Chapter Text
It was four o’clock one Tuesday afternoon. Lily Evans was sitting at her kitchen table looking through her wedding plans. She and James Potter were due to get married in a week and she was stuck doing all the work herself. She didn't blame him: James’s job was specifically to stay out of her way, cups and ice (Lily had put him in charge of the last two so as to spare his feelings even though there were going to be wine glasses and freezing charms on the drinks making James’s job quite useless… Lily had planned that…)
“Honey! I’m home!” James’s voice called from the hall.
“Hiya Honey!” Lily tried her best not to cringe at the pet-name. “Leftovers are in the top left cupboard with the cooling charm on it.”
“Great!” James came into the kitchen. His glasses were lopsided and his hair was standing up on end. A picture of beauty. She stood up, walked over to the kitchen counter and pulled herself up onto it (with a great amount of effort at five foot four).
“Hard day at work?”
“No. No I wear my glasses like this in the order for… uhm… disguise.” James readjusted the frame of his glasses even more wonkily and smiled at Lily.
“I meant your hair,” she shrugged. “I’m used to your glasses making you look like a drunk flobberworm.”
James pulled a face and Lily leaned forward to kiss his forehead, James pulled his head up and kissed her on the lips. Once they had finished Lily was beaming.
“Ah…see? Nothing like the charm of a drunk flobberworm!” James grinned to himself and took his bowl of leftover pasta over to the kitchen table. He frowned when he saw that the surface of the table was completely covered with wedding plans. “This wedding planning thing! Will it ever end?”
“Yes, after one last decision is made!”
“What?”
“Should the tablecloths have lace on them or not?” she asked him.
“Who’s paying for this wedding again?
“We are.”
“Who needs lace? Regular tablecloths are just as efficient!”
“Great! That was the last decision!” Lily jumped off the counter excitedly.
“What really?”
Lily nodded.
“Like, for real or is it just another drill?”
“Yes yes yes yes yes yes!” Lily ran towards James who had conveniently put the pasta down just in time to catch her and pull her up into his arms.
“We’re going to get married!” she sighed, cupping his face in her hands.
“We’re gonna get married!” This time it was his turn to beam at her. “But you could have told me as soon as I got home…”
“But the last decision hadn’t been made yet!” she argued.
“But it was only a tiny, insignificant decision!”
“Do you really want to go down that road again?” she asked, her eyes flaring dangerously.
“No,” he said. “How about this one?” and he kissed her again.
“We’re getting married!” Lily sighed again. It had naturally only been her dream since she was six and had been a bridesmaid at her aunt Danielle’s wedding. When she had got home that evening she had hung a pillowcase over her head and arranged a small ceremony with all of her toys (Ken the barbie-doll being the groom) and practiced saying I do until Petunia had thrown the said caseless pillow at her. Ever since then she and Petunia had spent most of their time together planning their weddings. Every. Little. Detail. From what flowers would be in the bouquet to the icing on their three-tier cakes to the little people standing on top of them, looking through fashion magazines to find their perfect wedding dresses and promising to be each other’s Maid of Honor… well, the last one went out of the window the day Lily was accepted into Hogwarts. Lily’s Maid of Honor was going to be Marlene McKinnon and James’s best man was going to be… who was James’s best man going to be? Had he even chosen?
“And the wedding planning is over! Hallelujah!” James almost sang.
“Well… actually…” Lily said tentatively.
“What? What is it?” James put her down as his eyes widened in horror.
“Well, there is one last thing…”
“Whatever it is, you can choose and I’m fine with it!”
“I can’t exactly decide this…”
“What can you not decide?”
“Your best man?” she blurted out.
James sighed and sat down. “I was hoping you’d forgotten about that,” he mumbled.
“Well, I had. I remembered just now.”
James sighed. “I don’t know who to choose… I don’t really want to be like: you’re all my best friends but you are better than the others - that’s just mean.”
Lily fought back the impulse to smile in such a dire situation for her fiancé. If someone had come up to her five years ago and told her that in a few years time James Toerag Potter was going to be beating himself up because he didn’t want to be too mean to anyone she would have laughed in their face.
And yet here she was.
And oh yeah. They were engaged.
“Look James I’m sure they’ll understand no matter what you do. I mean you are only allowed to have one best man -“ she started but he cut her off.
