From This Day Forward

By August of 1978, the only thing that came as a surprise about Lily and James's engagement was that Lily asked James first. While Sirius, Remus, and Peter found this turn of events rather amusing, James himself was torn between smug satisfaction and an odd sense of disappointment.

"After all," James said to Sirius in late August as they walked around Diagon Alley, smirking at all the students rushing desperately to get their supplies, "I didn't get to ask her myself, and it's sort of...I don't know. I was looking forward to it." He kicked a rock out of his way. "I remember my dad telling me the story of how he proposed to my mum, and how happy she looked. I wanted to see Lily that happy."

"Instead," Sirius pointed out with a wry smile, "we were treated to your gobsmacked face and a shout louder than even the Gryffindor Quidditch team after we won the Cup. She did look happy, though, when you accepted and gave her the ring."

James smiled and looked up at the sky as if searching for a face with red hair, green eyes, and freckles amongst the clouds. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah. Padfoot," he breathed, his eyes dropping to focus on Sirius, "I'm going to get married."

"So I've heard," Sirius grinned, and pounded James on the back hard enough to make him stagger. "Good job, old boy, you finally caught her."

"I did..." James looked up at the sky again, dreamily, though there were no Lilies in the cloud-shapes lazily floating past the sun. "I did..."

And Sirius looked at how happy James looked, and didn't think about things beyond that, because what was there to think about when James was as happy as that?

*

They set the wedding date for early April sometime, after Lily's parents had sobbed about their baby girl growing up and threatened James into never making her sad, as if James would have done so anyway.

"Sometimes," James said at the engagement party, swirling champagne in a glass and watching it splash against the sides, "I think threats like that are required. You remember what Fiona Callahan's sister told you when you first started going out with Fi, don't you?"

"She said she'd break my arm if I ever made her little sister cry," Sirius replied complacently. He watched a laughing Remus dance with Lily's sister Petunia, even as Petunia looked aloof and disapproving and reluctantly polite. "She's a mean hand with a Beater's club, that girl. Madam Pomfrey asked me what I'd done to get a Hufflepuff so angry that I was the only one she hit Bludgers at."

James laughed softly, his eyes searching out Lily in the crowd of family and friends, maybe looking for the golden-green glint of an emerald ring--to match her eyes, he'd said when he bought it, and Sirius laughed at him for being soppy. "Not that you made her cry, though," James said, even as it was obvious that his mind wasn't on the conversation.

Sirius shrugged. "Fi's not the type to dissolve into tears when a bloke breaks it off with her. It's the principle of the thing, I suppose," he said, and his mind wasn't on the conversation either, though he had no pretty redhead to search for.

"I'm going to go find her," James said abruptly, without specifying who her was, though he didn't need to, and shoved his glass into Sirius's hand as he politely pushed through the crowd to get to his fiancée. Sirius looked down at the champagne and swirled it against the sides as James had done, though he stopped when Remus's reflection appeared in it, and echoed Remus's smile when he looked up.

*

It was only late September when James appeared at the door of Sirius's flat and said, with some degree of panic, "Oh my God, Sirius, I'm getting married."

Sirius raised an eyebrow and let James into the flat, whereupon he abruptly collapsed against the nearest wall. "Is this somehow surprising?" Sirius asked as he closed the door, then crossed his arms and leaned against it.

"Yes. No. I don't know!" James buried a hand in his hair and started running through it, before he realised what he was doing and stopped. "I'm...getting married."

"That is generally what happens when one gets engaged, yes," Sirius said. "I've got firewhisky if you want to get drunk, though I doubt the soon-to-be Mrs Potter would appreciate such a thing."

"No," James muttered, "no, she wouldn't. She always says that being drunk is too much trouble."

"Says a woman who has never been drunk," Sirius commented lightly. "Though I have to admit, being drunk can be trouble. Especially the morning after. I don't think Lily would appreciate waking up next to a man with a hangover."

"Sirius," James groaned, and Sirius smiled and clapped a hand to James's shoulder.

"Not to worry," he said, "I've got a right handy sobering up potion, and if it doesn't work, I'm sure Moony knows one that does. You can get drunk without fear of your lovely fiancée's wrath."

James sunk down until he was sitting against the wall, and buried his head in his arms. "I don't want to get drunk," he said, his voice muffled. "I want...I don't know what I want." He lifted his head up again. "It seems so strange, that I'm finally marrying Lily, but so right at the same time..."

Sirius squatted down next to James. "Chin up, mate," he said. "You're marrying the most beautiful girl in our year, who you've been in love with practically since you knew what love was. Be happy."

James sighed, and leaned his head against the cracked plaster of the wall. "I am happy," he protested. "I...it's Lily. It's Lily Evans, and I'm James Potter, and you know she said she'd date the giant squid before she went out with me, only now she's marrying me and it doesn't quite seem real."

Sirius took hold of James's hands and tugged him up. "Come on, Prongs," he said gently. "I think the best person to reassure you on this score is Lily."

As soon as he was up, James sagged against Sirius's shoulder, and Sirius stood still to let James catch his balance. "You're m'best friend, you know that, right?" James said into the fabric of Sirius's shirt.

Sirius smiled and draped his arm over James's shoulders in an awkward hug. "I know," he said quietly.

"You'll be m'best man, won't you?" James lifted his head, his glasses askew over his ears. He looked up at Sirius, and didn't even bother fixing the angle, even though the glasses looked fit to fall off.

Sirius closed his eyes, a warm feeling spreading throughout his stomach, and turned his head and smiled into James's hair. "Of course," he whispered slightly hoarsely. "I'd've been insulted if you asked anyone else."

