A long way away, over the very dirty river and Hogsmeade where Charlene was, alone (but she wasn't lonely, since she was planning to see her husband-to-be, Jim, during the day), and back to where Sirius and Meg were coming out of their room together, kissing like they usually did. They had gotten each other gifts, of course, unlike Celeste and Snape. Nobody else was upstairs; they were all downstairs.

Meg and Sirius hadn't bothered to change out of their pajamas; nobody had. They both just wore their bathrobes. Sirius's was a handsome dark green with long sleeves and went all the way down to his feet and was sort of loose; Meg's was rather tight, a rosy pink, with long sleeves, and stopped a bit below her knees. They started to go down the stairs, and they would take their showers later today.

When they got down the stairs, they weren't surprised to see that Andrea and Ron were kissing each other furiously; but they were surprised to see that Hermione was kissing Harry as well. They weren't kissing as dramatically as Andrea and Ron, of course, but they were certainly kissing, and they both looked very happy about it, too.

"Merry Christmas, everybody!" said Meg happily.

"Merry Christmas, Meg," said Hermione, smiling, detaching herself from Harry. Harry said the same thing and then all four of them looked at Ron and Andrea, who were still kissing.

Actually, Sirius was still wondering how Snape and Celeste were getting along. He had heard how nervous his old school enemy had sounded, and he expected he hadn't actually done anything with her. Still, it might have been that Snape had actually taken his advice and done IT with Celeste…

"Anything on your mind, Sirius?" said Meg conversationally as they sat down.

"No…I'm just wondering how Snape and Celeste are faring." Sirius opened the refrigerator and got out some breakfast. "Does everybody like pancakes?"

They all did, it turned out, and they enjoyed a marvelous pancake breakfast. Meg wanted to know more about Celeste and Snape, though.

"Why are you worrying about them?" she asked. "I thought you hated them."

"Well, yeah, I do," said Sirius, "but…well…I'm not sure Snape would mind if I told you this, but…well, it turns out Celeste wanted to continue their relationship further or something and—"

"You mean, like…like intercourse?"

"Yes." Sirius took a bite of his butterscotch pancake and continued talking. "And he wanted to ask me for my advice…so I just wanted to see how everything was going."

"Oh. Well…" Meg put her head in her hands and looked up at her husband-to-be. "We don't think about how nervous we are—"

"We aren't—" said Sirius.

"Actually, Sirius, there's something I never told you," said Meg. "On my first time with you, I was nervous, just a little bit. Mostly, I was thinking about how much I love you, but still…"

"Yeah, I know. We're like an old married couple…We will be soon."

"Not old though," said Meg. "I'm so excited for our wedding date, though…Do you want to make it even sooner? Because I cannot wait."

"You know, me neither," said Sirius. "We should have it tomorrow…"

"Yeah, but it would have to be informal," said Meg, clasping her hands into Sirius's on the table over their pancakes. "You know, we'd have to spend a bit more time on a formal wedding…"

Sirius's gray eyes met Meg's brown ones, and their lips also met, too.

"Do you think they're really going to get married tomorrow?" Hermione asked Harry as she dug into her plain pancakes with syrup.

"Yes," said Harry fervently, watching Sirius and Meg, who were now French-kissing.

"You should get Sirius something to wear to his wedding," said Andrea sagely. "Like, his tux and stuff like that. Hermione and me can get Meg her wedding stuff, because we're going to be her bridesmaids, aren't we, Hermione?"

"I still think they should wait a bit," said Hermione.

"Harry's still mad because he can't be a bridesmaid," said Andrea, grinning, and Harry pulled one of her pigtails, and Andrea stuck her tongue out at her brother.

"Do you really want to be a bridesmaid, Harry?" said Ron, who had double-chocolate-chip pancakes with extra syrup, even though Andrea said he was going to be huge if he kept on eating that, and Harry glared at Ron, because how could he believe that Harry wanted to be a bridesmaid?

"You're really gullible, aren't you, Won-Won?" said Andrea, and then she kissed Ron, and everybody thought that Hermione and Harry wouldn't be kissing, but they did, because Hermione kissed Harry, who looked really surprised, but finally he broke away from her.

"I don't think Sirius really meant it when he said they should get married tomorrow, on second thought, actually," said Harry, and he went over to the corner of the table where Sirius and Meg were still snogging furiously, and said, loudly, "SIRIUS!"

"Yeah?" said Sirius, detaching himself from Meg, who looked angry at being interrupted.

"Are you really going to get married, tomorrow?" asked Harry, looking at Andrea and Ron, who were kissing, still, and wondering if they were ever going to stop it.

"I don't know," said Meg, answering for Sirius. "Why? Do you want us to?"

"No. Hermione says you should wait a bit more," said Harry, taking a chair beside Sirius, and putting his head in his hands. Sirius looked surprised.

"I'm sorry we didn't pay more attention to you, Harry," said Sirius. "That's how it always is when you're about to get married, you know—your parents were like that, too. They kissed all the time, because they were so glad to be with each other—but they never changed their wedding date, though."

"Yeah…Hermione!" called Harry, going over to where his friend was sitting.

"What?" said Hermione. She was watching Ron rather disgustedly, because he was trying to talk with his mouth full of double-chocolate-chip pancakes with extra syrup.

"Why do you think Meg and Sirius should wait to get married?"

"Because they…well, I don't know, actually," said Hermione, smiling slightly. "I guess it just seemed to me so…impromptu to change their wedding to tomorrow."

"Well, yeah, but if you love somebody, you should marry them as soon as possible," said Ron, but it sounded harder to decipher than that, since he still had a lot of food in his mouth. Hermione looked at him disgustedly, again, and Ron swallowed.

"What did you say, Ron?" asked Harry loudly.

"I said, if you love somebody, you should marry them as soon as possible," Ron repeated. "Maybe they just can't wait any longer."

For once in their lives, Sirius and Meg were not kissing.

"How about this," Sirius suggested. "We can have our wedding not tomorrow, or the day after that, but we can have it the day after the day after tomorrow, instead. Sound good?"

"Yes," said Meg. "After all, we're still together. We don't need to get married right away, because either way, we'll still be with each other."

"Exactly," said Sirius. "Now…I wanted to find out how Snape was getting on, remember? So I thought I'd, you know, call him. Even though we are usually enemies."

"Okay," said Ron. "You don't need my permission."

Sirius smiled at Ron, put his fork down, and stood up from the table. He made a shhh-ing gesture as he dialed Snape's number.