The Weasley family arrived at four.
His mother came first, with his father and the twins and Percy, and the flat absorbed the additional people with the slightly overwhelmed quality of a space that had been designed for one and was now managing ten plus guests. His mother assessed the kitchen situation in approximately thirty seconds, acknowledged Kreacher's presence with the professional respect of one serious cook encountering another, and began coordinating what had been happening independently into a single coherent production.
Sirius watched this from the doorway with the expression of someone whose kitchen had been organized without their permission and who was deciding whether to have feelings about it.
He decided not to have feelings about it. This was wise.
The meal that followed was the result of Kreacher's preparation and Molly's coordination and the specific quality of food that had been made by people who understood that feeding people was one of the more fundamental forms of love. The flat's kitchen table was not large enough for everyone, which produced the solution of two tables pushed together and a configuration that put Sirius at one end and his mother at the other with everyone else arranged between them in the specific warm chaos of a large family that had absorbed additional people and considered them absorbed.
Ron sat between Ginny and Hermione, which was not an accident.
Fred was telling Sirius about a product concept with the specific energy he brought to pitches — enthusiastic but precise, the twins at their best when they had an audience who was genuinely interested rather than politely tolerating them. Sirius was genuinely interested, which Fred appeared to find slightly surprising and then very encouraging. George was eating steadily and adding the occasional precise observation that reframed what Fred had just said in a way that made it more interesting, which was how the twins operated when they were being their most effective selves.
Percy ate with the contained satisfaction of someone who had been included in something they were not certain they deserved to be included in and had decided to be present in it anyway. Ron caught his eye once during the meal and Percy gave him the look he used when he was acknowledging something without naming it, which was the closest Percy came to warmth in company.
His father and Lupin had found each other at the far end of the table and were talking with the quality of people who had discovered an unexpected overlap of interests — Lupin's knowledge of magical creature law and his father's interest in Muggle-magical crossover were apparently adjacent enough to produce a conversation that showed no signs of concluding.
Harry was next to Sirius. Ron watched them without being obvious about it — the specific quality of the two of them at the table together, Harry eating with the uncomplicated appetite of someone who had been fed properly for six months and had not entirely stopped noticing it, Sirius occasionally putting more on Harry's plate with the reflexive generosity of someone who had decided that this specific person was not going to leave this table hungry, not ever, not while Sirius was at the other end of it.
At some point during the second course Sirius said something quietly to Harry that Ron didn't catch. Harry looked up from his plate and said something back. Sirius put his hand briefly on Harry's shoulder — just a moment, not a production — and Harry went back to eating with the quality he had been developing since September, the one that was less braced.
Ron took a photograph of the table. All of it — the pushed-together tables, the people arranged between them, the food, the fire in the background. The specific warm chaos of a Christmas that had not existed before this year and which, from where he was sitting, looked like something that intended to continue.
Hermione leaned slightly toward him to look at what he'd photographed.
'It's a good one,' she said.
'Thanks,' he said.
She was close enough that he could see she still had the index in her bag at her feet, which was Hermione for 'I am present but I have not stopped thinking about the cross-reference from this morning,' and he found this, in some part of him that he was not examining too closely, entirely characteristic and entirely fine.
Ginny, on his other side, nudged him once with her elbow and then said nothing, which was Ginny for 'I notice things and I am not going to say anything about them but I want you to know that I notice them.'
He ate his dinner and was in it and it was very good.