It was a very soppy moment, but, Sirius felt, it was forgiven. James was getting married.

*

"I can't do this." James turned wide, panicked eyes on Sirius, and continued pacing. "This is...it's impossible. I can't do this."

Sirius yawned. "Surely you don't want to be backing out, do you?" he asked, and shifted on the sofa.

"Well," James stopped pacing for a moment, "no. But..." he started pacing again, "what if she leaves me at the altar, or says 'I don't', or...or..." He hesitated, as if trying to think of another bad thing that could happen at the wedding.

Sirius sighed and stood up, placing calming hands on James's shoulders. It was sort of funny, he thought, that he was the one calming someone else down for once, when it was usually the other way around.

"James," Sirius said, "she's not going to leave you at the altar, and she's going to say 'I do', and she'll be very happy to be marrying you." He paused significantly. "As happy as you'll be to be marrying her."

James slumped. "I know," he muttered. "I know. It's just, it's two months until the wedding, and I don't want her to regret anything..."

Sirius gave James a small shake. "Don't worry," he said. "She was the one who asked you to marry her, wasn't she? If she loves you enough to get there first, then you've got nothing to worry about."

"That doesn't stop me from worrying," James fretted. Sirius shook him again.

"Stop that," he said sternly. "Lily loves you, you love her, and everything will be fine. You've already finished the hard part, after all."

James stared up at him blearily. "What's the hard part?" he asked.

Sirius grinned. "Getting her to fall for you in the first place, of course!" he answered teasingly. "After all, if she could fall for you..."

"Hey!" James punched Sirius lightly on the shoulder, but he was laughing a bit. Mission accomplished, Sirius thought in satisfaction, and settled down into a nice tussle.

*

"Good luck tomorrow," Peter said, clapping a hand to James's shoulder as he headed out the door. Remus simply smiled and nodded at them as he too left. Sirius was about to leave himself when James grabbed his arm.

"Don't go yet," James said, not quite slurring his words, but not far from it. "Stay for a bit longer. 'S m'last night as a bachelor, an' I don' think I can sleep yet."

Sirius looked torn for a moment, then shook his head slightly and shut the door. "You've drunk enough that you should be snoring right now," he commented. "Come on, let's go to the kitchen, and I'll make up a hangover potion you can drink so you don't throw up tomorrow morning."

"Why aren't you drunk?" James complained, following Sirius into the kitchen. "I saw you drinking, so why aren't you drunk?"

"I made sure not to drink enough that I would be," Sirius grinned. "I knew that you would get yourself completely pissed and would end up needing me to make you this potion." He quickly got the ingredients together; it was far from the first time this particular potion was needed, and he already knew where James kept everything necessary for it.

"Hmmm," James said. He leaned against the counter and closed his eyes. "Tomorrow...'m getting' married..."

Sirius chuckled. "Right you are." He stuck his tongue out slightly in concentration as he measured everything out.

"I'm...getting' married..." James breathed, his eyes still closed. "Lily's marryin' me...she's so beautiful, Padfoot, you know? An' she's so...so--nice. You know?"

Sirius smiled, mixing things together carefully. "Yes, James," he said. "Lily's very nice."

James frowned at him. "You..." he lifted a hand and pointed at Sirius, "you better not be after her. She's mine. An' tomorrow...I'm marryin' her tomorrow." His hand fell, and his head slumped to his chest.

Sirius grinned and finished putting in the last of the ingredients. "I know," he replied, leaving the potion on the counter and going to help James up. "But right now, you're going to bed. Come on, up you go."

Despite James's earlier claims that he couldn't sleep, once Sirius had helped him into bed, his eyes closed and breathing evened almost immediately. "Hey," Sirius said, shaking him slightly, "don't go to sleep yet. Just stay awake another minute while I go get the potion--you'll want to drink it now if you don't want a hangover tomorrow morning."

James mumbled an assent, and Sirius carefully took his glasses off and placed them on his bedside table before standing up and slipping out of James's bedroom to get the potion.

*

For all that James seemed likely to have a nervous breakdown in the months leading up to the wedding, once the big day had arrived and he was standing in front of the Muggle minister Lily had insisted on, in his uncomfortable Muggle suit, he was remarkably self-composed.

And Sirius, it seemed, had inherited all of James's nerves. He stood there, next to James and across from Lily's matron of honor, Alice Longbottom (two years older than them, but close to Lily all the same), and couldn't stop himself from fidgeting.

James was getting married. Somehow he'd known it in his brains, but now that they were waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle, he knew it in his bones. James would be married and living with Lily and doing things with Lily and having children with Lily, and what was going to happen to Sirius, his best friend Sirius? Not even Remus's warm presence at his side, and Peter's just beyond him, was enough to calm him down. Sirius might have felt better if he hadn't been in such a foreign, Muggle setting, but Lily wanted her family to come, and so they were in a church, and wearing tuxedoes, and Sirius felt off-balance and uncomfortable.

But then Lily appeared, and Sirius could practically feel James stop breathing right beside him. "Breathe," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, and James flashed a quick grin at him before turning all his attention to Lily again. Sirius kept his eye on James, making sure his best friend didn't faint straightaway, and so it seemed no more than an instant before Lily's father was there, beaming, and placing her hand in James's.

Sirius looked at Lily and James looking at each other, and put all his worries aside. Lily looked radiantly happy, and James, if anything, surpassed her, and, Sirius knew, nothing that made these two people so joyful could be that bad.

"From this day forward," James murmured with the minister.

"Until death do us part," Lily whispered in turn.

And then James was lifting Lily's hand and slipping the ring onto it, and tears were spilling out of Lily's eyes as she laughed while her veil was being lifted, and Sirius smiled.