author's note: this is kind of a companion piece to one of my jily week drabbles, so if you wanna read that, that's cool as well!
It rained hard the day Lily and James got married. It was hailing by the time the party got the Leaky Cauldron, wands above their heads in Impervius. Sirius and Marlene trailed behind everyone else; they, unlike Mary, unlike Remus, unlike Celia, were not full of joy at the prospect of their friends- of anyone- spending the rest of their lives together.
"Fucking weather," Marlene grumbled, and Sirius handed her a cigarette with his free hand.
"Smoke up, McKinnon – Cee'll complain if you light one in the pub."
She made a non-committal grunt, and stuck the cigarette between her teeth.
"She can suck it up then, can't she?"
Sirius smiled to himself. He liked Marlene; he liked that she was fire wrapped in ice, that she didn't take anyone's shit, that she had the same 'nobody understand me' cackle that he had too. She was a laugh, and Merlin knew they needed laughs in this climate.
"Give us a light?" she asked, running a hand through her long hair. He ended the charm above his head, and the tiny rocks of ice went down the back of his second hand suit and got his neck cold and wet.
"Here," he said, and a tiny flame appeared on the end of his wand. She extended her hand towards him, and he lit the cigarette with a flourish.
"Show off," she smirked, and he laughed.
"Come on, slowpokes!" Celia called, half a street ahead of them. Marlene shrugged.
"Come on!" the former Hufflepuff called again, "We've only got the pub for an hour!"
"More than enough time to get pissed, Cee, calm down!" Sirius yelled back, and Celia made a face.
"Y'know, I couldn't bear it if this was any bigger than it is," Marlene told him, sticking her hands in the pockets of her battered leather jacket, "does that make sense?"
"Mmmm."
"Because I reckon, if it was any bigger, it wouldn't be…well, it wouldn't be like Lily and James, would it?"
Sirius ran a hand through his mop of dark hair. She was right, of course; Lily and James did things their way, quietly and sweetly, and mostly spur of the moment. If the wedding had been in the back garden of Peverell Manor, in a marquee, if Lily had worn had a full length dress with a veil, or had proper flowers instead of a handful of daisies picked from the side of the road, then it would have lost the point of itself, somehow, because it wouldn't have been about them, it would have been about the thing that they were doing, and that wouldn't have been right at all.
"Yeah, it wouldn't."
She nodded shortly. "Peter said you've never been to a wedding before?"
He raised his chin, like half a nod, but then thought better of it, and sucked on his cigarette instead.
"Yeah," he exhaled smoke, "yeah, they wouldn't let me go to my cousins. Either of them. Any of them, sorry – there were three."
"Were?" she asked, and then wished she didn't.
"They disowned her, doesn't matter." he turned to look at her, charming smile gracing his chiselled features. "We should hurry up. We do only have an hour."
The corners of her lips turned upwards into a smirk, and she nodded.
"Race you?"
He laughed, and the hail fell hard on the cobbled streets.