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Remus Lupin was a fantastic gift giver. That was just a fact, every birthday, and anniversary, and Christmas outdoing himself again and again. Many of the gifts he’d given Sirius had been thoughtful and perfect enough to make him cry on multiple occasions. And this year, Sirius was determined to rise to the challenge and out-gift the gifter.
Another fact about Remus Lupin was that the man owned a ridiculous number of jumpers. And wore one every day. Sometimes layered over a collared shirt for work, sometimes with only pants on the bottom while lounging around their house. Remus Lupin would wear his jumpers until they were riddled with holes and unravelling at the seams, and he always looked incredibly adorable and endearing while doing it.
So, Sirius Lupin came up with a brilliant idea.
It was their 7th wedding anniversary at the end of January, and the fates had apparently smiled down on Sirius, because the traditional wedding gift for a 7th anniversary was wool. It worked out almost too perfectly, so of course Sirius went ahead and found a way to muck it up.
But before diving into all of the… problems, this fantastic idea came to him after Molly Weasley announced she’d be opening up a yarn shop, now that all her children were graduated from secondary and either off at uni or working jobs and moved out. She wanted something to occupy her time, with Arthur out all day at his cushy government job and all alone in their previously bustling little cottage.
She opened up the shop, and made sure to tell everyone about it in any conversation. She was obviously proud of it, and though Sirius definitely found her a bit irritating, she was the mother of his godson’s best friend. He felt it would only be polite to stop by, show his face the once and then never have to do it again.
But he’d brought Remus with him, and his husband had spent hours in the shop, looking at all the completed samples and running his fingers over the skeins of wool. Every time he felt one that was particularly rough or scratchy, his face would scrunch up in disgust in a way that was so adorable that Siris had to physically restrain himself from very passionately snogging him right there in the middle of the shop.
That mineralised it in Sirius’ brain, he was going to make his husband a jumper if it was the last thing he ever did.
The next time Sirius visited Molly’s shop, he did it alone. He told her his idea, and she immediately launched into excited chatter about yarn weight and gauge and a whole bunch of other words Sirius didn’t quite understand. Thankfully, Sirius was able to remember a few of the skeins Remus was particularly drawn to in their last visit, and Molly was quite knowledgeable. She was able to recommend him a pattern, guide him into buying the right kinds of needles, and even gave him a ‘family discount’ when it was time to check out.
Sirius left the shop that day with a Knitting 101 instructional book, a printed out pattern for the simplest jumper they had, an unbelievable amount of warm brown wool, and two different sized needles.
The learning process was… rocky. Siris considered himself quite good with his hands— and there were many people out there who agreed, his husband included. But the stupid wool kept slipping off the bloody needles, and he couldn’t figure out how to hold the yarn in his left hand so he could actually knit with it on his right and make it look anything like the instructional pictures.
Sirius stopped back into the shop multiple times to get in-person help from Molly, who would usually start out their sessions by looking at whatever tangled mess of yarn Sirius brought in and clucking her tongue before diving in and doing her best to fix it.
There was lots of ‘frogging’, as Molly called it, but at least every time he left the shop the jumper was in a better place than when he had entered.
He was determined to keep this a complete secret from Remus, so he could only work on it when his husband was at uni teaching one of his classes. If he hadn’t already had Remus’ class schedule memorised, he definitely would have had to for this, and a few cancelled classes almost blew his cover throughout the process.
But, by the time January rolled around, Sirius became confident he could finish this thing. In fact, he was expecting to be knitting the whole week leading up to their actual anniversary date, but Sirius had finished early, by 5 days.
And now, Sirius was standing in front of his creation, and trying hard not to panic.
“It’s so big, Molly… why is it so big?” He had the landline cord wrapped around his finger so tight he was sure it was cutting off his circulation, staring down at the mass of damp wool in front of him drying on the dining table.
Sirius had followed the blocking instructions exactly, had let the jumper sit in wool wash and water for an hour before gently pressing out the water with a towel and laying it flat to dry. But it seemed to have grown, much more oversized than the pattern had called for. Remus did love a slouchy, roomy jumper, but this was definitely pushing it.
Molly’s voice crackled through the receiver, “I’m not sure, dear, the gauge swatch turned out normal?”
“… The what?”
Molly let out an exasperated sigh, and Sirius could just picture her with fingers pinched between her brows, shaking her head at him. “The gauge swatch, Sirius. You know, the thing I told you to do as it’s very important to how the final project looks?”
Now that she brought it up, she had definitely mentioned something about knitting a small square first, both to practice before casting on the real thing and because it was ‘important’, or some such nonsense. He groaned, eyes darting back and forth from the wall in front of the phone to the laid out jumper, foolishly hopeful that every time he looked it might magically shrink.
“I figured it would be fine!” Sirius hissed, mentally berating himself for his lack of patience putting him in a position like this again.
“How big is it exactly, is it still wearable?” Molly’s voice softened, her ‘mother hen’ tone was coming out but Sirius was just too overwhelmed to feel patronised by it at the moment.
“How would I know?”
“Just breathe, love. It’s going to be fine.”
