Chapter 2 :Lily and James
"Will you… No, that's not right!" James shouted in frustration, walking circles in the small living room of Remus' house.
"Of course it's right!" Peter said from where he was perched up on a table, and watching his friend amusedly.
"Yes. Didn't you say yourself that you're meant to be together," Sirius piped in, trying to force down his laughter, but all the same slightly hiccupping on the couch where he was sprawled out.
"You know that I mean… The words aren't right!" James started, stopping in front of Sirius, and making the latter laugh even harder when seeing James' strained face.
"Leave him alone," Remus said, appearing from the kitchen with four butterbeers and throwing one at each of his friends. "I'd bet anything that you'll be just as nervous when you're about to propose."
"I'll never get married!" Sirius said joyfully.
"Neither will I," Peter added sadly.
"And why, if I may ask?" Remus said, sitting down in an armchair. "And you try to calm down!" he added to the blur of crimson robes flying past him.
"Because nobody would marry me," Peter replied as if it was some trivial thing everyone should know.
"Ah, don't worry, we're just eighteen, you're not required to marry someone you've met that early," Remus comforted him, then stretched out his leg and tripped the whirling blur, which was revealed to be James, now lying on his stomach on the floor, his fortunately unopened butterbeer bottle having disappeared under the wardrobe on the far side of the room. "I told you, calm down! Lily can't accept if she can't see you!"
"Now look what you did to my butterbeer!" James scolded, jumping up from the floor, only to stride quickly across the room and lie down on the floor again, his arm flung under the wardrobe and trying to snatch his bottle from there.
"And you, Sirius? You can't possibly worry about not being popular enough with women. Why won't you ever propose?" Remus asked, resuming the previous conversation.
"Because I don't want to get married to anyone!" Sirius replied, still as joyful as ever.
"Oh, and have you told Cathleen that?" Peter asked.
"What do you think?" Sirius asked back.
"That you haven't," Peter answered with conviction.
"You really think that?" Sirius asked again, his smirk saying almost audibly that of course he had told his girlfriend about his views on marriage.
"Yes, because I saw her at the Alley yesterday and she was looking at the bridal shop really wistfully," Remus said.
"Oh." Sirius' face fell for a moment, but he instantly found a way to avert his two friends' attention. "James!"
"What?" came from under the cupboard.
"Accio butterbeer," Sirius said, and easily caught the bottle that flew to him after a small bounce on James' forehead. "Come out here and you'll get it!"
"It's not fair that you used the summoning charm," James said, wriggling out from under the wardrobe and snatching the bottle from Sirius. He opened it quickly with his teeth and took a swig.
"So, how will you propose?" Remus asked, having been in the kitchen during the time the others discussed the topic.
"I had mum charm the pavilion warm…" James started the description eagerly.
"About a thousand different charms, if I may say so, to make sure that it's just the temperature that Lily wants, and not too hot, and that the temperature changes outside would not matter inside," Sirius piped in, so that Remus and Peter burst out laughing, and James gave him an angry glare. "And Mrs. Potter was magically exhausted when I met her after that."
"Thank you, Sirius. Anyway, I have a bottle of red wine ready there…" James continued, only to be disrupted again by Sirius.
"Barolo Einaudi Piedmont 1965, if I remember correctly…" he said, wagging his eyebrows. Peter gave a whistle.
"Good vintage year," Remus commented, shaking his head at how his friend spent his money.
"Do you want to know or don't you?" James shouted.
"Of course we do," Peter quickly supplied, not knowing much about wines, anyway.
"But they don't!" James huffed, taking out the black jewellery box, opening it, and looking morosely down at the ring there.
"So, what else have you planned?" Remus asked, seeing his friend that moody, and trying not to give in to his urge to laugh loudly.
"Well," James took the bite, and in an instant was the cheeriest and most flamboyant person there could be, "then I have this German chocolate cake there…"
"Lily's favourite," Sirius added in a conspirators' whisper.
"And then there's this red rose in the crystal vase there," he said a bit more loudly.
"Dark red, great contrast with her eyes, and really beautiful with the pure white snow surrounding the pavilion," Sirius supplied.
"And then after we've had some wine and cake and listened to the music…" James' voice was growing louder and louder as he tried to suffocate Sirius' comments.
"Saint-Saëns, I suppose, he's Lily's favourite, though James can't stand him…" Sirius said and saw with joy that both Peter and Remus were convulsing with laughter.
"And then I'll drop on one knee, like that," James said, doing just that, first making sure he wasn't facing any of his friends, afraid of how they would laugh then, and therefore facing the merrily cracking fire, and offering the ring to the flames.
"I'll look up to her and say," James declared, closing his eyes to picture her and try not to listen to the hiccups and silent laughter from his friends. It wasn't too difficult — the picture of Lily was in front of his eyes almost all the time, and quite surprisingly all he heard was sudden silence, as if numerous people were holding their breaths.
"Will you marry me," he ended, and smiled victoriously, then a bit hesitantly, then turned around and faced his friends. "Is that okay? I think those words are too usual. She won't like that. I should say something else. Like… I don't know. You have any good ideas?"
"I think that worked pretty well," someone said from behind James, and he flipped around, only to see a sooty Lily step out of the fireplace with a broad grin on her face. "Just came to see whether James was here…" she explained to a baffled looking Remus. "And James, I think that any girl would be quite happy to hear those very words. And, to answer your question," she pecked him on the cheek lightly, "Of course I'll marry you."
A/N: I hope you liked it. I did. And if I get some REVIEWS I just might update... I have the next chapter finished already - Hermione and Draco!