."

"Well we should pool our collection! See how many noise complaints we can muster up in one year!" Remus laughed.

"Young man, don't you have classes to get to? Surely you've already missed your first!" Madam Pomfrey scolded.

"Well it's my birthday, rather spend it keeping my friend company then at a History of Magic lesson." She pursed her lips, but looked at Remus who looked considerably happier.

"Fine, but if anyone asks tell them I told you to leave and you snuck in!" Sirius nodded with a smile.

"You didn't tell me it was your birthday. I would have gotten you something."

"I've never had a real birthday. Stuffy dinners with people my parents want to marry me off with don't count, and even the house elf didn't get me any presents."

Remus' face fell slightly, but he didn't address this sad story. "What's a house elf?"

Sirius was surprised he didn't know. "It's this ruddy putrid elf that does chores for a household. I dunno if we had bad luck or if my family made him like that but ours is a little git." Remus looked surprised but again, said nothing, letting out a small yawn.

"You can go to sleep if you want, I don't mind."

Remus looked at him. "Seriously?"

Sirius smirked. "I'm always Sirius." Remus rolled his eyes and laid further down.

"Wake me up whenever, I don't mind." But Sirius was not intending to wake the boy up. He just silently sat in thought as Remus drifted off to sleep.

Sirius felt a hand grip his shoulder and woke up. He hadn't realized he fell asleep. Remus was no longer in his bed and James was in front of him.

"Mate, the party's ready!"

"Where'd Remus go? Is he okay?"

"He's fine, already back in the common room. C'mon!"

Sirius kept rubbing sleep out of his eyes and James kept pushing him to go faster as they walked back to Gryffindor tower.

"It's not much, I didn't get much of a notice and a lot of the upper years don't really know you. But most were excited about an excuse to party, so there should be plenty of people!" As James finished, they reached the portrait.

Sirius didn't know what to expect. He assumed there would be music, maybe food? It couldn't be very big, he was a first year with a notoriously evil family so he wasn't extremely popular.

He definitely wasn't expecting what met him in the large room. The table normally covered in schoolwork was covered in pastries and a small cake. The common room was more full than Sirius had ever seen it. A song he didn't recognize was playing on Remus' record player. His first thought was that it had to be some kind of mistake, no way all of these people were there for him. But then he saw a large banner, reading: To Sirius Black's first birthday party!

"I- why'd you do all this?"

James smiled his wide smile. "You like it? I told everyone you'd never had a birthday party or anything and I got people to make the banner and help me get into the kitchens." Sirius just stood still. "You okay ma-" Sirius cut him off with a suffocating hug.

"Thank you." He felt James wrap his arms around him. In that moment, James felt more like family than anyone in the House of Black.

The party was nice, most of the time Sirius was trying to dance while eating. The pastries were unsurprisingly delicious and Sirius was determined to eat more than anyone else. Remus still hadn't shown up, but he told himself it was okay. Maybe he still wasn't well.

"Sirius!" Sirius turned to see Peter approaching him. He was holding out a letter. "A great big owl dropped this off after you left. It's addressed to you." Sirius' breathing faltered as he saw the handwriting. It belonged to his younger brother. With shaky hands, he opened it.

Sirius,

Happy birthday. I hope you're doing well. Mother and father don't know I'm writing you, I don't need to tell you that they aren't very happy. Word got back to us that you were put into Gryffindor. I hope you've made friends. I miss you. It's worse without you here. Are you going to visit for Christmas? I doubt you are, but I still thought to ask.

Your brother,
Regulus A.B.

Sirius must've re-read the letter at least five times. It's worse without you here. What did he mean by that? Regulus was everything his parents had wanted, Sirius expected quiet evenings and restful sleep once the problem child was away.

But Regulus didn't want him gone. In fact, he had asked if he was coming back for break. But unless his parents had fallen down a very large well and would be trapped for the entirety of break, Sirius would not be returning to Grimmauld Place for Christmas.

"Sirius, time for cake!" James called, gesturing him over to the table where a small cake with candles sat in front of an empty chair. Sirius sat in the chair. "Now make a wish and blow out the candles!" Sirius closed his eyes and thought for a second. Then he blew out the candles. The group of people watching clapped. When he opened his eyes, he saw Remus standing across from him, clapping with a smile.

"Remus! How are you doing?"

Remus shrugged. "Better." He held out a small rectangular present. "Wasn't sure when to give this to you." The present was wrapped with what looked like newspaper pages.

"You didn't have to get me anything."

"It's not much, just open it." Sirius tore off the newspaper, which revealed a black and red book with the title The Outsiders. He opened it, and a small message was written into it.

Reminded me of you. Happy birthday, Sirius. -Remus

"I wasn't sure if you liked books, but it was all I could do on short notice. If you don't like it I can-" Sirius put a hand over Remus' mouth.

"Thank you, Remus." They smiled at each other for a second, until James came up and put his arms around them both.

"Wanna open mine next?"

When the party died out, Sirius had received several comic books and fizzing whizzbees from James, a Gobstone from Peter, the book from Remus, and eaten several slices of cake--which was a delicious chocolate.

All four boys were back in their dorms in their respective beds. Remus was working on a herbology assignment with Peter, while James tried to catch Peppermint Toads in his mouth. He thought back to the wish he made when he blew on the candles. "I wish to have a family like James' one day."

Sirius stared at the letter in his hands. Every time he tried to think of a response, it felt wrong. Should he even write back? He didn't have an owl, though James did.

Still in thought, he put the letter down and picked up the book Remus had given him and began to read. He may have imagined it, but he could have sworn he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a smile spread wide across Remus' face.

A/N

Thanks for reading! I started this chapter on my birthday but I've had final exams so it's taken awhile to edit and proof read. Regardless, hope you enjoyed! Lily is next in a holiday chapter :)