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James had proposed to Lily after a terrible Order mission in 1979. Sirius had, at first, assumed he’d knocked her up and then proposed, but when he’d asked James had flushed scarlet and denied it. He thought at the time that James was lying, but Harry didn’t arrive until a year after the wedding — so James had been telling the truth.
Looking at it from the other side of the war, Sirius was so sad for the nineteen-year-olds they had been, James admitting in Sirius’s kitchen that he was terrified they would die tomorrow, or next week, or next month, and he wanted to have something permanent and meaningful to live on after them, to show the world how important Lily was to him. He wanted to have a wedding if he never got to have the rest of his life.
It had worked out so much better than they thought: James and Lily had both survived, had a beautiful six-year-old son that Sirius was looking forward to teaching all the swear words and quidditch fouls he knew, and the war was over.
In contrast, Sirius Black did not propose to Remus Lupin in a haze of adrenaline and death. Absolutely nothing loomed over them, nipping at their heels. It was a completely normal evening: they were having dinner (roast chicken and three veg; Sirius was very proud of it, he’d cooked it himself) and Remus was talking about a journal article he’d read about an experiment to create a new species of snake by cross-breeding a dipsa and an akelarre.
Remus was part of the way through explaining how it had sparked enormous controversy because of the ethical implications of creating an even deadlier snake than either of them were apart, potentially (though of course it wasn’t guaranteed, and could be that the two breeds negated each other’s most dangerous qualities) when Sirius was bowled over by how very much he was in love with this giant nerd.
This wasn’t really news — Remus had always been a giant nerd, and Sirius had almost always been very much in love with him. It just so happened that as Remus gestured wildly with his fork to illustrate how this case had been given so much attention that the International Confederation was probably going to create new legislation around it, Sirius realised that he really, really wanted to marry him.
“... Obviously there’s existing legislation about crossbreeding magical creatures, but it’s notoriously hard to enforce and there isn’t much international law about it, which is really such an oversight when you consider the trafficki—”
“Marry me,” Sirius said suddenly, grabbing the salt grinder off the table and transfiguring it into a ring.
“What?” Remus said, looking at him a little blankly, like he hadn’t even heard properly. Knowing him, he was probably still thinking about the international creature trafficking legislation. Sirius Black was in love with such a loser.
Sirius got down on one knee next to the dining table. It was spur of the moment, but he wanted to do it properly — Remus deserved that. “Will you marry me?”
Remus still looked faintly bemused. “Did you just… transfigure our salt grinder into a ring?”
“Shh, I’ll replace the salt grinder. Marry me?”
Sirius was not actually concerned that Remus would say no. They’d dated for eleven years. They’d lived together for nine. Getting married would change absolutely nothing, but they’d get to have a party and they would wear rings and Sirius would get to go around saying “my husband” and grinning madly while he did it. He had no idea why he had waited this long.
“Yes, of course I will,” Remus said, shaking his head as if it were silly to even demand an answer. “You’ve transfigured that into a wedding ring though, not an engagement ring.” He scrunched up his nose in thought. “What would an engagement ring even look like?”
Sirius thought for a moment, shrugged, and decided there was far too much talking and not enough kissing happening. “Who cares, it was a salt grinder five minutes ago,” he said, and pulled Remus off his chair so that he fell on top of him and, finally, was within kissing distance.
(When they told James, he laughed himself to tears until they reminded him that the only reason he hadn’t had to do the same was that he had bought a ring the day after they graduated from Hogwarts and had just sat on it until that terrible Order mission. Then it was Lily’s turn to laugh herself to tears as she discovered James Potter had bought a ring after only six months of dating.
Sirius was a saint not to mention how early James had suggested buying a ring. James probably wouldn’t agree to be best man if he did.)