So I was looking over some of my old stories and noticed they needed editing, badly. So here is Maybe re-vamped. I still own nothing. Enjoy!
"Ahh! This cannot be happening!" cried Alice Prewett, soon to be Longbottom.
"Alice, take a deep breath and try to relax," said Lily Evans, Alice's best friend of eight years and her maid of honor.
Alice tried, inhaling slowly but her breathing soon changed to sharp inhales as she choked on her air. Quickly Lily shoved a paper bag in her face and Alice's breathing slowed.
"This is a sign isn't it?" cried Alice, "Just like all the others! First the photographer, then the flowers and now my dress! Next thing you know Frank won't even show up to the wedding and leave me standing in my undergarments, because I still won't have my dress! Maybe this is a mistake." At this Alice burst into tears.
Lily was quick to comfort Alice with a hug, "It will all be over soon. In just three days the stress of planning the wedding will be over and you'll be Mrs. Frank Longbottom. And don't even worry about the photographer or the flowers, we'll get it all figured out in time. Besides all that matters is that you and Frank love each other."
Alice nodded slowly, "I guess so, but there's only three days left and so much to do."
It was at that moment that a loud crash was heard from the kitchen followed by a string of curses.
"Sirius." The two girls groaned in unison.
"Ah, two of my favorite ladies," said Sirius entering the room. "But where is my other favorite lady, hmm?"
"Marlene should be here soon along with James and Remus. Now, care to tell me what you landed on and broke in my kitchen?" Lily asked.
Sirius looked offended, "I wouldn't crash into things if you didn't keep things on the floor!"
Lily sighed in frustration, "It's not my fault I don't have a big enough kitchen to store everything! Why can't you be like a normal person and apparte to the front entry?"
The two glared at each other for a moment filling the room with silence. Finally Sirius broke his gaze with Lily to see Alice still in Lily's arms; her eyes red from crying. Automatically he moved beside her and gave her a hug. "What did Frank do?" he asked.
Lily quickly answered for her, "It has nothing to do with Frank. So that means no, you can't hex him."
"Aw," Sirius pouted for a moment, "So then what's the problem?"
"That's why I called the meeting; I'll tell everyone when they get here," Lily said.
"Please, please, please-" but Sirius's begging was cut off by a loud crash coming from the direction of the bathroom.
"Stupid apparation, why we can't just floo here is beyond me!" yelled an angry James Potter as he entered the room, "I'll never get the hang of this!"
Marlene and Remus entered through the kitchen shaking their heads. Sirius burst out laughing when he saw James's appearance; "Having some difficulties there Prongs?" he said laughing.
James, who had his pants soaked with water and toilet paper wrapped around his head, glared at him. "I hate apparating! It's so damn difficult! And to answer your question I landed in the toilet and then fell and ended up like this."
Everyone laughed at James' predicament.
Lily shook her head and fixed him up with a quick cleaning charm, "Why am I friends with you?"
James pouted, "Your life would be boring without me."
Lily grinned, "And my things would stay in one piece." She said looking pointedly as Sirius.
"How either of you passed your apparation test I'll never know," said Remus, "So Lily why'd you call an emergency meeting?"
"Well, now that everyone's here we can start; we have a crisis on our hands." Lily said in her Head Girl voice.
"Hey, wait Peter's not here," said James suddenly.
"He is with Frank, we couldn't leave him alone and I need the rest of you to help," Lily said simply, "now if you'll let me continue, we have some problems with the wedding plans." At this everyone gasped appropriately.
"I know it's pretty serious, firstly the photographer canceled-" Lily was cut off by Remus." My cousin's a photographer, and I'm sure she would be happy to do it." He said.
"Great one crisis averted," Lily checked it off her list, "Okay but there are some other problems as well. The flowers are the wrong color and Alice's dress has been given to a muggle second hand store" She quickly explained.
"So here's the plan, James, Sirius, and Remus will come with me to retrieve Alice's dress. Marlene, I need you to deal with the flowers. Alice I booked you a massage at this new magical spa. It should help you relax. Are right everybody move, move, move!" Lily yelled.
"Lily can be scary sometimes." Sirius whispered to James as Lily ushered everyone out of the apartment.
The group soon approached muggle London and Lily began looking for the right store.
"So LilyFlower what is your brilliant plan? Wait where did you say we were going again anyways?" James asked.
