Tripping Down the Aisle

Chapter Two; "Yoko, you're breaking up the band"

~*~

Lily sat opposite James, playing chess and winning spectacularly. In between captures punctuated by James's frequent obscenities, she was debating with him how to tell their friends and family.

"I mean, I'm really not kidding," Lily said, frowning as James moved a pawn two spaces to the left of her queen. "My father will kill you."

"I'm trained," James yawned, leaning back in his chair and adjusting his glasses as he waited for her move. "I can take him."

Lily smiled dimly as she captured his king and waved it in front of his face in playful triumph. He took the piece from her and threw it across the room.

"Stop gloating."

"Stop losing."

James stuck his tongue out at her, and studied her intently for a few moments while she started picking up pieces and putting them back into the box. After about a minute, she finally looked up and realized what he was doing. Flushing a little, she asked, "What?"

He shook his head, smiling a little and said, "I can tell your parents, if you want."

Lily paused. "No, I'll tell them. It's--I'll be fine. Really. If they react badly, I can always tell them you got me pregnant or something."

"Because that would make them react so much better!"

"But if I tell them I'm pregnant, then they'll blame it completely on you and understand that I have to marry you, that I don't have any choice in the matter."

"And then we'd have to have a child magically materialize after nine months."

She bit her lip. "That is a bit of a flaw."

"Indeed."

Lily sighed, then brightened. "Or," she said hopefully, "or, I can just not tell them at all. Wait until we're gone on our honeymoon, then Sirius can tell them. They'll take it out on him, and by the time we get back, they'll be completely over it!"

James snorted as he stood up and ruffled her hair before heading down the hall to their bedroom. "Oh, yes. Your mother will just be thrilled that she didn't get to see her daughter on her wedding day. And your father will be ecstatic that he didn't have to walk you down the aisle."

Lily followed him into the room and flung herself down onto the bed, where James was sitting and putting on his pajamas. "Sirius could walk me down the aisle," she said thoughtfully, propping her head on her hands.

James laughed heartily. "You want my best friend to walk you down the aisle? Have you met him?"

She smiled. "Well, he's the only one of your friends who would do it. He loves the attention."

"Are you saying walking you down the aisle for all of ten seconds will get him more attention than being my best man for the whole day?" James finished dressing and flopped himself down on the bed next to her, looking inquisitively at her, eyebrows raised.

"I hate to break it to you, but the bride is always more important than the groom on her wedding day," Lily told him, grinning.

"Well, that's not very fair, is it? The groom has to go through all the work!"

"How so?"

"Well, let's take us for example."

Lily sighed. "Oh, you're going to go off on one of your self-gratifying 'reasons why Lily should've realized why James is a veritable sex god earlier' rants, aren't you?"

He ignored her. "First, there was the challenge of getting you to go out with me in the first place."

"Which," Lily interrupted, "wouldn't've taken nearly as long as it did if you hadn't been such a self-centered prick."

"Or if you hadn't been such a stubborn wench, but I digress," James continued, his tone dignified. Lily scoffed, but allowed him to continue. "And then, there's keeping a relationship up for three years when all we seem to do is pick fights with each other--"

"Again, which wouldn't happen so often if you weren't a prick."

"Or if you weren't a stubborn wench."

Lily smiled affectionately. "Don't you just love it when things go full circle like that?"

"And then there's working up the nerve to propose to you."

Lily sat up now and looked at him curiously. "How long did it take you to ask me?"

"Really?"

"Really."

James sat up as well and sighed. "I was going to propose to you on your birthday."

Lily's eyes widened in surprise. "My birthday was two months ago."

"I know. But I couldn't find a ring by then, so that didn't work out."

"It took you two months to find a ring?"

"No, I found that ring," he touched the one on her finger lightly, "the weekend after your birthday. That Sunday when I went out for drinks with Sirius and didn't come home for three hours?"

Lily paused for a second as she tried to remember. "Oh, yes. I fought with you about that, didn't I?"

He grinned. "Yeah, you did."

She winced. "I'm sorry."

"Nah, it's okay. It shouldn't've taken me that long to pick one out, anyway. I'm just really, really particular. Anyway, after that, it took me two months to actually ask you. I've started to about eight times before you either had to leave or I just couldn't say anything once you were in front of me." He sucked in a breath and gave a shaky laugh. "Believe it or not, that still happens a lot. With anything."

