"Hey, I have a funny story to tell you," Marly says, and Sirius turns to see her toe off her shoes and throw her jacket on the back of the chair. He notices her play with a strand of her long coppery brown hair, something she only does when she's nervous or really bored. Sirius raises one of his eyebrows at her, waiting for her to continue.
She glances at him and continues, "you know how James and Lily are getting married in less than two weeks?" he nods and grabs her by the waist to bring her closer, "well, my parents are coming too. And they don't know I'm dating anyone. So you'll be meeting them. So … yeah."
He doesn't really know what to say. Sirius has never been in a relationship long enough to ever consider meeting her parents. Marly is the only girl he's been with that he's ever considered being ok with meeting her parents and not trying to sneak away at the last minute. He looks down at her and smiles, pressing a soft kiss on her lips.
"You haven't told your parents about me?"
She fidgets in his arms, "well, I was going to when I got home after graduation. But they left for Brazil for work and they just got back and I haven't really had the time. And there wasn't really ever a good time to tell them because I'm pretty sure my mother would die of shock and my dad would probably do something embarrassing or something."
She says everything so rushed and Sirius can't help but laugh. She's just so damn cute.
"Don't worry Marly," he says ruffling her hair, "I haven't told my parents about you either."
She scowls at him and punches his chest, "that's because your parents disowned you, you prat!"
The wedding is beautiful, just as Sirius predicted. Lily looks amazing and James can't seem to wipe the stupid grin off of his face. Everyone is dancing on the floor and having a great time. Sirius see's Marly talking to two people who are seated at one of the tables. He makes his way over to her, side stepping Peter and some blond girl who are dancing to something other than the music being played.
Marly turns towards him and takes his hand, sliding her fingers in with his, "mum, dad, this is Sirius, my boyfriend."
Sirius looks at the couple sitting in front of him. Marly looks like an exact mix between her two parents. He can tell that she got her vivid blue eyes and smile right from her dad and her coppery brown hair and small nose from her mother.
"Oh Marlene," her mother starts, looking Sirius up and down, "he's so handsome! How did you do it?"
Sirius see's Marly roll her eyes at her mother.
"Ugh, mum. Please don't - ," Marly begins but her father cuts her off.
"Sirius Black?" he asks, shaking Sirius's hand, "I must say, I wasn't very fond of your father when we went to school. But I sense that you're not like him at all. For one, you're much better looking than he is. He always had a look of utter disgust most of the time. Not very endearing if you ask me."
Sirius laughs. He can appreciate this man's honesty. Not many people openly tell him that they didn't like his parents, whether they went to school with them or met them later on in life.
"I can't say I'm very fond of him either," he says, grinning.
"Ah. Good man, good man," Mr. McKinnon says, nodding at Sirius, "although I don't know how I feel about approving of you not liking your parents, but Marlene tells me that you're living on your own now so I guess it's ok."
"Well, I'm not going to stop you, so go right ahead," Sirius laughs.
"Ok, enough parent meeting boyfriend time!" Marly says, dragging Sirius away from her parents, "go find someone else to harass."
"We will! Go have fun! Don't do anything stupid! If you try you will hear my voice in your head, it's called mum power and you will experience it in the future when you try to do stupid things!"
Sirius is roaring with laughter as Marly leads him into the middle of the dance floor. A slow song starts to play so he wraps his arms around her shoulders in a hug as they sway to the music. Sirius is still chuckling with laughter when Marly kicks his shin.
"Stop laughing, you'll only encourage them," she says, glaring up at him, "I'm sorry you had to endure that. They're ridiculous most of the time. You'd never believe that they're aurors."
"I think they're great," Sirius replies, "your dad seems like a funny guy. And your mum is hilarious!"
"That's what they want you to think," Marly laughs bitterly, "you just wait until they've had a few drinks. They get even worse."
An hour later, Sirius finds himself lounging on one of the chairs with Marly in his lap. They had been dancing for the better part of the last hour and had only stopped to get a drink and people watch. He could see Marly scanning the crowd, looking for her parents, but neither of them could be found.
"I wonder if they went home?" Marly says, still scanning the crowd.
But she spoke too soon. Sirius see's the crowd part on the dance floor and the two McKinnons come running towards the table, their clothes soaking wet.
"Mum tried pushing me in a fast running stream. She missed and fell in and got all wet! HAH!" Mr. McKinnon points at his wife's dress which is soaked with water. He turns around and walks towards the bar, leaving Mrs. McKinnon. Sirius and Marly both look at each other, neither knowing what to say.
"What were you two doing near a stream?" Marly asks slowly, her eyes on her mother's wet, dripping hair.
