Let me stop here. Let me, too, look at nature awhile.
The brilliant blue of the morning sea, of the cloudless sky,
the yellow shore; all lovely,
all bathed in light.

Let me stand here. And let me pretend I see all this
(I really did see it for a minute when I first stopped)
and not my usual day-dreams here too,
my memories, those images of sensual pleasure.

Morning Sea, by Constantine P. Cavafy

"Do you like the red, or the blue?"

"Oh god, Lily, just pick one."

"No, tell me! The red... or the blue."

"No one will ever see them...well, except myself and James."

"Your lucky then. Pick one!"

"...the green one."

Lily Evens - soon to be Potter - smiled and turned toward her shopping comrade, her hair swigging in a low pony tail behind her. "Good choice Remus! I was thinking green."

"I know." Remus was slumpted in a chair he had found, tired from walking and carrying objects and giving opinions and all that good stuff that a brides maid was asked to do. Not that he wasn't happy he was in the wedding party, but a Brides Maid?

James and Sirius still had their humor in them, despite the new war they had just stepped into. Fresh out of school James had sealed the deal with engaging Lily to become his reason, and Remus was rather jealous. Lily had asked him the day after to be her brides maid.

'What about your sister? or one of your friends?' Remus had been nervous, and surprised, and Lily had laughed.

'Remus, my sister doesn't want anything to do with my wedding - and the only friend I want at my side when I marry James is you!'

In other words, No Remus, you don't have a choice. You're doing this.

The only benefit was that Remus had seen the wedding dress before anyone else - including her mother. He would be the only one to see the dress too, being the only one in Lily's side of the wedding part. James and Lily had decided that they want the smallest wedding possible, with Order members and their parents. James' parents wanted a big wedding, but Dumbledore had remarked that a celebration as large as they wanted would cause to much of a ruckus. So a small wedding with parents and friends was agreed on, and thus Remus would be the brides made. Lily's mother had asked if Lily was planning to name her sister as her brides maid, but Lily had told her that she already had one. Her mother didn't mind - it was a lode of her shoulders - but her sister was angry as hell. Lily didn't care much - she was getting married, why should she let it bother her? - and started to plan with Remus a wedding she had always wanted.

Lily took a seat next to him with a huff, and let her head fallback. The red head had to be exhausted.

"Are we calling it a day?" Remus asked from his position, slipping lower if possible. No only was he tired as hell, but they were in a undergarment store. For women. Full of women shopping for undergarments.

Remus was embarrassed beyond anything, and hadn't ever in his life hoped to know what Lily would were on her wedding night. He saw Lily's shoulders shake, and she laughed and shook her head.

"No. I want a cake, and we need to look at flowers."

Remus wanted to cry. Lily sat up slowly, flattening her hair against her head, and turned to Remus with a smile.

"And I wanna snow you were we're going to have it."

And hour and a half later, with a pamphlet of flower arrangements and a cake ready to be baked in the oven for the set day, Lily showed Remus the beach. The sun was setting, and Remus was hungry and tired, but the beach was nice. Flat and smooth, with high cliffs to the left and the never ending ocean to the right.

Remus had never really liked the ocean - it didn't propose anything good for him. He didn't enjoy being mostly naked in front of mobs of people, the sand got everywhere, and the sun seemed so much stronger then anywhere else. But this beach was quiet and calm - the sound of the ocean pounding at the land careful and soothing. Remus smiled and Lily laid her head on his shoulder.

"You know, I wasn't supposed to show you this. It should have been a secret until the day, then we would all take a Porky here and it would be a surprise. James said that we shouldn't tell anybody..."

Remus felt a sudden sadness sink his heart. He knew what Lily was getting at - it was to keep them protected. To makes sure the spy couldn't tell Voldemort where they were. He then realized what it meant for Lily to be showing him this place - the trust she had in him - , but uncertainty also clouded his head.

The sudden up is always followed by a hurtful down. That was the way of Remus' life.

What if they weren't having it here, and it was a test? There were two many double meanings for Remus to feel right about knowing this supposed secret, but he stayed still and let Lily lean on him knowing fully well that their friendship was a fragile as his and Sirius' and James' and Peters'. That it was shattering if he had this many double thoughts about one simple secret.

That's what secrets do to a person, and Remus feels like he's being ripped in two. He wants to believe in good so bad, but it seams that no madder what he does, that wont happen. He knows he's loosing a battle for trust and he's last on the friends list, but something so stupid like this makes him so terribly happy and so deeply sad is disturbing and amazing at the same time. There are two many double sided feelings in all this, Remus decided, swallowing around his heart in his throat.

But for Remus, all of that doesn't matter. Because in some way Remus loved the fact that Lily confided in him, but was saddened considerably that he will have no one to go home to and tell . To explain both sides of his heart and for them to get what it is to be him - why he does what he does and thinks what he thinks. There's no one there who will understand and agree, and he needs a strong drink and someone to really talk to but he has a mission tomorrow and he wants everything like it was.

God, Remus thought, It sucks to be 20.

So much still a child, so much a young man. Stuck in-between two things and unable to be both - it made him doubtful and hopeful and completely conflicting.

"It's lovely...thank you." Is all Remus needs to say, and suddenly Lily's crying and Remus thinks he might be as well.

Three weeks later, at 7 O'clock, Lily and James Potter are married, and Remus feels so much better drunk on this beach then he did sober. It's easer not to think, and he's slowly falling asleep with a rock digging into his back, but the beach is much better this way.

