Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter Twelve

"I'm bloody bored!" Sirius cried.

"Whenever you utter those three words, first years quake in their boots," Remus replied, nonchalantly, turning a page in the book he was reading.

"Stuff it, Moony, I really am. Without Prongs here, there's bloody nothing to do!"

"Hungry?"

"No, the House Elves actually told me to stop eating their food."

"Go find a girl, then-"

"I'm not after female companionship right now."

"Why don't you go find Pete?"

"Bah, Pete's boring, you're busy, and I'm bo-o-o-ored," he whined, rolling over on his stomach. "I wish I could...." he trailed off.

"Wish you could what?"

"I'll be right back, Moony," Sirius said, a familiar mischievous glint in his eyes.

On the morning of the wedding, James and Lily found the old saying "out of sight, out of mind" to work fine for them. While Petunia ran around the house screaming like a chicken with her head cut off because she didn't have the right color nail polish or because she couldn't find her right hair clip or her dress wasn't fluffing enough, the two swung quietly on the swing on the front porch, watching the morning.

"I didn't know that so much went into a wedding," James said, gently rocking them back and forth with the ball of his foot. Lily had put both of her feet in his lap and he was massaging them gently.

"I knew that there was a fair amount, but I think Petunia's just trying to show off for her new in- laws."

"Why?" James asked.

"They're not exactly rich, but they're richer than we are. I think she's trying to prove to them that she's a girl born in the wrong family or something."

"That's the truth," James snorted. "So, what do you see for your wedding?"

Lily looked down at him and shrugged. "I want it to be traditional. Big, giant, fluffy dress. Beautiful bouquet. My dad walking me down the aisle, and my mum helping me with my dress. Oliver can be the ring-bearer and Petty my maid of honor."

"You actually want her in your wedding?" James asked, running his hand over her feet soothingly.

"Well, my mum wanted me to be in hers and visa versa," Lily explained. "What about you?"

"I've only got two things I want to contribute," James said. "First, Sirius is my best man."

Lily nodded, "I could have guessed that one."

"And second, I want the colors to be silver and blue."

"Why?" Lily asked.

"They're Arrows colors of course."

Lily stared at him, incredulous. Then she began laughing. "I think you'll have a bit of trouble convincing your wife of that."

"What? She could have silver bridesmaid dresses and I could have powder blue groomsmen robes-"

Now Lily was laughing hard. "Do you have any idea how horrible that would be?"

James' eyes narrowed. "No. I think it would be great-"

But Lily's laughing had attracted the attention of her mother and she came outside, looking quite harassed. She scolded them both for not being dressed and lazing about, and hassled them inside the house.

James tugged at his trousers' waistband. He had worn muggle clothing before, but never some so...uncomfortable. His mum had bought and sent along some that would be proper for the wedding; black slacks and a light blue dress shirt. The pants were so tight though, especially around his bum, but when he walked outside and saw what everyone else was wearing, he realized that it must have been the style. Though, Vernon's relatives didn't quite look as good in their pants as he did in his.

"James, good, you're ready to go," Mrs. Evans put her hand on his shoulder and shoved him towards a group of four large boys. As he came closer to them, he realized that there was a woman and three men, and as he came even closer, he saw a pink bow decorating both of the boy's hair. So, unless the muggles were a bit poufish, there were three females and one male.

"Hi," he said, politely. The four turned their beady little eyes on him and seemed to be sizing him up. Or, more accurately, sizing him down, as five of James could fit in one of them.

"I suppose we have to take you to the church?" The father said, huffingly, instantly forgetting about James. The four giants and James made their way down the road full of parked cars. Then the father began to complain about James to his wife. "Why can't he find his own transportation?"

"Honestly, this entire week has been a complete waste of time," The mother said, angrily. "Vernon should have married closer to his station."

James felt his blood boil, but he said nothing. Lily had promised him snogs beyond his wildest imagination if he was a good boy. It was getting increasingly hard as the two continued to complain loudly, when they all squashed into the car. The two girls took up all of the backseat, so James squeezed into the tiny little spot left and put on his seatbelt.

"Honestly, we should have stayed in a hotel, we would have had better service," The father kept saying.

"Hear, hear!"

The angry feeling in James' chest soon turned to one of sickened fear as the father turned on the car and nearly missed a pedestrian walking on the sidewalk and careened down the road. Now, being as Remus' dad was a muggle-born, James had ridden in a car before, around Oxford, but he was fairly sure that Mr. Lupin had his driver's license. Now, the man who had already run five red lights, and acting as calm as a lake in spring, James wasn't so sure that he even took a driver's test.

