Tripping Down the Aisle
Chapter Ten: Meet Me Halfway
---
Sunday, 6 January
Five months, eighteen days
---
"This wedding is getting entirely out of control," Lily declared, putting her face in her hands. Her voice slightly muffled, she continued, "I mean, I just put in a fifty-Galleon order for a bloody ice sculpture, James. Why do we need an ice scultpure?"
"Because it's pretty?" James suggested, yawning.
"Yes," Lily agreed, resurfacing. "The picture did make it look quite nice, didn't it?"
James nodded, reaching for a folder that rested on her side of the kitchen table. "So what's this?" he asked, waving the folder at her.
Lily glanced at it as she rifled through the stack of papers in front of her. "Er, I think that's the folder of wedding dresses Adeline suggested I take a look at," she responded.
"Oh. Can I look?"
"No," she replied instantly.
"Why?"
"Because," Lily told him, "I don't even know if I like any of those yet."
James blinked. "So why is it such a big deal if I look at it?"
"Because I might like one of them. And if I like one of them, I'll wear it to the wedding, and you'll have already seen it, and that will just ruin all the fun, don't you think?"
"Lily," James said patiently, "I am a guy. I think that all wedding dresses look the same. In a month, I won't be able to tell what one of these from a shower curtain."
Lily made a face. "That's very insensitive."
He shook his head. "No, it's not. I read in a magazine somewhere that men have, like, less active memory cells in their brain. Or something like that. So it's not my fault. It's nature's fault. Nature is insensitive but I am not."
Lily leaned back in her chair and picked up her tea. As she stirred it, she studied James intently.
"What?" he asked finally.
"That was in my Cosmo," she smirked. "You've been reading my Cosmos."
James shrugged. "It's a pretty dirty magazine, Lily. It interests me."
Lily smiled a little. "You're such a pervert," she said affectionately, leaning over and tugging on a lock of his hair.
"I am what you made me," he replied angelically.
She scoffed. "You were a pervert long before I started dating you," she said, returning to her seat and selecting a page from her stack.
"Well, yeah," James agreed, "but when I liked you before we started dating. That's when I became a pervert. Daydreams of you caused me to become the dirty man I am today. So all those things you said annoyed you about me, they were your fault."
"Your obnoxiousness was not my fault!" Lily laughed, giving up and setting down her paper.
"Was too!"
"No, it wasn't! That was a side effect of you being a teenage boy, James," she smiled.
He considered this. "Well, maybe that's possible," he conceded, pointing his finger at her, squinting his eyes seriously, "but you should still take at least partial responsibility."
"Fine," she said. "Your personality is all my fault."
"I just said 'partial'," James said, straightening. "If you took full credit, that wouldn't be fair to me."
****
"She's not here yet," Sirius announced, peering into the window of the Three Breemsticks, "so we have more time to review." He pulled away from the window and beamed expectantly at Remus.
"More time?" Remus repeated, laughing hollowly. "Sirius, I think I know more about this woman than I know about myself! I think, in fact, that in the time it took me to learn her favorite candy I forgot mine."
Sirius shrugged unconcernedly and ran a hand through his hair. "So? Maybe-- maybe it changed. Maybe you suddenly decided you don't like Ice Mice anymore. Maybe, after lunch, I can take you to Honeydukes and get you a new favorite candy--if you don't mess this up for me, Moony!"
Remus noted with discomfort that Sirius had That Glint in those decievingly deep blue eyes of his. That Glint was responsible for many a demerit in school, oh yes. That time Sirius had decided it would be a lark to replace all the contents of the teachers' edition of their Transfiguration textbook with pages from a dirty magazine? That Glint was in his eyes then. The switching of all the Gryffindor girls' perfume with a pretty strong (and equally illegal) aphrodisiac? That Glint. That Glint was a manic gleam of conviction that told you that Sirius was bordering on insanity.
"Okay," Remus mumbled half-heartedly, putting his hands in his pockets and kicking at some gray slush on the ground. "Quiz me, then."
Sirius, become acutely aware of the cold, rubbed his hands together and blew on them, his breath coming out in a little puff of mist. "Er...favorite book."