"It does?" she asked, surprised.

"Yeah," James replied, smiling. "You make me nervous, still."

And that, somehow, was better than the ring.

***

The path leading up to Lily's parents' front door had always seemed so long when she was younger; it always took her a long time to walk it. But now, it seemed as though there was hardly a path at all. In a ridiculously short amount of time, she was standing in front of the door, James beside her.

She knocked once, then opened the door. James followed her in, then closed the door behind her. The living room was empty, but Lily could hear her mother's beloved food processor whirring and the sound of her father's voice coming from the kitchen.

Lily bit her lip. James, sensing her anxiety, leaned over and kissed the side of her head. "You'll be fine," he assured her.

"I'm not worried about me," she replied in a low voice. "I'm just hoping I won't have to bury you."

He laughed. "It'll be fine," he repeated.

Just then, Lily's mother called from the kitchen, "Petunia, is that you?"

Lily sucked in a breath and pushed open the kitchen door. "No, Mum, it's me," she said, unnecessarily.

Mrs. Evans turned from the counter, where she was tipping walnuts into the food processor, and smiled. "What prompts this visit? Oh, and James, hello, dear," she added, just as he stepped into the kitchen as well.

"Hello," he returned, then, turning to Lily, said accusingly, "You shut the door in my face."

"I'm sorry," she muttered.

Mr. Evans was eyeing his daughter over his spectacles. "Lily, you look awfully peaky. Are you all right?"

Peaky does not begin to describe it. "I'm fine." She shot her father a weak smile. "Really."

"And Mr. Potter," Lily's father continued, nodding to him. Mr. Evans had always called James by his surname, as though telling him not to get too comfortable. It was true that Mr. Evans did like him, but mostly against his will. James smiled at Lily's father.

"Oh, Mum, are these chocolate chip?" Lily asked, crossing the kitchen to where her mother was removing a tray of delightfully smelling cookies from the oven.

"No," Mrs. Evans replied. "They're oatmeal raisin. Lily, could you get a plate for me--thank you."

Mrs. Evans and Lily discussed the cookies for close to ten whole minutes, while James hovered near the door, too nervous as to Mr. Evans's reaction to what was to come to go too near him. He was hoping Lily would get a move on.

As Lily and her mother started to look through Mrs. Evans's recipe books, James started to get slightly annoyed with her. He was just about to tell them himself when Mrs. Evans suddenly gasped and grabbed Lily's left hand.

"Lily!" she exclaimed. "Where did you get that ring?"

"Ring?" Mr. Evans repeated harshly. "Ring?"

"Yes, Richard, there's a diamond--

"A diamond?" Mr. Evans repeated, turning to James, who became very interested in his shoes.

Lily was stammering, but not really making any sense. "Well, see-see, Daddy, the thing--the thing about it is--"

"But the silver lining is," James chimed in, rather unexpectedly, "is that she's not pregnant." For Lily had been looking a little desperate, and he had been thinking that she might head in that direction soon.

Mrs. Evans turned to him, humor sparking in her eyes in a way that reminded James muchly of Lily. "And how is that a silver lining?"

"You really have to want to see it," James told her.

***

Telling Lily's parents turned out to be nothing compared to telling James's friends.

The three other Marauders sat in James and Lily's living room, on the sofa, looking up at the couple with expressions of polite confusion and interest. Their gatherings were never so formal.

"See, the--the thing is," James began, ruffling his hair, "I did something."

"Did you--?"

"No," James interrupted. "No, I--I asked Lily to marry me."

There was a lot of silence that followed this proclamation, in which Sirius's head whipped wildly to face James, then Lily, then James again; Remus beamed brightly at them; and Peter sat there, jaw scraping the floor.

Sirius broke the silence first by demanding of Lily, "And what did you say?"

"I said 'yes', you dolt," she said. "If I'd said 'no', do you honestly think we would be announcing it to you?"

"You said 'yes'?" Sirius repeated disbelievingly.

Lily stuck out her hand so that her engagement ring was practically under Sirius's nose. "I said 'yes'," she told him.

Sirius turned now to Peter. "Is she crazy?"

"Like a straw," Peter agreed.

"Why am I crazy?" Lily wanted to know.

