after which Remus looked ahead again, unwilling to say anything more."But you didn't buy any books as Christmas presents?" Asked the younger one and looked at Remus with wide, almost pleading eyes. Oh no, only one of his three best friends wanted books for Christmas and that was Remus himself. What should Peter do with a book? The books that they had to buy for school and that he only peeked into when it was really necessary were enough for him.
Remus, on the other hand, just shook his head in amusement as he walked on, even though Peter had stopped in the meantime. But suddenly something cold hit him on the back of the head, which made him stop immediately and turn around. "Peter!" He shouted, angry and yet somehow amused, because now a snowball flew straight towards Peter. But he dodged in time, which is why the snowball just passed Sirius and hit James, who was walking next to him.
"Snowball fight!" Was the next thing you could hear before snowballs, more or less magic, flew around and attracted other players, so that it ended in a snowball war instead of a simple snowball fight.

Completely frozen, but happy, the marauders reached the pub The Three Brooms at the successful end of their excursion. "Three butterbeers and a hot chocolate," Sirius called to the barmaid as all four struggled to a table near the bar that had just become vacant. A little exhausted, they sat down on the chairs and placed the bags with their current achievements underneath. It was noticeable that everyone had several doors with them, everyone from almost every shop they had been to, except for Sirius, who only placed one of the honey pot under his chair. "Are you sure you can still buy a Butterbeer? Haven't you already spent all your money in the honey pot?" James asked with a grin and nudged his friend's ribs with his elbow.
"I always have money for that, James," replied the Black, also grinning, and leaned her back in his chair.
The drinks came soon and were paid for quickly too, so they could go when they liked without having to wait for a waiter. Sirius glanced over at Remus, who had probably bought the least of his three friends in the shops and therefore, in his opinion, should still have the most money of all. "Hey, Remus. Will you lend me two Galleons? You'll get them back next month when I get my pocket money," he said, putting on his favorite puppy gaze, hoping Remus would agree.
However, he only raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "No. It's your own fault if you spend all your money on sweets," he said coldly and turned to his beloved hot chocolate.
"A Galleon?"
"No."
"Ten sickles?"
"No, Sirius. Schnorr at someone else," Remus grumbled between sips and gave Sirius a dirty look. Of course, he hoped James and Peter would turn Sirius down too, so that Sirius could learn from his mistake, but the truth was that the two of them would loan him the money. And Sirius wasn't going to learn anything, and Remus doesn't believe Sirius ever learned anything from any of his mistakes.
"James, Peter? Will you lend me two Galleons?" Sirius now turned to his two other friends, who he knew were not as resistant to his puppy gaze as Remus was unfortunately Merlins. Two Galleons were silently pushed across the table, which he grinned and slipped into the pocket of his cloak. "Thanks." A cheeky grin in the direction of Remus was only returned with a cold look, but he got what he wanted, namely the money.He didn't really care who he got it from, he would have fished it out of an old granny's pocket in the toilet if it had been necessary. But his friends, besides Remus, were so nice and lent him the money.
If you looked around in the pub, you could see a lot of familiar faces, which wasn't really that surprising, after all, this was a school trip today. For example, there was the entire Hufflepuffs Quidditch team gathered at one table or Lily and Severus at another - James made a disgusted, annoyed grimace in that direction. In addition, extremely strange-looking couples could be identified here, like Katie from Slytherin and Davey from Hufflepuff, which the boys then discussed for a while what these two had to do with each other. In the end it usually ended in some funny stories and laughter.

"We'll meet you and over at the village exit in ten minutes, okay?" Sirius said suddenly between discussions and had emptied the rest of his Butterbeer in one gulp, got up and left three confused-looking marauders who had no choice but to do to empty their drinks in these ten minutes and to go to the mentioned meeting point.
When the three of them, still quite astonished by Sirius' sudden action, appeared less than ten minutes later at the exit of the village, Sirius was already waiting impatiently for his friends. Of course, the second bag in his hand did not go unnoticed.
"What did you buy?" Remus asked, trying to look inside the bag.
"Nothing for you!" Replied the black-haired man, holding the bag out of the reach of his friend.
"For me, then?" James said cheekily, reaching for the bag, but it also disappeared from his reach faster than he could have said Quaffle.
“No, that's none of your business!” This statement only spurred on, Sirius was now the victim of the marauder's curiosity all the way back to Hogwarts, but he managed to get the bag safely to his hiding place in the dormitory, without any of the others being able to look at it.

What was there for the marauders under the Christmas tree in the Gryffindor common room this year?
Remus got two bars of chocolate from James and Sirius, a bag of chocolate frogs from Peter and three nasty looks as the others opened their presents.
Sirius received two packs of syrup from James and Peter and an extremely interesting book from Remus calledLearning for Beginners.
James got a pack of pencils from Sirius, a can of instant coffee from Peter, and Remus also got a copy of Learning for Beginners.
Peter got a box of blue cheese from James, a Playboy from Sirius, and the same gift the other two got from Remus: a copy ofLearning for Beginners.

Another person who was neither a Marauder nor a Gryffindor at home and who had gone home for the holidays could look forward to another, albeit belated, Christmas present when he arrived at Hogwarts at the end of the holiday, because Sirius had given his brother the broom care set bought which he had seen in Hogsmeade but put back again.

Merry Christmas