“But I have three choices: Moony, Wormtail and Padfoot,”
Lily couldn’t help but think that they sounded like a wizard version of Pigeon Street.
“I’m aware,” she told him, sitting down on the settee next to him. “But you have to try and choose. Tell you what - think about it till Friday and then go over to Moony and Pads’ and break it to them slowly okay?”
“Okay,” he mumbled.
“Well, I need to go and have a shower.” Lily got up and kissed him on the forehead and left the room, regretfully leaving her fiancé to make this very difficult decision on his own.
…
By Friday James had made his decision. Sort of. He had given it a lot of thought throughout the week and now he was pretty confident about who it was going to be. It was going to be Peter. James figured that Peter was a great friend and had always been able to make him feel better. Peter was also his oldest friend. They had clicked the minute they met on the train to Hogwarts. Sirius and Remus, on the other hand, had been a lot harder to befriend. Peter had just always been so easy-going. There was no my-family-hates-me or I’m-an-outcast-of-society drama going on there. Just plain old times where jokes about dungbombs were still funny.
So Peter it was.
He knocked at the door and waited for someone to answer it. Remus appeared at the door moments later.
“Hiya Prongs,” he said with a grin.
“Hey Moony,” James answered, stepping inside the small messy apartment and putting the butter beer he had brought with him on the counter. “Look, I need to talk to you about something very important.”
“What, just me or all of us?” Remus asked, shutting the door behind him.
“All of you. Where are Wormy and Pads?”
“Padfoot’s asleep and Wormy’s at his place, I think,” Remus said, still frowning.
“Well then floo Peter and help me get Sirius up!”
“Oh no. You want Sirius awake, you wake him up,” Remus said darkly. James couldn’t blame him. Trying to get Sirius up was like trying to cuddle a Blast-Ended Skrewt. Therefore, near impossible without suffering serious injuries. “I’ll floo Peter.”
James walked carefully into Padfoot’s dark bedroom. With a flick of his wand he opened the curtains. Sirius winced in his sleep but continued peacefully snoring.
“Padfoot,” James said taking the covers off Sirius’s bed. Sirius shivered and rolled over but was still asleep.
“Padfoot.” James repeated a bit louder.
It wasn’t working.
“Aguamenti,” James muttered, pointing his wand at Sirius’s head. Not even the water had any effect on Sirius.
“Come on Pads, be cooperative!” James shook his friend but Sirius just responded with a slap that was surprisingly forceful for someone who was apparently dead to the world.
“Padfoot!”
“Padfoot!”
“PADFOOT!”
“PADFOOT!”
“SIRIUS ORION BLACK YOU GET YOUR LAZY BACKSIDE OFF THAT MATTRESS BEFORE I DO IT MYSELF!”
Sirius sat up with a start and squinted at James. “Well, what do you know! I guess married couples do start to look alike.”
…
“So, to what do we owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit?” Sirius asked once James had them all seated at the counter drinking butter beer.
“It’s about the wedding.”
“What about it?” Peter asked.
James swallowed his butter beer before answering. “I’ve decided who my best man is going to be.”
The anticipation on their faces made James think that they had been thinking about it too.
“And, I’ve decided that it’s going to be: Peter.”
“What?”
“What!?”
“What!?”
“What?”
The first two had been of disbelief, the third of surprise and the last had been James’s, who had instantly regretted saying what he had just said.
“You - you’re making Peter best man?” Sirius asked slowly as if trying to make sure that his best friend was still sane.
“Yes.” James looked Sirius in the eye challengingly, although he now realized he wasn’t even that sure himself. “Yes! Peter is going to be my best man.”
“Wow! Really?” Peter beamed at James. “This…. this really means a lot! And you know, if I ever get married then you should definitely be my best man!”
“Cheers mate!” James lifted his butter beer bottle to Peter.
“No. Now wait!” Sirius put his own bottle down. “If Peter is James’s best man and James is Peter’s best man that means i’m never going to be a best man!”
“No hey!” Remus spoke up for maybe the second time in the whole conversation. “You can be my best man!”
“I’m never going to be best man!” Sirius repeated as if what Remus had just said just proved his point even more, ignoring the whack on the back of the head that the latter gave him.
“Ok then, Sirius you can get to be best man when I get married,” Peter said nonchalantly.