"I can't remember," Remus responded dully. "I'm still thinking of the candy. That one is Licorice Wands."
Sirius took one of his hands away from his face and calmly whacked Remus on the back of the head. "Concentrate, Moony! You did better with these questions when you were dr--Hestia!" Sirius quickly ran a hand through his hair and grinned in what he felt was an attractive manner.
Remus turned around in time to see a startlingly pretty dark-haired woman approaching them, smiling widely so that the tiniest hints of laugh lines appeared around her eyes, which were dark. "H!" she said cheerfully. "Have you been waiting outside for me? It's really cold." As if to further the point, she pulled her violet cloak closer to herself.
"Um," Remus said intelligently.
Sirius shot his friend a curious glance. "Er, no, actually," he smiled, laughing charmingly, "Remus and I, we, er, we just got here."
"Really?"
"Oh, yeah," Remus chimed in. "Yeah, we, we...er, just got here. I'm...I herld him up. Lost my scarf. And, you know, I didn't want to be without my scarf." He nodded. "Because--because it's cold."
Sirius was staring at him as if he had never seen him before.
Hestia, however, looked highly amused. "You're not wearing a scarf, though," she pointed out, smiling.
Remus blinked, then laughed nervously. "Oh, yeah," he said, laughing as though he found this wildly hilarious when he actually just wanted to die or be slapped so he'd stop talking, "Yeah, I...I never actually found it. You would think it would be easy to find, right? I mean, it's blue--I mean, bright blue, Lily, er, Lily says it makes me features look sharp, because I guess I have very dull features by nature. My nose, see, it's very--very rounded, but my chin is sort of square; Lily says that it's my best feature. She says it makes me look strong and Roman. Because I guess Romans were strong."
There was a ringing sort of silence that followed this, and Remus found himself flushing out of sheer embarrassment.
"Why don't we go inside?" Sirius suggested after a few moments of this.
"Yes, please," Remus said, his voice oddly strained.
****
"Adeline," Lily said, her voice thick with impatience, "I really don't see the importance of seating arrangements. I mean, there is always going to be some people who will not like who they're sitting with, and--" She snapped her fingers, "--James, do you remember when we went to...to...what's her name?...Oh! Jaimie Catheter's wedding and she had accidentally put a woman next to her husband's mistress?"
James shifted his weight in his seat and grinned. Finally, something he could comment on. "Oh, yeah," he said reminiscently. "The mistress got her ass kicked, didn't she? It was really funny, especially when the mistress's dress went over her head and she wasn't wearing any underwear because she knew she was going to go have sex with the best man."
Lily nodded. "There were traumatized children involved," she said solemnly. "Tears."
"And a very disappointed best man," James agreed, smirking.
Lily turned back to Adeline. "I don't want that to happen at my wedding."
Adeline smiled primly. "Well, do you know that many people who have mistresses?"
Lily smiled just as tightly. "Not that I know of. But the invitations do say to invite a guest."
Adeline nodded, still smiling. "Of course. Be that as it may, if you don't have a seating arrangement, chances are there won't be enough room for people who want to sit together to do so."
Lily considered this, then turned to her fiance. "What do you think, love?"
Both she and Adeline turned their attention to him. James froze at the sudden pressure. "Um," he said. "Um, whatever you want."
"I don't know what I want, and I make too many decisions as it is," Lily said. "You make a decision."
He had a 50/50 chance of getting this right.
He was never good at guessing.
"Um, sea-seating arrangements," James stuttered.
Lily smiled at him, one of her nice smiles, then turned back to Adeline. "Then we'll have seating arrangements," she said decidedly.
****
A/N: Okay, I know this is way short. And I didn't solve the conflict with Sirius and Lily--because he is still mad at her. But next chapter it will. Be solved, I mean.
And I'm sorry for this taking so long. It wasn't a ploy for reviews (though the reviews are very nice, and so are the 319 favorites' listers, thank you very much for them!), it's just a manner of me being without a computer. It's hurting me just as much as it's hurting you--if it's hurting you.