"Oh well, we thought it'd be nice to dip our feet in since they were so hot from dancing. But Denis thought it'd be funny to 'try' to push me in," Mrs. McKinnon explains, her shoes flinging water every where as she talks," and he almost did but I actually did try to push him in, just once, and I ended up falling in. He always does that to me!"
She skips off to find her husband near the bar, still dripping wet.
Sirius is laughing again, tears forming in his eyes. Marly shakes her head and makes a move to get up. Sirius grabs her around the waist tightly, not letting her go.
"And where are you going?" he asks, grinning.
"Going to go cut my parent's off before chaos ensues," she bites out, trying to get out of his grip.
"Oh, no. I don't think so," he says, "let them do their thing and we'll go do ours."
Less than an hour later, Sirius finds himself standing next to Mr. McKinnon, hands in his pockets. Sirius can see Marly goofing off with James and his father and his heart does a weird flip. He's never considered himself one of those guys who go all doughy eyed at their girlfriend and are all sensitive and crap around them, but sometimes it just happens when he's around her.
"So, you've been dating my daughter?" Mr. McKinnon asks, sipping on his glass of firewhisky, "how long?"
"Eight months August 10th," Sirius replies, kind of shocked that he knew the exact date.
Mr. McKinnon glances sideways at him and chuckles, "you don't strike me as the type to remember dates too easily."
"I don't know how I remembered it," Sirius admits, shrugging.
They lapse into silence again.
"You know, for the longest time I was afraid for the day Marlene got a boyfriend. Not for her really, more for the boy" Mr. McKinnon says, "she's very independent and witty and strong willed and I always thought her relationship would suffer because of that." He looks at Sirius and smiles, "but from what I hear from the Potter's, you two are pretty evenly matched."
Sirius doesn't know what to say, so he stares at the crowd on the dance floor.
"You two remind Scarlett and I when we were younger. Best friends, just enjoying each other and life and doing whatever we wanted," Mr. McKinnon says before wandering off again to find Mrs. McKinnon.
Sirius finds Marly who's dancing with James and steals her away.
"Oy! We were having a very nice conversation!" James says, trying to trip Sirius as he leads Marly away.
"Oh go dance with your wife Prongs," Sirius calls back, laughing, and takes Marly's hand.
A new song starts and Marly squeals, "they're playing The Rolling Stones! Best. Wedding. EVER!"
Sirius laughs as she starts singing along with 'Beast of Burden'. He's always liked the fact that she's so in to muggle music. Sometimes she would bring down her turntable into the common room and play music for hours, eventually either annoying so many people that they left or starting her own little dance floor right in the middle. After that, James made her honorary music selector for any parties that they threw.
The song finishes and Marly's mother appears next to them and taps Marly on the shoulder, "I just gave some guy five galleons to stop making eye contact with me."
"I'll stop making eye contact with you for five galleons," Marly says, raising her eyebrow at her mother, her arm snaking around Sirius's waist.
"But you don't have the crazy eyes," her mother whispers and looks around, "oh great. Your father is talking to him now. They'll be best friends by the night's end."
She leaves them again on the dance floor.
"Sorry my mother is so," Marly shakes her head and searches for the right word, "mental. She behaves like I haven't let her socialize properly in eight years."
"Marly, I'm pretty sure there are worse people out there," Sirius says, thinking of his crazy parents.
She just shrugs and looks up at him, "I saw you and my dad talking earlier. Please tell me he didn't tell you the story about how I chugged soap and ended up puking for a day and a half."
"Unfortunately, no, he did not tell me that story but now that you mentioned it, I would love to hear this story," Sirius laughs, tickling her slightly.
Marly laughs and swats his hand away from her, "that story is for a rainy day."
"I guess I'll have to wait, what, a day until it rains again. Damn, England is so sunny all the time!"
She rolls her eyes at him and sticks her tongue out at him.
"But really, what did he say?" she asks. Sirius knows she won't let up until he tells her.
"He just said something about us being kind of like them when they were younger," he says, and adds, "nothing bad! I swear."
"Ugh," she pulls a face, "I'd rather not be compares to my parents."
Sirius frowns, "but they're brilliant! And damn good aurors too."
"I know, I know. My parents and my brothers are very skilled aurors and I'm proud to be related to them. But I'm not them and I hate being compared to them all the time, even if it is just in passing or something small that doesn't really matter," she says, chewing her lower lip, "and if it wasn't for this war, and everything going on, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even be here right now."
"You'd just leave everyone after graduation?" he asks, hurt, "you'd leave me?" Sirius never expected him to be this sensitive or hurt by this confession. Of course he's never really been with someone long enough to really care about the impact that each other's decisions had on them.
Marly cocks her head to the side, studying him.
"I always thought you'd come with me," she says simply.