“No wait then that’s not fair on me!” James said indignantly. “I make you my best man and you don’t make me yours?”
“I’ll make you mine, if you like, Prongs!” Sirius piped up eagerly.
“Thank you Padfoot! And in return you should be mine!”
“Really?” Sirius’s face lit up considerably.
“What!?” Peter spat almost at the same time.
“Yeah! And as my best man - here!” James handed Sirius a small leather-bound box that contained his ring for Lily.
“Prongs, mate, I love you and I’m happy you made me your best man - but don’t you think marriage is a little much?” Sirius asked, raising a sarcastic eyebrow.
“No idiot! This is for Lily! I need you to keep it safe for Sunday, ok?”
“Right, great!” Sirius said, opening the box and glancing at the gold ring inside.
“Merlin! I’m never going to be best man!” Peter muttered, eyeing the ring with a greedy glint in his eye.
Remus finally let out an exasperated sigh. “Why does everyone still think that I’m never going to get married?”
…
“MOOOOONYYYYYY!!!!!!!”
“What?! Sirius, what is it?” Remus catapulted himself out of his own bedroom and into Sirius’s.
Sirius was holding the small leather-bound box. An empty small leather-bound box.
“Sirius did you -“
“Shh Moony!”
“Did you lose the ring?”
“No!”
“Well, do you have the ring?”
“Not… so much, no.”
“Merlins pants Padfoot!”
“What?”
“You’re the worst best man ever!”
“Not helping.”
“I know I’m not. That’s why I said it.”
“Can you stop being a git for five minutes and help me look for it?”
Remus sighed. “Fine! Where did you last have it?”
“If I knew that, we wouldn’t be here looking for it.”
“Where’s Clawfoot?” asked Remus, looking round for their ridiculously tiny tawny owl.
“Dunno, why?”
“‘Cause I’m Owling James,”
“No no no no no nono no no nono!” Sirius grabbed Remus by the elbow before he could leave the room.
“Why not?”
“Because then he’s gonna think that I’m the worst best man ever!”
“But that’s true -“
“And I’m not denying that! I’m just saying please help me look for it before you go running off to Prongs! It’s probably just somewhere in my room anyway!”
“Okay fine!” Remus sighed again. “Let me just go and get a clothes peg,”
“Why?”
“Because if we’re going to be looking around under your bed then I have to be well prepared.”
…
After almost a whole day of searching the ring was nowhere to be seen.
“That’s it Padfoot! It’s lost. You’re going to die and I will not be able to help that,” Remus said throwing down the sixth box that they had been searching though.
“Yeah… I’d actually figured that out hours ago -“
“How many hours?” Remus asked through gritted teeth.
“Like - when I found out that it was lost.”
Remus groaned and buried his face in his hands.
“How’re we gonna tell Prongs?”
“If you’re talking about how you’re going to tell Prongs, then I have no idea.”
“I could owl him?”
“I don’t think Clawfoot’s feeling well.” Remus nodded towards the tiny owl curled up on a cushion.
“Yeah, he keeps farting,” Sirius said, casting yet another de-odouring charm over the owl. “Did you give him the potion?”
“Yes…. Don’t think it did anything, though.”
“Well, then, if I can’t owl Prongs, what do I do?”
“You’ve got to floo him.”
Sirius didn’t seem too fond of the idea.
“And tell him to his face?”
“That is the idea, yes.”
….
“M-my ring?” James blurted out after Sirius had finished telling the story.
“Yes.”
“My ring that I was going give Lily on my wedding day?”
“Yes.”
“Lily my fiancé?”
“Yes.”
“My wedding day that’s tomorrow?”
“Prongs, we have patio furniture in our kitchen. How many rings do you think we own?”
James closed his eyes and looked like he was counting to ten. When he opened them again Sirius briefly wondered if you could get punched via the floo network.
“I can’t believe this!”
“I’m sorry Prongs!”
“Yeah well, unless sorry will, I don’t know, bring back the ring, then I don’t wanna hear it!”
“Prongs-“
“I don’t want hear your excuses Padfoot!”
“Yeah no, I don’t either, just Prongs -”
“Is Moony there?”
“Moony? Yeah um… why?”
“Can you call him?” James asked impassively.
“Yeah, um ok - wait a minute,” he told him before pulling his head out of the fire and looking round to where Remus was standing in the middle of the living room. “Prongs wants to talk to you.”