That's it for me. It's your turn now. :)
Chapter Ten: Meet Me Halfway
---
Sunday, 6 January
Five months, eighteen days
---
"This wedding is getting entirely out of control," Lily declared, putting her face in her hands. Her voice slightly muffled, she continued, "I mean, I just put in a fifty-Galleon order for a bloody ice sculpture, James. Why do we need an ice scultpure?"
"Because it's pretty?" James suggested, yawning.
"Yes," Lily agreed, resurfacing. "The picture did make it look quite nice, didn't it?"
James nodded, reaching for a folder that rested on her side of the kitchen table. "So what's this?" he asked, waving the folder at her.
Lily glanced at it as she rifled through the stack of papers in front of her. "Er, I think that's the folder of wedding dresses Adeline suggested I take a look at," she responded.
"Oh. Can I look?"
"No," she replied instantly.
"Why?"
"Because," Lily told him, "I don't even know if I like any of those yet."
James blinked. "So why is it such a big deal if I look at it?"
"Because I might like one of them. And if I like one of them, I'll wear it to the wedding, and you'll have already seen it, and that will just ruin all the fun, don't you think?"
"Lily," James said patiently, "I am a guy. I think that all wedding dresses look the same. In a month, I won't be able to tell what one of these from a shower curtain."
Lily made a face. "That's very insensitive."
He shook his head. "No, it's not. I read in a magazine somewhere that men have, like, less active memory cells in their brain. Or something like that. So it's not my fault. It's nature's fault. Nature is insensitive but I am not."
Lily leaned back in her chair and picked up her tea. As she stirred it, she studied James intently.
"What?" he asked finally.
"That was in my Cosmo," she smirked. "You've been reading my Cosmos."
James shrugged. "It's a pretty dirty magazine, Lily. It interests me."
Lily smiled a little. "You're such a pervert," she said affectionately, leaning over and tugging on a lock of his hair.
"I am what you made me," he replied angelically.
She scoffed. "You were a pervert long before I started dating you," she said, returning to her seat and selecting a page from her stack.
"Well, yeah," James agreed, "but when I liked you before we started dating. That's when I became a pervert. Daydreams of you caused me to become the dirty man I am today. So all those things you said annoyed you about me, they were your fault."
"Your obnoxiousness was not my fault!" Lily laughed, giving up and setting down her paper.
"Was too!"
"No, it wasn't! That was a side effect of you being a teenage boy, James," she smiled.
He considered this. "Well, maybe that's possible," he conceded, pointing his finger at her, squinting his eyes seriously, "but you should still take at least partial responsibility."
"Fine," she said. "Your personality is all my fault."
"I just said 'partial'," James said, straightening. "If you took full credit, that wouldn't be fair to me."
****
"She's not here yet," Sirius announced, peering into the window of the Three Breemsticks, "so we have more time to review." He pulled away from the window and beamed expectantly at Remus.
"More time?" Remus repeated, laughing hollowly. "Sirius, I think I know more about this woman than I know about myself! I think, in fact, that in the time it took me to learn her favorite candy I forgot mine."
Sirius shrugged unconcernedly and ran a hand through his hair. "So? Maybe-- maybe it changed. Maybe you suddenly decided you don't like Ice Mice anymore. Maybe, after lunch, I can take you to Honeydukes and get you a new favorite candy--if you don't mess this up for me, Moony!"
Remus noted with discomfort that Sirius had That Glint in those decievingly deep blue eyes of his. That Glint was responsible for many a demerit in school, oh yes. That time Sirius had decided it would be a lark to replace all the contents of the teachers' edition of their Transfiguration textbook with pages from a dirty magazine? That Glint was in his eyes then. The switching of all the Gryffindor girls' perfume with a pretty strong (and equally illegal) aphrodisiac? That Glint. That Glint was a manic gleam of conviction that told you that Sirius was bordering on insanity.
"Okay," Remus mumbled half-heartedly, putting his hands in his pockets and kicking at some gray slush on the ground. "Quiz me, then."
Sirius, become acutely aware of the cold, rubbed his hands together and blew on them, his breath coming out in a little puff of mist. "Er...favorite book."