"Damn, I missed the turn-off," he swore, screeching to a halt, and nearly causing three cars to rear-end each other, and then he pulled into a turning lane. Now, James didn't know muggle driving laws all that well, but he did live in an all-muggle town, and he knew what a U-Turn was. And he also could read quite well, and could see that the sign above the light said "No U-Turn." So he decided to speak up. Leaning forwards, he tapped the man on his porky shoulder.

"Um...excuse me, but I do believe that says no U-AACK!" The man stepped on the gas and swerved around to complete a U-Turn, much to the honking annoyance of the other cars in the area.

"You say something boy?" The father asked. James was still trying to unstick himself from the side of the window.

Once the car had screeched to a halt, James kept an eye out for any normal-sized people, because that would signify that they were Lily's family. But all he could see were giant people with mustaches. And as James had learned early on in the week, just because a person had a mustache, didn't mean that they were a man.

Before he could look around to see if Lily had arrived as well, he was muscled inside the church and into one of the pews, draped with a color that, in itself, was beautiful, but was distastefully draped from anything that stood still, and it overwhelmed the tiny church. He sat down on the pew.

"Bunch up down there," came an old and wraspy voice down the pew. James scooted down a bit more, so that he was sitting next to the edge of the pew and watched in fascination as the parade of overly-large people continued. They kept pushing him down until he was sure the wooden edge of the pew was going to leave a permanent indentation in his side.

And there he sat. Scrunched between a girl and a piece of wood, and as James found out, the wood was more of a conversationalist

"So, where are you from?"

The girl turned her head, which seemed to be continuous with her thick neck, and stared at him, as if she dared him to speak again. James gave her a nervous smile and then turned to watch the happenings up front, which consisted of a few people milling around and talking to each other.

Time seemed to drag on forever, and finally James heard the tuning of the piano player up front. The guests took their seats and James got his first glance at Oliver, walking in front of two pig- faced girls who were dropping purple petals in front of them. When he was up front, James finally caught his eye. He gave him a thumbs up and nearly lost the rings in the process.

No one was watching because there was a procession of bridesmaids coming up the walk, some thin, boney girls (obviously Petty's friends), and some larger girls (obviously Vernon's relatives, all on the arm of big beefy men. It was curious that with every man that came out, the next one seemed even bigger than he was. James wondered if Vernon had done that on purpose; just to keep everything in order.

After a few minutes, James was getting annoyed at just how many of these couples there were. He finally saw Vernon's horrible sister Marge (who had yet to give them a moment's peace ever since she began staying in Lily's room), and hoped that Lily wasn't too far behind, as his neck was starting to crick. There was one, sallow-looking woman hooked on the arm of a man three times her size, and then, James finally got his eye-candy.

In his own humble opinion, the girl that walked out of that door way (nevermind the giant man beside her) was the most beautiful up there. The way she seemed to stand out among everyone (even more than her sister who came out just after her) and her smile seemed the most genuine out of them all.

She caught his eye right away and grinned even larger. She came just by him and snuck out her hand to hold his for a brief instant before moving along. But it was all James needed to be sated for the moment.

Lily stood next to the minister and watched her sister and father approach the stairs. There was a bit of to-do with her father, Petunia, and Vernon and then Lily's father went to join his wife, a complete wreck on the first row.

Because James was doing his favorite pastime (watching Lily) the service went by with rapid speed. He only realized that it was over when Lily began to leave the church behind Petunia and by that time, he'd lost the family he was supposed to be riding back in.

Which really didn't bother James in the first place, because he could just Apparate back home anytime he wanted to. But first, he wanted to find Lily, as she owed him the snog of a lifetime. So he searched the church, which was quite easier once all of the fat people had taken their cars and left. Unfortunately, he also found that Lily was gone with all of those fat people, so he Apparated to her shower.

When he reached the backyard, he frowned because Lily was already up at the front of the table and there was some more ceremony going on. Not ready to sit down for another three hours, James wandered around the backyard for a bit, trying to blend in.

The night before, Lily had charmed the yard to be bigger than it was, so as to accommodate all of the people. Oliver had helped by streaming crepe paper along little poles (on James' broom, which he was handling better than James had expected). James smirked when he heard comments on how much bigger the yard looked.

While Petunia, beaming and looking happy for once in her life, and Vernon, apparently having a bit much to drink already, as his cheeks were rosy and his movements were sluggish, went through their ceremonies, happily, James walked the perimeter of the yard like a caged tiger. He was really waiting to see what Lily's definition of a "snog of a lifetime" was.

Unfortunately, it was some time later when he actually got a chance to talk to her. There was so much pomp and circumstance, even at the reception. James wove his way up to Lily, who was enjoying a slice of cake, and snuck up behind her to kiss her on the cheek. She turned around and grinned at him.

"I wondered where you had run off to, James," she grinned, her eyes not leaving him as he sat down on the seat across from her. "How'd you like the wedding?"

