Disclaimer: Everything from HP books belongs to JK Rowling

Wedding Bliss

Remus POV

It was once a beautiful Church. The stain glass windows were of exquisite taste and the white walls seemed to expel purity. This place once had that feeling of salvation, of piety that entered right into someone's soul. It was a Church of faith and of hope and you realize now why she loves it so, why she brought her close friends and immediate family here for this occasion. You realize now why this sudden need for faith controls her every move.

You can see the image in your head. The young girl holding her mother's hand as she walks through the Church to pray. You can see the innocent girl closing her eyes as she speaks her heart to her God, as she mumbles words through her little pink lips. And you can picture her as a young child devoted to this structure of God that instilled within her the only quality that is keeping her alive, faith. Instilled within her the will she needs to survive in a world she once dearly loved that has now become more frightful than ever before. It's real and it's beautiful but that young girl is grown up now, back in the Church of her youth, and instead of the piety you should see in her eyes there's a hint of the wild desperation you know brought her here on this day. Instead of her devotion to God all your witnessing is her intense need to forget the outside world. Her need to forget pain.

The war changed it. The walls are no longer that delicate ivory she once loved so. They are stained yellow and seem harsh to you as you sit inside them. Four of the ten stain glass windows have holes smashed into it from death eaters trying to defile muggle architecture. The golden figures of the Holy family are tarnished by time, by dark magic. The delicate beauty she once loved has vanished, has left a harsh splendor in its place. But it's still there, that ethereal mist you feel all around you. You sit in a pew a man without faith and without hope and you find yourself believing in the impossible, in the victory you could never before imagine. It still has some of the magic you know she thrived on as a child, some of the magic every person in this Church is thriving off of because faith is scarce in the world now. Faith has become the rare diamond everyone needs and no one can find.

The Church is half empty. Many of their friends and family couldn't make it. Dorcas Meadows is on auror duty with Frank Longbottom trying to find Death Eater hideouts. Alice is here sitting peacefully with Marlene as they stare at the alter and chat quietly about Lily and James, about Hogwarts and past lives. The Prewetts are missing. Their funeral was two weeks ago and you still shiver as you remember looking at their bodies, their faces frozen in fear. Still shiver as you remember their bright eyes, their need to right every wrong that has befallen this world. A few people from the order were able to make it and you smile slightly when you spot Sirius's cousin, Andromeda Black. You never thought you would see her again. Other important faces are missing, including Lily's sister. You wonder slightly where she is and how she could miss this, but wipe the thought out of your mind as you stare at the empty seats. Too many people were unable to attend.

You watch silently above as the two lovers stand by the alter. She looks beautiful, you think. She isn't wearing an expensive wedding dress. There's none of the intricate designs she once wished for or the fine silk fabric she had desperately wanted. It's a plain dress, something her mother found lying around their house. Something thrown together out of lack of time, lack of wanting to wait. And she looks it, looks thrown together with her hair in a messy bun and her jewels just barely matching the cream of her old gown. She looks thrown together but so utterly perfect because her glow and beauty seem to be more than materials, seem to be manifested in her love for the boy standing beside her.

He looks handsome, you think. His hair is horribly messy, his tie doesn't match his suit as well as it should, but he has a sparkle in his hazel eyes which seems to brighten his face as he watches her. His suit seems shabby and you know its one of his dad's. One of his dad's old Muggle suits he got when he was first married, when he and Mrs. Potter went for their honeymoon in muggle London. But you look at him, serenity in his demeanor and love shining brightly in his eyes and you feel, feel how amazing he looks. They both look amazing and the fear you know they both feel, the sadness at dreams not coming true the way they are supposed to, doesn't seem as important as that intense love that both fervently know. It's about love, you think, nothing else matters.

But it feels wrong. This isn't the first wartime wedding you've attended. Just last week Frank and Alice Longbottom tied the knot in their house out by Surrey. Just last week they got married in hand-me-down clothes drinking cheap champagne during their reception. Just last week they were married as it poured rain outside and as their friends still mourned the passing of the Prewetts. It isn't the first act of desperation among young couples who fear for the future more now than ever before. But it is the one that strikes you at your heart, that makes the frantic love couples feel come alive.

It feels more like a funeral, you vaguely think as James begins to read his vows. A mass funeral of people just waiting their turn, just waiting to be next since every person is a target these days. No one is safe and you look around the Church and wonder who you will say goodbye to next. It feels like a funeral and you wonder why everyone is wearing such bright colors, why Sirius is smiling so broadly at a time like this. Has the world gone mad, you ask yourself as disbelief fills your mind.

You don't feel it is right: this cheer and this ceremony. You remember what she had wanted her wedding to be. You remember her speaking of dozens of bridesmaids and thousands of roses. You remember her speaking of an expensive hall where she would drink champagne and dance with James to romantic music played by a talented band. This isn't what she wanted, what she dreamed of, and now she's sacrificing everything for a wedding thrown together in less than a week that years from now she probably won't even wantto remember. A wedding that years from now she will regret.