"Yeah, why is she crazy?" James echoed. He'd stayed relatively quiet, so his addition to the conversation, while not entirely unexpected, was still a little surprising.

"Only, it's James, isn't it?" Sirius smiled, looking a little uncomfortable (for once) to be the center of attention. "I just...I never thought you'd marry him. Ever."

"Well, thank you, Sirius," James said icily. "I really needed that shot of confidence."

Lily didn't seem to be offended by this, but was looking at Sirius in an oddly understanding way. "Come with me," she said.

Sirius eyed her wand, which was on the mantle of the fireplace, warily. "You know, I don't think I want to."

Lily followed his gaze and grinned. "I'm not going to duel you," she assured him, adding as an afterthought, "At least, I don't think I will. I just wanted to talk to you."

Sirius did not know what strange psycho-babble Lily was expecting to get out of him, but he was not a very talkative person when it came to feelings and stuff. "Um," he said. "Um, okay."

He followed her down the short hallway, where she opened the last door and waited for him to enter before closing the door.

It was their bedroom; and while Sirius had been in here before, it had only been three times, and on none of those occasions was Lily at home. Somehow, standing in the room that he'd made jokes about with his best friend with the girl he'd made the jokes about did not seem very ethically right to him.

Lily didn't seem to feel this way; she was bustling around what Sirius recognized as James's side of the room (it was the one with all the Quidditch posters), picking up the clothes strewn all over the floor and dropping them into a laundry basket on top of his dresser.

"Can't you do that with magic?" Sirius asked her.

"I would," Lily replied, gathering up some of James's socks, "but I left my wand in the living room, because you were afraid I would use it against you. Sorry for the mess," she added hastily, "but, you know, James lives here. And...well, you lived with him for seven years, you know what he's like."

"He's a slob," Sirius agreed.

Lily shot him a dim smile over a pile of James's shirts. "Well, you bet your life he'll be picking up my underwear for a week after this."

"I'm sure he'll have no objections to that."

Lily smiled again, then leaned against James's dresser, pointing to the bed. "You can sit, if you like."

"No!" Sirius answered, so quickly that he was sure he'd been rude. "I--I mean, I'm fine, thanks."

Lily didn't seem offended, rather, very amused. "All right, then. Obviously, you don't want me marrying James. Anyone could tell that. Only, I'd just like to know the reason why."

"Now, I never said that I didn't want you marrying him--"

"You didn't have to. I'm not offended--yet--I just want to know why. That's it."

"Um. It's not that I don't want you married. I...well, I don't know. Okay." Sirius seemed to have been hit by an epiphany, because he began to pace the stretch of carpet in front of James and Lily's bed, waving his hands for emphasis as he spoke. "Okay, James and I have been friends forever, right?"

"Right."

"Well...married people hang out with other married people."

Lily blinked at him. "What?"

"Married people hang out with other married people."

"Sirius, we don't even know any married people."

"Frank and Alice," Sirius shot at her, referring to a pair of Aurors, who were indeed married.

Lily seemed visibly flustered by this. "Well--Frank and Alice barely have enough time for each other, let alone for James and me!"

"Exactly! That's what it'll be like with me and James."

Lily was confused. "I'm sorry?"

"We'll keep missing each other, you know? He'll be busy this weekend, because you're having dinner with your family, or he'll have to miss a Quidditch game because you're going shopping for new bed linens or--"

"What's wrong with my linens?"

"For the love of God, Lily, nothing's wrong with your linens! I'm just--I'm just saying."

Lily bit her lip and nodded slowly, thinking. "So...so you think I'll be that demanding?"

Oh, hell. Sirius felt, for just a minute, exactly what it was like to be James: mind racing, wondering what to say to that that won't get you in trouble...what do you say to that?! "Um...no. No, I don't think you'll be like that exactly, but--but he is going to be your husband, isn't he? Husbands have to be around to--to fix leaks under the sink and calibrate the thermostat on your refrigelator--"

"Refrigerator."

"Yes, that."

"I don't need James to do that for me. I'm better at that kind of stuff than he is, anyway."

"I believe that."

She smiled, and he sighed. "I'm being stupid, aren't I?"

"No. It's a valid concern; but I'm telling you: just because James and I are going to be married, it doesn't mean it'll change your friendship at all. Nor will it change any of my friendships. It'll be a change, yes, but change is good."

"Right. Change is good."

Change is good.

***