The Sacrifice

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this piece of fiction, J. K. Rowling does.

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Sirius gazed at all the happy couples and covered up his pain with a heartfelt smile, only slightly tinged by heartbreak. This was James and Lily's wedding. He didn't know any people better then them, and they were both madly in love with each other.

He was happy for them, he really was. They deserved each other, were a perfect match, yet... He couldn't help but feel a tinge of sadness along with his resignation. After all James was not the only one in love, but Sirius's love could never be returned.

That was right, Sirius was in love with Lily. She looked radiant that night too, and Sirius couldn't regret not fighting James for her, for her sake, for both their sakes but hers especially. This way she couldn't feel guilty about breaking up a friendship that far surpassed the bonds of brotherhood, and got to have a lover she loved and a best friend who adored them both.

Best friend. The two of them never knew, but still even though Sirius knew this had been the only way, he felt a tinge of regret that still shot through his heart every time he thought of what-might-have-been. Lily could have easily loved him too, and he still loved her.

He had fallen in love with her sometime during his sixth year at Hogwarts. They had begun talking, at first because Sirius was trying to find out if James even had a chance with the girl he was in love with, but then just because he loved talking to her. She was funny, witty, intelligent, wild but not too wild. She was beautiful, classy, and he was falling head-over-heels in love with her. There was only one problem...his best friend, the guy who had taken him in when he was disowned by his family and had nowhere to go, the brother he had never had, the man he would do anything for...he was in love with her too.

And Sirius just could not do that to James, he wouldn't. So he stepped aside, and watched as James grew into the man he had been shaping up to be, to impress Lily, to be worthy of her. He watched and teased them as they fell in love, and never once lifted a hand to stop it.

After all, the best gift he could give them was to love them enough, as a brother and as a lover, to let them go and make each other happy.

And as they turned to him with joy and love in their faces he could place no fault on them for his sadness. Instead he covered up his more than platonic love, and inner turmoil and placed a mask over his eyes with the joy he felt that they were happy.

And as he leapt up onto a table to deliver his best man speech, he couldn't help but smile despite his pain as he saw them. Yes, the two people he loved most in the world were happy, and that was what mattered most. And he would never, ever let them learn, of his sacrifice.