“I’ve ruined it Molly.” Sirius dragged one of the chairs from the table over to the phone, just so he could dramatically throw himself down into it.
Molly clucked her tongue, just like she had done so many times in the shop while fixing his messes before this. Maybe she could perform one more miracle. “Nonsense, Sirius! I’m sure Remus will love it.”
Sirius couldn’t help an offended scoff from escaping from deep in his chest. “Well, I’m not giving it to him now!”
“Don’t be dramatic now, do you have anything else to replace it with?”
He was well aware that he was pouting, but Molly’s question did unfortunately solidify it. He had no time to make something new, he had almost completely used up all of the yarn for the jumper after he valiantly won the game of ‘yarn chicken’, and he needed to gift Remus something with wool.
“No… fuck, I have to give it to him.” Sirius sighed, resting his head in his hands and letting the phone dangle close to his ear.
He could just barely make out Molly on the other end of the line say, “Take a hairdryer to it, on cool, not on regular heat please. Let it dry, it might shrink a bit once it’s no longer wet.”
Sirius followed her advice, made sure it was dry before Remus got home from work that day, and stashed it away to lament over tomorrow. She was right though, it did shrink a bit after it was fully dry, making the jumper transition from comically large to simply definitely oversized.
Sirius wrapped it up in paper, and waited anxiously for his husband to return home.
The morning of their anniversary, Sirius woke to warm, strong arms wrapped around him and a smattering of kisses being pressed to his shoulder, his neck, his cheek. As his eyes fluttered open, one final kiss landed on his lips, and couldn’t help but smile into it.
“Good morning, love,” Remus murmured into the space between them, “happy anniversary.”
They both had the day off, Remus having cancelled his classes for the day, and planned to have a lie-in for as much of the morning as they could stand. When they did finally roll out of bed, it was solely for breakfast purposes.
Over a plate of eggs and sausage, Sirius looking up at his husband over the rim of his tea mug, he started to build the courage to give his gift. He wanted to get it out of the way, flush the anxious nerves from his head before they ruined their whole day.
They moved into the living room with their tea, Sirius stopping by his super secret hiding spot to snag the present stashed in the crate of blankets next to the couch. Once they had both settled, Sirius held out the wrapped bundle, tapping a restless foot on the floor.
“For me?” Remus asked, placing his mug on the side table and taking the gift with tender hands.
“Of course it’s for you, who else would it be for?”
Remus just shoved at his shoulder with a small smile, getting to work on carefully removing the tape and unwrapping, making sure none of the paper ripped. He always liked to save the wrappings, reuse the pretty ones.
With the jumper unwrapped and sitting in Remus’ hands, Sirius shifted in his seat, waiting for his husband to say something. When he didn’t immediately, Sirius began to ramble.
“It’s just a jumper, we went to Molly’s and you kept talking about how you wanted her to make you one, so I got the yarn and a pattern and an incredibly detailed instructional booklet. Apparently the traditional 7th anniversary present is wool, so I thought it would be nice, but it’s not very neat and turned out way too big, and was honestly a pain to make—”
“You made this? For me?” The quiet wonder in Remus’ voice broke Sirius out of his spiral, looking up from fidgeting with his hands to meet his husband’s warm, soft gaze.
Sirius couldn’t do much with the overwhelming force of emotion in Remus’ eyes, so he just nodded, once, a small thing.
Remus was up in an instant, shucking off his current pullover and unfolding the jumper, throwing it on over his undershirt before Sirius could utter another word.
When Remus turned to face him again, it was with a warm red glow to his cheeks and a permanent smile. “How does it look?”
Sirius needed more than a moment to take it all in. The sleeves were way too long, covering Remus’ hands completely. It was definitely very big, drowning him in wool, and the collar was so large that it draped lower than it should have based off of the pattern, showing off Remus’ neck and collar bones. The warm brown shade made the amber and honey in his eyes sparkle, brought out his freckles, complimented his hair that was just starting to go grey in places. It was ridiculous, and adorable, and—
“Perfect,” Sirius breathed, “absolutely perfect.”
In an instant Remus was back on the couch, straddling Sirius and pulling him in by the back of the neck for a deep, all-consuming kiss. Sirius melted into it like butter, burying his hands in Remus’ curls. Sirius swiped his tongue over Remus’ bottom lip, catching on the scar that split it like he always loved to.
“I love it,” Remus said into his mouth, barely allowing a centimeter of space between them, “I love you.”
“I love you,” Sirius breathed back.
Once he could think straight, the lovesick fog in his brain clearing just enough to allow for rational thought, he pulled back from Remus. Still keeping his arms wrapped around Remus’ neck, hips pressed together and breath heaving as they both took a moment.
“Do you really? Love it?” Sirius asked, looking up at Remus with a shy smile. “Because I know it’s messy, Molly helped me out a lot but it’s still not very tidy and— mmph—”
Remus cut Sirius off by crashing their lips together again, and then rested his forehead against Sirius’ own. “It’s my new favourite jumper now. You’re right, it’s perfect.”
And well, Sirius just had to kiss him again for that.