"I can't remember," Remus responded dully. "I'm still thinking of the candy. That one is Licorice Wands."
Sirius took one of his hands away from his face and calmly whacked Remus on the back of the head. "Concentrate, Moony! You did better with these questions when you were dr--Hestia!" Sirius quickly ran a hand through his hair and grinned in what he felt was an attractive manner.
Remus turned around in time to see a startlingly pretty dark-haired woman approaching them, smiling widely so that the tiniest hints of laugh lines appeared around her eyes, which were dark. "H!" she said cheerfully. "Have you been waiting outside for me? It's really cold." As if to further the point, she pulled her violet cloak closer to herself.
"Um," Remus said intelligently.
Sirius shot his friend a curious glance. "Er, no, actually," he smiled, laughing charmingly, "Remus and I, we, er, we just got here."
"Really?"
"Oh, yeah," Remus chimed in. "Yeah, we, we...er, just got here. I'm...I herld him up. Lost my scarf. And, you know, I didn't want to be without my scarf." He nodded. "Because--because it's cold."
Sirius was staring at him as if he had never seen him before.
Hestia, however, looked highly amused. "You're not wearing a scarf, though," she pointed out, smiling.
Remus blinked, then laughed nervously. "Oh, yeah," he said, laughing as though he found this wildly hilarious when he actually just wanted to die or be slapped so he'd stop talking, "Yeah, I...I never actually found it. You would think it would be easy to find, right? I mean, it's blue--I mean, bright blue, Lily, er, Lily says it makes me features look sharp, because I guess I have very dull features by nature. My nose, see, it's very--very rounded, but my chin is sort of square; Lily says that it's my best feature. She says it makes me look strong and Roman. Because I guess Romans were strong."
There was a ringing sort of silence that followed this, and Remus found himself flushing out of sheer embarrassment.
"Why don't we go inside?" Sirius suggested after a few moments of this.
"Yes, please," Remus said, his voice oddly strained.
****
"Adeline," Lily said, her voice thick with impatience, "I really don't see the importance of seating arrangements. I mean, there is always going to be some people who will not like who they're sitting with, and--" She snapped her fingers, "--James, do you remember when we went to...to...what's her name?...Oh! Jaimie Catheter's wedding and she had accidentally put a woman next to her husband's mistress?"
James shifted his weight in his seat and grinned. Finally, something he could comment on. "Oh, yeah," he said reminiscently. "The mistress got her ass kicked, didn't she? It was really funny, especially when the mistress's dress went over her head and she wasn't wearing any underwear because she knew she was going to go have sex with the best man."
Lily nodded. "There were traumatized children involved," she said solemnly. "Tears."
"And a very disappointed best man," James agreed, smirking.
Lily turned back to Adeline. "I don't want that to happen at my wedding."
Adeline smiled primly. "Well, do you know that many people who have mistresses?"
Lily smiled just as tightly. "Not that I know of. But the invitations do say to invite a guest."
Adeline nodded, still smiling. "Of course. Be that as it may, if you don't have a seating arrangement, chances are there won't be enough room for people who want to sit together to do so."
Lily considered this, then turned to her fiance. "What do you think, love?"
Both she and Adeline turned their attention to him. James froze at the sudden pressure. "Um," he said. "Um, whatever you want."
"I don't know what I want, and I make too many decisions as it is," Lily said. "You make a decision."
He had a 50/50 chance of getting this right.
He was never good at guessing.
"Um, sea-seating arrangements," James stuttered.
Lily smiled at him, one of her nice smiles, then turned back to Adeline. "Then we'll have seating arrangements," she said decidedly.
****
A/N: Okay, I know this is way short. And I didn't solve the conflict with Sirius and Lily--because he is still mad at her. But next chapter it will. Be solved, I mean.
And I'm sorry for this taking so long. It wasn't a ploy for reviews (though the reviews are very nice, and so are the 319 favorites' listers, thank you very much for them!), it's just a manner of me being without a computer. It's hurting me just as much as it's hurting you--if it's hurting you.
That's it for me. It's your turn now. :)