Title: Lock Your Love In
Pairing: James/Sirius/Lily
Rating: G.
Words: 2135
Summary: None of them have never been the conventional type. Naturally, their relationship isn't, either.
Content: Polyamory, getting together, Marauder/first war era.
They're fourteen the first time it happens. Fourteen, and James and Sirius are bright eyed and grinning, attached to each other the same way they always are. Lily knows trouble is coming before either of them have so much as opened their mouths.
"Evans," Sirius says, and he leans against the couch in the common room, one hand reaching to brush the hair from his face and the other curling around the couch to steady himself. "You and me, Three Broomsticks, tomorrow at two. Yes?"
"No," Lily responds, and she's scowling the way she usually does at James, but there's a hint of confusion. Like she doesn't understand why the look is directed at Sirius and not James. "Never," she adds, just because.
Sirius' grin doesn't falter. It's only downhill from there.
[]
"Why do you do it?" Remus asks one day in fifth year. They're at breakfast, huddled together in their usual seats. His brow is furrowed, his face lined with concern, but there's a small grin pulling at his mouth at the sight of James: eyes shut, face dripping in pumpkin juice, his shirt wet and sticky.
James huffs, loud and exaggerated. He takes the offered napkins from a grinning Sirius and wipes at his face, gets the juice out of his eyes. "Love," he says, plain and simple and all together too serious.
Remus and Sirius share a look, Sirius' grin growing until his face looks like it'll split in two. James stands, ignoring their mockery as he gives a little bow.
"I've got to change," he says, and everyone knows that's not what he's actually going to do, knows that he's going to chase Evans out the Great Hall and get one more word in, even if she has already made it obvious that her answer is no, Potter, for the last bloody time. Can't you get that through your thick skull?
"Doesn't know when to stop, that one," Sirius says, turning back to face Remus and Peter once James is out of sight, but he's still grinning. The words fond.
Remus politely doesn't mention that, more often than not, neither does Sirius.
[]
"Your friends are truly something."
"What'd they do this time?"
Remus' voice is exasperated but loving, and Lily can't help her smile. "Nothing too bad," she assures him. "I've just been asked if I wanted to join them on a midnight escapade into the Forest. I think Black's exact words were raunchy rendezvous."
She says it with an amused huff, and she expects Remus to have the same reaction, but the look he gives her is more thoughtful than anything else. As if he's putting together a puzzle.
"With both of them?"
"Yeah," Lily responds, confused. It's been that way, lately. Some type of new tactic where they take turns: Sirius asking her out first so James can play the saviour who 'helps' her escape his best mate's attention. "Why?"
"Nothing," Remus tells her, and the contemplative look vanishes as quick as it'd come, an easy smile gracing his features. "Think you dodged a disaster with that one," he says, and he does grin now, like he's joking again.
Lily wants to ask, but something tells her she shouldn't. By the end of the day, the incident is already forgotten.
[]
The day Lily actually does say yes, James comes barrelling into the dorm room, hollering and hooting, his face stretched in a massive grin that has to hurt. "Yes!" he yells, all but jumping on the bed as the others turn to him. "She bloody said yes!"
"Who?" Peter asks, glancing to Remus and Sirius before looking back at James. "Evans?"
"Evans," James confirms. "This weekend! Can you believe that, Moony? It's actually happening. You owe me ten bloody galleons, you do."
Sirius stands at the door, closes it behind them. He watches James as he settles on Remus' bed, an arm reaching to sling over Remus' shoulders as he babbles on. He's smiling, because he can't not smile—James' excitement is like a contagious disease, and he's always happy to see his best mate happy—but it's not his usual grin. Isn't the one that reaches his eyes. Isn't the one that radiates happiness like a Cheering Charm.
"Tell 'em, Pads," James calls. "Tell 'em what she said."
Sirius walks further into the room and starts to recount the story, plopping down onto the last bit of space on Remus' bed, his shoulder brushing James' in an easy act of intimacy.
"Well," he says, "it all started in Double Potions..."
[]
(Lily says yes, and James' whole body freezes as if he's just been stunned. Like he can't quite comprehend what's just been said. Realisation hits a moment later, and with it: celebration).
(Lily says yes, and Sirius' face falls for a split second, quick enough that no one sees it. He doesn't expect the sinking sensation to hit a moment later—the feeling that their lives have just shifted drastically, and that he'll be the one left in the dark).
[]
"I did that," Sirius announces proudly, tilting his head toward where James and Lily sit secluded in a booth at the Three Broomsticks.
"You did not," Remus says, taking the butterbeer that Sirius passes over to him.
"Uh huh," Sirius tells him. "She only accepted his date to make me stop shouting poetry across the commons. It's all me."
Remus rolls his eyes. "If your poetry was involved, I understand why she took James' offer and not yours."
"Oi!" Sirius exclaims, hand reaching to clutch his chest in an exaggerated display of hurt. "You wound me, Moony. My poetry is a masterpiece in the making. You just have no class."
Remus laughs, takes a sip of his drink. He watches Sirius above his glass, doesn't miss the way he glances back to where James and Lily are. Doesn't miss the sadness, nor the longing.
"It's okay, you know," Remus says after a moment has passed, gaze flicking to James before looking back to Sirius' face. "I mean—I know you don't talk about it, but. I—" He cuts off, sighs, folds his hands atop the table. "It'll be okay."