"Bah, boring," he said, reaching forward and taking her hand in his. "You look absolutely beautiful, Lily."

"The color is fine, but the cut is horrible. I look so fat," Lily frowned, flittering with it. "I think Petunia wanted to make sure that even if the color looked good on me, the dress itself wouldn't."

James was staring at her, oddly. "I thought you looked beautiful in it. Not at all fat."

She gave him an appreciative smile. "Really?"

"Compared to the rest of the cows here? No way. You aren't even chubby to begin with."

Leaning forward, she said, "You know, you say just the right thing sometime," before giving him a gentle kiss.

"I'm only telling you the truth, Lily," James said, confused, but not about to refuse a kiss. In fact, he brought his hand up to hold her cheek and wouldn't let her break it off until she removed his hand from her face.

"Not in front of all these people," Lily whispered. "They already think I'm a scarlet woman."

James sighed and stood up, tugging at her hand. "You still owe me a really good snog after what I had to go through."

She gave him a wry half-smile. "Funny how you can forget your homework, but you don't forget things like that."

"Homework's not important," he said, walking her towards the inside of the house. As the house was empty, James wasted no time in kissing her as they ascended the stairs, and she didn't refuse it, in fact, kept her hand out to guide them along the wall. They were so involved in their mad snogging that they didn't notice the black dog following only three feet away from them.

Lily opened a door and they spilled into her room, nearly falling on the floor. James put his hands around Lily's waist and lifted her off the floor. She put her arms on his shoulders to assist, and leaned her head down to kiss him, as he walked her over to her bed.

Laying her down none-so-gently, James never broke off their rhythmic movements as he climbed on with her. They barely noticed anything else, until the black dog jumped up on the bed and broke them apart, licking James' face with its big tongue. James opened his eyes and began spitting disgustedly.

"AW! GEROFF PADFOOT!" James cried, shoving the dog off (but not Lily). The dog rolled on the ground after impact and turned into Sirius, laughing his little heart out.

"That was priceless Prongs!" Sirius guffawed, sitting up. "My, my, aren't we hot and horny this afternoon?" He said, eyes filled with mirth and staring at the two of them who were flushing.

"What are you doing here?" Lily asked, finally, trying to take the attention off of her and James.

"I missed Prongs," Sirius grinned. "'Sides Moony and Wormtail are being too boring. I needed some action. And obviously, you two seem to be having a lot of action."

James snorted and pulled Lily into his arms, embarrassment worn off for him. "She's had a bloody cow in her room all week, I've barely gotten to see her."

"Aw, should I leave you two alone then?" Sirius grinned. "Perhaps cause some mischief-"

"No, Sirius," Lily pleaded. "Please, it's my sister's wedding. Be nice."

"All right, all right, I'll just cause havoc at your wedding," Sirius grinned.

"With the silver bridesmaid dresses and blue robes," Lily snorted, looking up at James. Sirius frowned.

"So you've already started planning your wedding? And here I wanted some say in it!"

Lily turned her head to look at him, her brows knitting together. "You mean, as in James-and-my wedding?"

"Yeah," Sirius said, ignoring the 'shut-up!' looks he was getting from James. "You two are going to get married, aren't you?"

"I don't...I mean, we're only 17-" Lily stammered, suddenly coming out of his arms.

"I'm just kidding with you," Sirius said, laying off a bit. "So, where's this kid you've been telling me about?"

"Oliver?" James shrugged. "Who knows? Probably out back."

"Why?" Lily asked.

"Well....it's one of my projects, you know. I want to see if he'll qualify for it."

"Oh no you don't Sirius Black," Lily glared at him. "Leave him alone!"

"So James gets to turn him into a Quidditch player and I can't touch him?" Sirius pouted.

"There's a difference," Lily said.

"What's that? James is going to be his brother-in-law?"

"No," Lily's eyes narrowed. "A Quidditch player is more respectable than a troublemaker. And don't think I don't know what you're trying to do."

"Troublemaker?" Sirius laughed. "Now, why on Earth would you think I would make your brother into a troublemaker?"

"Because, I know you," Lily said.

Sirius stood up, mocking offence. "Well, I can see that I'm not wanted around here. Let me go find company which is more accepting of me."

"Stay away from Oliver, Sirius," Lily called as he transformed into a dog and walked down the stairs. She looked up at James. "You don't think he'll cause any permanent damage to the guests, do you?"

A loud, shrill, scream came from the other side of the house.

"Probably," James nodded, kissing her on the nose and sighing. "Well, I'm out of the mood now."

"Me too," Lily said, quietly. "Shall we go downstairs and see what Sirius is doing?"

"Nah, let's just stay up here where girls don't have mustaches." He stretched out on the bed and motioned for her to come join him on the ground.

Lily giggled and laid down next to him, smiling contently.