"Remus…if you could just…I mean, what exactly is this?"

Remus gave a world-weary sigh and held the box up once again. "Sirius, it's a puzzle."

"The picture's not moving," Sirius observed, pointing at the stationary photograph of a fairground on the front of the box.

"You're right, it's not," Remus answered, and took the other's resulting silence as an opportunity to finally open the box and dump the contents on the floor between them.

Sirius attempted to appear crestfallen. "Oh, Moony, it's broken. I guess we'll have to do something else-" he began, starting to rise from the floor before Remus grabbed his arm and quickly pulled him back down.

"Nice try. It's supposed to be like this," Remus told him and started to spread the pieces out. "See? You have to rebuild the photograph."

"Rebuild it?" Sirius asked uncertainly. His brow furrowed and he reached into his back pocket, retrieving his wand. "But couldn't we just-" he said, waving his wand over the puzzle, causing it to start putting itself back together.

"No!" Remus exclaimed, startling Sirius into dropping the spell. He reached down and re-jumbled the puzzle. "Where's the fun in that?"

"I don't know, Moony. Where's the fun in any of this?"

Remus glared. "We're doing this," he gruffed, his voice suddenly low and a bit threatening.

Sirius rose an eyebrow and stared, but Remus held his gaze, challenging him to even think about complaining once more.

Finally Sirius sighed. "Fine. This looks like a bit of grass," he said, picking up a piece and holding it out to Remus.

"Yes it does," Remus said, calming again. "Why don't you start making a grass pile and I'll work on finding all the edge pieces?"

"Fun, fun, fun," Sirius muttered.

But before long, Sirius started to enjoy himself. He hadn't yet submitted to Remus's sick, dreadful idea of a fun evening, but he had quietly instigated a competition between the two of them, and spent most of his time secretly watching Remus pick out his edge pieces. And each time Remus started to reach for one that contained even a suggestion of grass, Sirius would snatch it up and add it to his own pile.

"I think you'll find that has a bit of grass!" he would exclaim proudly, and Remus would give that exasperated sigh and attempt to explain the puzzle process once again.

"Sirius, the most important part of this is the frame. It doesn't matter if it has grass-"

"No. No. I think we should build all the grass first and then build the frame around the grass."

"Pads, that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't work like that."

"It does."

"It does not," Remus would frustratingly mutter, but then turn back to his pile, not fully committing to the argument. He knew Sirius was just trying to get him angry so he would give up, and he expertly refused to let himself get drawn in.

Eventually, all of the grass and edge pieces were sorted out, and they started to build. And apart from Sirius's absolute determination to be in charge of every single grass piece, it all went surprisingly smoothly. Over the next few hours, they built the path, the ferris wheel, the shops, and each of the townspeople.

"We'll call this one Remus because he looks determined to have absolutely no fun…" Sirius said, holding up two pieces of a townsperson.

"Charming."

"And this one," Sirius said, pointing to a man by the concessions stand, "will also be Remus because he's got on a Christmas sweater in the middle of summer."

"And this one will be Sirius because he's got a huge arse."

"I do not," Sirius gasped, swatting Remus's hand away from the puzzle.

"You do, it takes up almost three pieces," Remus insisted, hiding a boyish grin behind his shirt sleeve which Sirius chose to ignore.

Once the townspeople were all accounted for, built, and named, Sirius became strangely determined to finish the puzzle.

"Can't we can finish in the morning?" Remus moaned, stretching and standing up.

Sirius yanked at his arm, causing the other boy to fall on top of him. "No, we cannot," he said, barely noticing the Remus in his lap as anything more than a puzzle obstacle. He re-situated Remus so that he was sitting upright beside him and then placed Remus's hands back onto the puzzle. "Start finding cloud pieces," he commanded.

Remus groaned and tried to crawl back into his lap. "Padfoot, they're all cloud pieces."

Sirius easily nudged the fatigued Remus back into place. "No, some of them are just sky," he argued. "Remus, are you listening? Remus? Remus. REMUS."

"What?" Remus exclaimed, flinching awake and kicking a bit of the puzzle as he did so.

Sirius was aghast. "Go take a nap on the couch, I'll finish this," he said, pushing Remus in the general direction of the couch, and then worriedly starting to fix the damage that had been done to the bottom corner of the puzzle. He barely noticed as Remus crawled up onto the couch and fell asleep face-down in the cushions.

After about another two hours of silent sky-building, the puzzle was one piece away from being complete. Sirius was practically shaking with anticipation and he ran over to grab Remus and shake him awake.

"Oh Merlin, what is it now?" Remus groaned, kicking Sirius away.

"It's the last piece!"

"…It is?" Remus asked, sitting up and squinting at the puzzle.

"It is! Do you want to be the one to put it in?" Sirius asked, almost shyly.

Remus was silent for a moment, trying to take everything in. "No, dear, you can do it," he said softly.

"Yessss," Sirius hissed under his breath and practically danced his way back over to the puzzle. "Dun-dah-dah!" he sang, placing the last cloud piece into the puzzle and stepping back, possibly looking more proud than Remus had ever seen him look. "Puzzle complete!"

Remus sleepily applauded and grabbed his wand. He waved it over the finished puzzle to glue everything together before floating it up to the wall above the couch.

"It's beautiful," Remus said, wrapping his arms around Sirius's waist as they stared up at it.

"Yes it is. I did most of the work," Sirius grinned, sounding nearly manic in his sleep-deprived and adrenaline-filled state.

"Yes you did."

"Let's do another one."

"Let's go to bed."

"Let's fill the room with them."

"Tomorrow, Sirius."

"Fine. One about wizards."

"Okay."