Everyone has to make sacrifices during a war, she told you just days ago when you went with her to pick out flowers. But it's too much for you to muster even the smallest amount of understanding. They're nineteen, so young, too young to be entering into this kind of union. They're so young, too young, and everything that they once dreamed for is slowly slipping away. He loves grandeur and ceremony. She loves finery, loves the extravagance of nice antiques and diamond rings. And they say it makes no difference, that war changes circumstances and they can't hold on to dreams of a different life, but you know that years from now when they are old and their kids are grown, they will look back on today with sorrow. They will look back on today, remember their old clothes and the vacant seats and know that that it should have been different. Love shouldn't be sealed out of desperation during a time of hate. Weddings were not meant to be ceremonies of pain.

But it's a war, and you do understand their need for each other, that this will give them some semblance of security the world has been lacking. It's a war and you do understand their reliance on love, that together they have hope for a future they couldn't see when apart. And you realize now that this wedding, all wartime weddings, are ceremonies of fear. Fear of loneliness, fear of loss, fear of death. And again you know in your heart that it isn't right.

I want to grow old with him, have his children, you remember her telling you in seventh year. I want to marry him on a hilltop with all my friends and family there to celebrate. But no one's here. Everyone is either risking their life or dead and it scares them. This war scares them in a way you know all too well. Scares them so much that they fear tomorrow, fear what happens when nighttime comes and its time to go to sleep. Fear the morning wondering if a ministry owl will be perched on their window sill telling them of yet another death, of yet another loss they've learned to be numb to. It is a common emotion these days. Death is something no one can escape from.

Everybody is afraid of something, you think, everyone has their fears. Peter is afraid of death, afraid of getting the life sucked out of him as he tries to live and breathe in a world he's just beginning to understand. He's afraid of saying goodbye to the world he has grown to love and the people he dearly cherishes. Sirius is afraid of the dark, afraid of his family's dominance as they try and cajole him to the dark side. He's afraid of becoming what he adamantly scorns because of his family's hold on his mind, their control of his thoughts even as he fights for the light side. James is afraid of time. He's afraid of time running out before he can accomplish everything he wishes to. Afraid of time running out and dying before he had a chance to live. And Lily, she's afraid of living in a world where he isn't alive. Scared to death of a life without James to such an extent that she is willing to go to the alter at the age of nineteen and swear to love him forever. Scared of being without James because he is her symbol of hope, of a better life and without him her world will fill with the despair you know all too well. And you think that if the world around you wasn't falling apart you'd be able to see the magic, see the romance in this ceremony they threw together. But all you can see is the desperation present on the couple's faces as you listen to the screams of war going on around you. All you can feel is the pain of a dying world as your friends deceive themselves to think this is something it is not. And you miss it again, miss the beautiful magic of the day because you're too deep in your despair to see anything but destruction. Beauty, you don't understand how anything can be beautiful as a world you love is being tortured and murdered.

The wedding is rather beautiful in its simplicity. Everything about it seems to be of another realm. You know most guests are forgetting the terror they feel. That most of the guest, as well as the bride and groom, have delved into a fairytale world where the Princess is marrying her charming Prince. A fairytale world where people live happily ever after and there is no strife and war of blood. And that's the beauty, the magic you continue to miss because all you can think as you look to your friends is, who's next? Who are you going to lose in the next week? The next day?

You watch James and Lily slip the rings onto each other's finger and you see her bright smile as the priest declares them to be wed, watch James slowly lean in and kiss her with utmost care as if to savor the exact moment his world started to begin. They're married, attached for eternity in wedlock and you know you should be happy for them. You should be happy because this is Lily and James. Lily and James whose love always seemed to inspire hope within you as nothing else did. You should be happy because although it isn't quite the dream of the past the newlyweds achieved everything they had wanted, everything they hoped for. But you can't be.

You sit in a car with Sirius as Lily's father drives some of the guest to the reception at the Potter's house. It was a compromise. A muggle wedding and a magical reception. You aren't sure it makes a difference either way.

When you arrive the decorations are already up and the food and wine are laid out. Mrs. Potter outdid herself with this because everything seems perfect and elegant. The Potter mansion seems transformed from when you were last there. It looks so bright, so beautiful and you remember the darkness of your past visits, the shadows that seemed to follow your every move.

You walk up to Lily and James and congratulate them on tying the knot. You tell them to be healthy and happy and that nothing in this world is more special than what they have. And you somewhat believe it because this is Lily and James and even the names seem to fit together with such perfection it's as if their love was a gift from God. You somewhat believe it because your despair is weakening and you find yourself smiling as you listen to the chatter all around you. You find yourself beginning to forget.

You talk to Peter about his job for a bit and try to drown out the music playing on Mrs. Evans old music player with your words. Your mind wanders as you sit there. Wanders to the outside world you can't seem to forget no matter how hard you try. You wonder slightly how Meadows is doing on her mission and if Lily is upset one of her best friends couldn't attend. You wonder slightly about Mundungus and if he died the other night during the death eater raid and if the captured aurors have lost their lives yet. You wonder slightly about the world outside this wonderland and then turn around, take Marlene's hand, and dance with her as your head finally drowns in the dreams blinding the rest of the party. And you understand, finally, that this deception people inflict themselves with is the only way to survive now. It's the only way to live. And you smile, it is a wedding after all.

END

Like it? Hate it?

Review!