Lily stopped and turned to face him, "James I may be your friend now but that doesn't mean I won't hex you into oblivion if you call me that again understand?" James gulped and nodded even after a year of friendship she could still scare the wits out of him. "And to answer your question, we are going to a shop called Old, New, Blue, or Borrowed and once we find the dress we'll buy it and get it back to Alice.
"How did it get here anyway?" Remus asked.
Lily looked sheepish for a minute, "Alice's dress was supposed to be delivered to my apartment so that Frank wouldn't see it. It was delivered the day I had some old clothes taken away and it got mixed up with them."
"So this is your fault!" Sirius exclaimed.
Lily looked indignant, "It is not my fault. Things were chaotic in my apartment that day. Being the Maid of Honor involves a lot of responsibilities."
Sirius smirked, "Sure, tell yourself whatever you need to feel better about this. Looks like Lily Evans isn't perfect after all."
Lily frowned, "Whoever said I was perfect?"
Sirius pointed to James, "Prongs here never had a bad word to say about you in Hogwarts, it was all 'Lily is and angel; she's so perfect; I'm not good enough for her."
James blushed and looked away, "Stop it Padfoot you're embarrassing Lily."
Lily rolled her eyes, "Come on we're almost there."
"But we don't even know what it looks like!" Sirius complained.
"For the 7th time it's a strapless, beaded, silk gown with a cinched waist with blue trimming!" Lily said annoyed.
The three boys looked at her like she was speaking a different language. "You guys are useless," said Lily shaking her head. She stopped for a moment and looked up, "This is the place I guess."
The four entered the shop and Lily quickly made her way up to the cash to speak to the girl working. The three boys just stared in awe at the shop. It was full of clothing, furniture, appliances and toys.
"Wow" said Sirius, "do muggles really use all this stuff?"
Remus looked at him, "Didn't you take muggle studies for five years?"
"Yes, I mean how else was I supposed to catch up on sleep?" Sirius said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Hey what's this?" James asked holding up an old telephone.
"I think it's called a fellytone" said Sirius expertly. "Muggles use it to communicate like floo powder.
"I thought you said you slept through muggle studies?" Remus asked
"Well I dated a muggle-born last summer and she showed me how to use it." Sirius said proudly.
"Well it looks weird to me." said James, "Hey look they have brooms here!" He excitedly ran over to a row of booms knocking over a record player in the process which fell to the floor and began to blast out music loudly in Sirius's ear, causing him to scream and jump into Remus's arms.
"What's going on here?" Lily asked with a look to rival McGonagall's. Remus dropped Sirius to the ground and both men pointed to James who was still fawning over the brooms.
"Honestly, we're supposed to be here for Alice but no I find you all goofing off, like this is some kind of joke. Hippogriffs would be more help than you three!" Lily exclaimed as she approached James.
"Look Lily!" James said as he saw her nearing him, "Brooms! I've never seen these models before. Can I get one please?"
Lily's temper had reached its limit and she burst, "No Potter! We're here for Alice, not brooms! These ones don't fly anyway." James cowered beneath her as she continued her rant. It had been almost 11 months since she last yelled at him, and James really thought that being friends had been working for them. He supposed she was just stressed from planning the wedding, but didn't say anything in case he made her angrier. He quietly followed Lily as she led them to the dress rack.
"Is this it?" Sirius asked for the seventh time that hour, pulling out a short white dress with ruffled trim.
Lily sighed, "No for the last time it's a strapless, beaded, silk gown-"
"With a cinched waist with blue trimming!" The boys finished, "We know."
"Well obviously Sirius doesn't!" Lily retorted. The group was silent as they continued searching. It wasn't until some time later the silence was broken by a scream heard from farther up the rack. The group looked up, ready to grab their wands if necessary.
"Oh looks like someone found their wedding dress," said Remus noticing a muggle woman jumping for joy with a familiar dress in hand. "Hey, wait isn't that Alice's dress?"
"WHAT!" Lily practically threw herself at the woman, and the boys could hear the start of an argument.
"-But it's mine I found it first!" exclaimed the woman who was clutching the dress trying to remove Lily's death grip from it.
"That's my friend's dress, it ended up here accidentally. I need it now!" Lily's temper was now flaring, but the other woman wasn't backing down.
"Sirius, maybe you should go help." whispered James.