Sirius sends him an odd look, brow furrowed until his expression morphs to one of understanding, and then, for a moment, embarrassment. He doesn't bother asking Remus how he knows, because he's Remus, and if anyone would've noticed it, Sirius thinks it would've been him.
"Yeah," he says, clearing his throat. He takes a sip of his own drink, and by the time he's placed the glass back on the table, he's pointing to the other side of the room, to where Peter and poor Rory Dawson from Hufflepuff sit on their own awkward date, joking like Remus hadn't said anything at all.
Remus knows better than to push it, so he doesn't.
[]
To the surprise of almost everyone, James' relationship with Lily flourishes. Grows into a beautiful, loving bond before all their eyes, until eventually there's talk of rings and proposals, babies and weddings. Until James is standing in a dingy little dressing room, body vibrating with obvious excitement.
"I'm no longer your number one," Sirius says, reaching forward to tug on the collar of James' dress robes. They're black, sleek, expensive. He looks every bit of the beaming groom. Looks just as happy as Sirius knew he would be.
"Whatddya mean?" James asks. He's fiddling with his cuffs, trying not to run his hand through his hair for the hundredth time.
"You know," Sirius says. "Married man. You'll forget about me now."
He tries to keep it casual, light, but it's a very real fear. Is something that's been keeping him up.
James snorts: an airy, soft sound. "Like I could ever forget about you," he says, and he's smiling now. Grinning. Wide and bright and soft in an inexplicable sort of way. It melts Sirius' heart.
He claps James on the shoulder, takes a deep breath. "C'mon," he says. "You can't be late to your own bloody wedding."
[]
(The wedding is beautiful, the reception every bit of the party they wanted it to be. The perfect mix of a perfect couple).
(Sirius drinks more than he should and wakes up on Remus' couch the next morning, still dressed in the robes he'd worn to the wedding. His head and back ache, the evidence of a night poorly spent. He doesn't see James nor Lily for the next three days).
[]
"Sometimes it feels like I'm married to the both of them," Lily says one day, plopping down beside Remus with an exaggerated sigh. "I mean, really. Are they ever actually apart?"
She turns, catches Remus' eye. He's smiling at her in that way of his—the way that makes her feel as if she's missing something. As if he knows something she doesn't.
"Rarely," he says. "They're a bit of a package deal."
"I've learnt that much," Lily says. She lets her head drop to Remus' shoulder, curls a hand around his arm. "Just yesterday, Sirius showed up at five in the morning. Pulled James right out of bed and went flying. Something about testing the bike."
"No crashes?" Remus asks, because he really wouldn't put it past them. Not with their history.
"Nah," Lily tells him. "I've told them to be careful. Threatened James with the couch if he came home asking me to heal another broken limb." She smiles, looks at Remus from the corner of her eye. "Didn't know what to threaten Sirius with, so I told him I'd stop letting him eat our leftovers. Seems to be doing the trick."
Remus smiles at the mental image, and Lily can't help but return it.
[]
(Later, when she gets home, it's to the sight of James sprawled across the floor of their sitting room, Sirius lying in the spot beside him. They're snoring lightly, chests rising and falling gently as they sleep. Their bodies are intertwined, arms and legs locked in a casual type of intimacy: as if it comes natural to them).
(As Lily looks down at them, at how easily they fit together, understanding slowly dawns on her, and she realises that she might just be married to the both of them).
[]
"He loves him, doesn't he?" It's a question, but barely. Lily sounds as if she already knows she's right, like all she's looking for is that last little bit of confirmation. "Like, in love love."
When Remus looks up, there's a frown tugging at the corner of his mouth. Small and faint but telling all the same. "For years," he says, and he doesn't need to ask who, or ask what pronoun refers to which person. He knows James and Sirius, has watched them stumble around each other years. The answer is the same no matter what way Lily asks it.
"Well," Lily says with a dramatic exhale—the kind that tells Remus she's been spending more than a bit of time with Sirius, "I suppose I should be more surprised."
[]
"You're a bloody moron, you know that?"
James looks up as Lily enters their house, eyebrows shooting upwards. "What've I done this time?"
"You've hidden things from me," Lily says, but it's not quite serious. Her words tainted with a playful edge.
"I've what?" James asks, brow furrowing further as Lily walks forward and settles in his lap, her arms winding around his neck.
"You," Lily repeats. "You've kept things from me."
"What things?"
"'Being in love with your best friend' type of things," Lily explains, and she almost laughs at the look on James' face: the expression some type of mix between shock and denial and hope and fear.
"I'm not—" James tries, the words said a little too late for Lily to really believe them.
"Don't," she says, cuts him off. "Just don't. I'm not mad, okay? I don't mind. I actually..." She trails off, shakes her head. "It makes a lot of sense, really."
"But—" James tries, and Lily reaches forward to press a finger to his lips. He shuts up instantly.
"And I've been thinking about it," Lily continues, "and, you know, I'm not... opposed to it. I mean, everyone's a little in love with Sirius, aren't they? I could go there. And watching you two—"
Beneath her, James swears under his breath, eyes wide as Lily keeps talking.
It doesn't take a whole lot of convincing to initiate the next step of her plan.
[]
(Sirius needs a little more convincing than James does, but it's hard enough to resist one of them—resisting the both of them when he doesn't actually want to turns out to be impossible).
(Days later, when he wakes up sandwiched between the two of them, blanketed in the comfort of their warmth, he doesn't know why he ever tried to).