Remus’s eyes immediately widened. “What? Why?”
“I don’t know!”
“But I didn’t even do anything!”
“I know, but would you just please-“
“Ok ok!”
Remus bent down and stuck his head into the embers.
Sirius of course couldn’t hear much of the conversation which was mostly muffled although he noticed Remus’s tense body relax for a moment before immediately stiffening again. When he finally came back out with his face covered in soot his expression was completely neutral.
“So what happened?” Sirius asked.
“We just talked about how irresponsible you are and how you can’t be trusted with anything.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And how I should be best man instead -“
“WHAT!” Sirius exclaimed before realizing he was probably sounding like an idiot and cleared his throat. “I mean, you know, it’s fine. It was to be expected.”
Remus looked slightly taken aback by Sirius’s sudden burst of maturity. “Are you sure? You really sounded a bit -“
“What? Surprised? Well, yes I was, but the point is that now I’m fiiiiine.” Sirius really wanted to highlight the fact that he really was fine.
Remus frowned. “It’s just that - you just pronounced the word ‘fine’ with about five ‘i’s.”
“No, it’s because I’m actually fiiiine .”
“You sure? You don’t sound like it.” Remus looked him in the eyes (which Sirius realized were too wide and immediately adjusted them to a more normal size). “It’s fine if you’re not fine, it’s just that you need to understand that you made a right pig’s ear out of everything and -“
“That’s why I said: I’m fiiiiiiine.” Sirius made sure his tone wasn’t as high-pitched this time.
“You’re not fine, you’re fiiiiiiine.”
“Well, what’s the difference?”
“The difference is: ‘fine’ is what you are when you’re actually fine - hence the word ‘fine’. Fiiiiine is what you are when you’re not actually fine but want people to think that you’re fine by adding extra ‘i’s into the ‘fine’ to make people think that you’re more ‘fine’!”
Sirius needed a moment to process this. “Did you… research this?”
“Fine! So what if I did?”
“Well, it’s fine by me!” Sirius retorted.
“Well then, if everything’s fine, I’m going to bed.”
“Fine!”
“Fine!” and with that Remus slammed his door shut.
….
It was going to be a small garden wedding, just close friends and family (well… whatever was left of it). This is what Remus’s oh-so-happy thoughts were while he levitated the streamers into the air. Mostly he was still perturbed about last night’s occurrences. What was Sirius on about? It wasn’t that unfair - actually it wasn’t unfair at all. Sirius was being spoilt and selfish, two things that not in a million years did Remus think he would be describing his best friend as. Also what was he going to do about his best man speech? He figured he would just wing it, an idea that Remus was not a fan of, but honestly he didn’t really have a choice. And dammit, this was all just Sirius’s-
“Moony!”
What the - had he been saying this out loud? In shock Remus dropped his wand and all of the streamers came crashing down to the ground.
“Padfoot!” Remus exclaimed in exasperation as he bent down to pick his wand up.
“Sorry, sorry, Moony listen -“
“Sirius, I don’t have time to listen to you complaining about the injustice of life right now.” Remus gestured towards the pile of streamers in the middle of the floor.
“Yeah, um, that’s not what I want to talk to you about, actually.”
“Really? What, then?” Remus frowned.
Sirius glanced around the room only to notice that there was a group of Lily’s friends arranging flowers in a corner and ushered Remus away from them.
“What, is this a secret?” Remus asked wondering what the melodrama was all about.
“No, I just don’t want people to hear me being so mushy,” Sirius answered quickly before continuing. “I realize that, at some point along the line, I may have been a bit annoying to you, Peter and Prongs -“
“Oh yes, that is mushy.” Remus raised a sarcastic eyebrow at Sirius.
“Ok fine! I was an ass to you and to Peter and to Prongs and I had no right to act the way I did! Better?”
“Much better.”
Sirius let out a sigh. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I’m happy that you’re best man and I wanted to give you some pictures that could help you with your best man speech since you only have a couple of hours before you actually have to give it.”
Remus took the photo album from Sirius and started leafing through it. “Thanks Pads - you know this really helps,”
“Yeah. I’d suggest talking about Lily and Prongs from sixth year onwards - when they didn’t hate each other as much, you know like I did.”