He did all of his brides maid duties, helped her put on her dress and fixed her make up and gave her reassuring words and a calming potion and all but shoved her down the isle. He stood on her side of the alter - feeling so much more like a brother then a friend, and watched her and James exchange vows. He and Sirius, before they found out Sirius was the best man (that had been common knowledge as soon as the word of the engagement was spared - before the word 'wedding' had been uttered) and Remus the brides maid, stood at the center of the small reception on the beach and toasted the newly weds with banter back and forth that made their friends laugh and Lily's parents to look very confused and uncomfortable.

Remus doesn't really remember anything after that, only the taste of Bay Breezes and Apple Martinis and Elvish Berries (a wine)- along with other assorted muggle and wizardly drinks. So coming back into coherency on the beach, laying face up in the sand was expected.

It may have been the wine or vodka or gin, but Remus was wistful. He wanted to do that. He wanted to exchange vows with someone he loved with all of his heart. For a day, he wanted to not have to think about the rest of the world and he wanted to get married. It had been a wish he held in his heart for a long time while in Hogwarts, but there had only been four people who he had come to love - in a way. There was no one he could really tie the knot with...

"Are you dead?"

Slowly, Remus dragged his eyes from the sky to Sirius' face and smiled, feeling rather relaxed with the alcohol in his system. Sirius' hair was as dark as the night sky, his gray eyes gleaming like the stars themselves.

"Almost." Was the soft response, and Sirius took a seat next to Remus' head with a soft 'Oof'.

"Grand speech, I must say. We did quite well - should do it more often."

"What?" Remus rolled his head to look at Sirius, feeling his brain slosh to the other side. "Get married or give speeches?"

Sirius laughed, loud and free, and it echoed off the cliffs and mingled with the sounds of the wedding reception a mile away and the roar of the ocean. Remus sat up slowly, carefully as to not cause a sudden jar that would certainly make him vomit, and smiled.

"You've got sand in your hair." Sirius pointed out, shoving his fingers into the back of Remus' head and ruffling the sand out. Remus found his eyes slipping closed, out of comfort and a attempted to not heave all the pleasant liquor in his stomach all over himself.

"You've got vomit on your shirt." Remus could smell it, and when he turned with Sirius hand still in his hair he could see the darkened patches around the bottom of Sirius shirt and on his collar. Sirius shook Remus' head as hard as he could and let his fingers fall out, slowly.

"I win then." Sirius said, leaning back onto his elbows. "Both, actually."

Remus blinked, his brain sloshing about. "...what?"

"The speeches and marriage thing. There should be more of both of them. Happy things, celebrations, weddings, baby's being born, birthday party's...Ya, know? Happy things."

Remus furrowed his eyebrows. "Sirius, we're at war."

Remus saw Sirius sigh, sitting up and brushing his elbows off the best he could. The black haired man pulled his legs in toward him, looking off toward the horizon. "So?...there is happiness in little things. Every day things that we could celebrate."

"We?"

"Yes, we." Sirius gave Remus a look. "So don't start on anything that might jump up from the bottom of your head. It's a Happy Time. We will not have a row during a Happy Time."

Remus laughed and let it got - agreeing with Sirius for once. He would not start on the charity of his friends and the way it made him feel. He would leave his loneliness alone and not mention the hollow hole in his chest. It was a happy time.

"Like what? Define your 'happy things'..." Remus felt like having another drink. He decided against getting up thought, figuring that it would be better for his face not to fall into sand any time soon. Getting up would be quite a bad idea...

"Well...like new moons."

That made Remus turn around. Sirius wasn't looking at him, but at the moonless sky. The date of the wedding was picked based on the charting of the moon - the darkest and most moonless night they could have. The werewolf chewed at his lip and nodded.

"Motorbikes then, too." Sirius laughed this time, pulling himself forward so that his shoulders were touching Remus'.

"Dinners with only two forks."

"A glass of whine after a long day."

"A cloudless sky."

"Day-dreaming."

"Wands." Sirius was grinning. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Sirius..."

"You think I'm a happy thing?..."

"Shut up..."

"...The morning sea."

Remus smiled, loving - for a moment - the sound of Sirius' voice. He closed his eyes and let the rough, tired rasp of it sink into his shoulders and the tips of his mouth twitched upward. Taking a deep breath, Remus let the smell of the morning sea sink into him - the smell of dog and good clothes and vomit lingering underneath. Remus noticed, with some twinge of irony, that he could smell Sirius when even on top of the sea. The strongest sent Remus had ever smelt was the sent of the sea, followed by the sent of the boy's bathroom...but he picked Sirius smell out of all the others.

So weather it was the Elvish wine, the smell of the sea, or Remus own want of a happy thing, the brown haired man turned and kissed Sirius Black. There was a still hush that filled his ears, the roaring of the sea falling away, the murmur of the party become an even softer whisper. Sirius tasted like sea salt and apples and Remus was, for the first time in a long time, happy.

"Books."

"Big surprise there..." A sight, a head dropping with the motion of a chest. "...long showers. Very long showers."

"You'll make my water bill shoot up."

"So? At my flat then. My beds bigger anyway."

"Sirius!"

Laughter, and a hand lacing through another's hair. Fingertips trailing over hips. Hands upon a heart. There was a sigh, and the sun broke over the horizon.

"The sea."

"Moony, you hate the sea."

"Not any more..."