"How am I supposed to help?" Sirius whispered back.
"I don't know flirt with the muggle and convince her to give up the dress or something."
"That's stupid it would never work!"
"Actually Sirius, James might be onto something, just go flirt with her." Remus said butting into the impending argument.
Sirius glared at the two but stomped over to Lily and the woman. James and Remus watched as Sirius put on his charm. In minutes he had the woman giggling and Lily soon had a secure grip on the dress and left to go pay for it before the woman changed her mind.
"Good thing that worked. I wasn't sure you were going to make it out of there alive," James joked, "Bloody Hell you've got to be kidding me!" It seemed Sirius had swept the woman off her feet and was now kissing her. "The bird's engaged and he still manages to get her!" James exclaimed.
"But look now, how much you want to bet that's the angry fiancé walking over?" Remus grinned. There seemed to be a large angry man making his way over to the kissing couple. Sirius broke the kiss just in time to see the man throw a punch his way and soon ran back to James and Remus.
"Come on we've got to get out of here! Where's Lily?" he practically yelled.
"Oh don't worry, she's just paying for the dress, we can leave so you don't die," said Remus laughing. At this the three quickly went to wait outside for Lily to join them.
Lily soon joined the group and they all went back to the apartment to see if Marlene had made progress with the flowers. Once arriving at Lily's the boys collapsed onto the couch, tired out from the day's events. It seemed they were the first to arrive back. Lily took a seat and silence filled the room. It didn't last for long.
"Lily, are you okay?" Remus asked as he saw Lily's eyes filled with tears.
"Yes, I'm just so happy that Alice can have her dream wedding." Lily sobbed, "I mean we've been planning it since we were 11 and now that she has the dress that can happen." She smiled.
"You've been planning your wedding since first year?" exclaimed Sirius.
Thankfully Marlene had been able to fix the flowers, and the spa was able to relax Alice. The big day went through smoothly, with much thanks to Lily who ended up coordinating everything. As Alice and Frank walked onto the stage for their first dance as a couple, Lily sighed happily. She hoped her wedding could be as perfect as this, but first she had to meet the right guy. At that moment Lily's thoughts were disturbed by none other that James Potter.
"Care to dance?" he asked holding out his hand.
"Why not?" said Lily taking his hand as he led them onto the dance floor.
The two danced in silence as a slow muggle song played.
"What are you thinking about?" James asked suddenly.
"Oh you know, Mr. Right; weddings always do this to me." Lily replied
"I could be your Mr. Right," he said softly in her ear.
Lily stopped and looked into his eyes, "James I-"
James stopped her, "Lily, I've loved you since the first time I saw you in first year on the platform. I've tried to be everything you need, but I can't stand just being your friend anymore. Please, just give me one chance to show you that I could be everything you're looking for and more."
Lily softened, "I've always been afraid of you hurting me James, but now that we're out of school I know you really do care about me."
James pulled Lily close to him, "I know I could be your Mr. Right if you just let me."
Lily looked at the floor and bit her lip. She smiled and looked him in the eye; "I think so too." She reached up and pulled him into a kiss. The two broke apart and grinned.
"Wow," James breathed.
"Yeah, wow." Lily echoed.
The song ended and the two parted. Lily wandered back to her seat beside Marlene with a silly grin on her face. She watched as James ran off to Sirius, Peter and Remus, who were off to the side talking. Lily smiled at their shocked faces as an animated James recounted the past few minutes. She then saw Sirius walk up to the microphone. The music stopped and everyone looked up.
"Attention, attention everyone!" Sirius began, "It has finally happened, Lily Evans has admitted to liking James Potter. For those who made bets now is your time to pay up."
Lily stood shocked as people began passing gallons around. She had no idea this many people had bet on her relationship with James.
Alice walked over to where Lily and Marlene stood.
"Time to pay up!" Alice exclaimed holding out her palm to Marlene.
Lily looked shocked as Marlene handed her ten gallons. "Not you two. You're supposed to be my friends."
Marlene grinned, "We all Lily and as friends we have a right to bet on you."
Lily frowned. Alice smiled, "Aw Lily this will cheer you up," she said handing her the bouquet. "I guess we know who's getting married next." She teased.
Lily laughed and shaking her head as she watched the Marauders dance together to some fast paced song. "Maybe," she said, "just maybe."