“You wrote your best man speech in a day?” Remus asked.
“Hey, I’m a fast thinker Moony!” Sirius said defensively.
“You prepared in advance, didn’t you?” Remus shook his head. Sirius really did read like a book.
“Little bit.”
“Can I see it?”
“Oh yeah -“ Sirius stuck a hand in his coat pocket and took out a crumpled up piece of parchment. “Here.”
Remus read it through, glancing up at Sirius every now and then. When he was done he raised an eyebrow at Sirius. “This has at least six deer puns in it.”
“Well no, eight actually if you count this one,” Sirius pointed out.
“Yeah, but you could make a ninth one out of this here,” Remus contributed.
“Oh yeah,” Sirius laughed.
“Padfoot, how long ago did you write this?” Remus asked hoping for the answer to be ‘not recently’. It would be ridiculous if a nineteen year old didn’t know that “couldn’t of done” was incorrect.
“‘Couple or so years ago.”
“That must have been when you were about sixteen or seventeen.” Around the age that he had moved in with the Potters after he had been disowned by his family. During that time Sirius had written a speech about how much of a good friend James was and how he wanted good things for him. Of course!
Dammit.
Why, oh why was Sirius such a nice person?
Stupid, reckless and arrogant, definitely, but why was he so nice?
Remus was going to regret this someday.
“Pads, I need to tell you something.”
“That the deer puns are terrible?”
That was true. “Ok, I need to tell you two things.” Remus took a deep breath. “I… think that you should be best man.”
Sirius frowned at his friend and scrutinized him. “Do you feel well?”
“I don’t know …” Remus answered slowly. “But what I do know is that this obviously means way more to you than it does to us.”
Sirius just stared.
“I mean - none of us prepared a speech three years in advance - you and James are like brothers, you know, it’s right that you’re his best man,” Remus finished, but it wasn't long before Sirius was hugging him.
Sirius had always been a huggish sort of person and Remus was sure that it was one of the main reasons why his animagus was a dog.
“But… I lost the ring, and it’s Prongs’ wedding like you mentioned.”
Remus contemplated for a moment. “Maybe we can convince him? I don’t know. And about the ring… me being best man isn’t going to bring it back is it?”
“You sure?” Sirius asked.
“Positive,” Remus answered.
“How shall we tell James?”
“We’ll see him in like twenty minutes - we’ll tell him there.”
“What like - an hour before the wedding?”
To be honest that did sound a bit stupid and really not something that Remus would do. “Desperate times call for desperate measures?”
“Guys!” The two spun round to see a panting Peter staring at them.
“What is it?”
“You need to help me! Lily’s going crazy and Prongs is having a crisis!”
Oh no.
“Are you one hundred percent sure that there’s no way you can get the ring back? It would help a lot if you could just - find it.”
Remus answered before Sirius could implode on himself. “Peter, first of all: it’s not that simple and second: we’ve tried everything. Trust me.”
Peter looked at them helplessly. “Everything? Even Accio?”
Now, normally they would have laughed in Peter’s face for this. Of course they would have used Accio. That’s the first spell that a wizard uses when he finds out that he’s lost something. And Peter was suggesting that after a whole day of searching and arguing, two fully-grown wizards wouldn’t have thought of using it. Completely ridiculous. And they would have laughed in Peter’s face.
But they didn’t.
Because they had actually not thought to use Accio.
So they just stared at Peter.
And then at each other.
And right then was the moment in which Remus questioned his entire existence.
More than he ever had during the past fifteen years of his life that he had spent feeling like a burden, an embarrassment to humanity and unworthy of anything in the world - even love.
No, it was right then.
Meanwhile Sirius had muttered somethiiiiiiing and had taken his wand out without looking at Peter once. “Accio James’s wedding ring!”
Just them a ball of feathers came hurtling Sirius’s way and hit him squarely in the face. “Ouch! Not now Clawfoot! I’m doing something,” he said, taking the owl off his face and spitting a feather out. “See Peter, even if we had tried Accio it wouldn’t have worked!”
But it had worked. Clawfoot had had stomach ache since the ring had gone missing. That tiny fat owl was notorious for eating anything in its path. And now it had come hurtling towards Sirius just as he said Accio James’s wedding ring.
Remus took a deep breath. “Padfoot, use your last four remaining braincells and connect the dots.”