Chapter Forty-Seven

Sirius Black could not remember the last time he wore a tie in his life, but he was fairly sure it had not been since the Potters' wedding, and he had hotly protested it just as he had protested the collar of his dress robes when he had first taken Davie to a dance. He held his tie out in front of himself, sitting on his bed and staring at it, looking at his own reflection in the wall mirror on the other end of the room.

Christmas had been this wonderful, surreal, joyous experience, and he had spent the entire time relishing in the fact that there were so many people in his home, people who, in a matter of days, would no longer be there. He and Davie would be locked away alone again.

Except this time, she would be his wife. They would wake up in the morning the same way they always did, but this morning was the last time he would have to wake up hoping that she would be his.

Sirius had expected to be having these feelings earlier - nearly two decades earlier, to be precise. At this point, he knew that being married to Davie would do very little in the bigger scheme of things. It would change very little of their situation - and it still felt like he was about to turn the entire world on his head.

There was a slight rapping on the door, followed by Harry peering his head inside - it had been a difficult time for him, even with Christmas, with what he had heard about Dumbledore, and with what was happening to him. He still maintained a very sullen, sulky energy in his movements, except when he managed to get Sirius and Davie alone - Davie and Sirius were, in his mind, the only two people who didn't believe he was going mad, who weren't a little bit more afraid of him after what had happened, who accepted him without question in the way he expected his parents would have.

"I've - I've just seen Davie," he said hesitantly, coming into the room and shutting the door behind him. "The girls are getting her ready in the library, just wait 'til you see her."

Sirius gave a cough-like laugh, nodding for Harry to have a seat by him - and this all felt, somehow, even better. It was almost like the days where he would be sitting with James in the Gryffindor common room, hoping that Davie would not show him up, and that the fact that she'd agreed to go anywhere or do anything with him was not all a very well-played prank. He'd hated dress robes then too, he couldn't help but reiterate internally.

"Sirius?"

"You know, when I thought of marrying Davie, I always imagined something like the first time I saw her dressed up for a ball - she was going with Moony that evening, funny enough," Sirius chuckled reminiscently. "She was wearing this white dress, and your father never let me live down how long I stared at her coming down the common room stairs. He insists I looked like a total dolt, and I thought she was stunning, of course, but I'd never have admitted it at the time, considering the fact that we could barely stand one another's presence," Sirius added with a smile. "But I swore to myself one day, she'd be looking that stunning and walking towards me. The fact that she hated me probably egged me on a bit as well. It was something your dad and I had in common, pining over women who loathed us to pieces."

The joy in Sirius' voice caught Harry by surprise - he'd seen Sirius happy before, but never as happy as he was at this moment - Harry felt immersed in the memory that Sirius was sharing with him, the memory of a time when his parents were alive, and they were all happy and healthy and young. If not for Voldemort, for all the events of the past years, they would have all lived that way. Harry would have had a mother and a father, and godparents, and children his age to grow up with that weren't like Dudley.

"You don't feel like this is all happening too late?" Harry couldn't help but ask in the midst of all these thoughts, even though he knew his sulking put a damper on the emotion of the day - Harry felt a pang of guilt as the smile on his godfather's face faltered a bit. He looked at his godson, looking very different.

"I won't lie, Harry. I feel like it's a bit later than I would have liked - a lot of good things have been. Meeting you, marrying Davie," Sirius said with an unusually wise expression pervading his voice. "But I don't know if it's any worse than the fact that many things happened too soon. Losing your mum and dad, spending my best years in Azkaban - as long as the good things happen, I'm not choosy as far as when."

Harry smiled weakly, still not entirely able to understand how it must have felt for having to wait decades for something to happen that felt like it was right in front of you. He knew what it felt like to have things taken, to be searching, to be hoping, but he didn't know how it felt to lost something that felt like it was yours forever - and he certainly didn't know the relief that Sirius must be feeling at receiving a second chance.

"Davie," Ginny said, sitting in a chair in the kitchen, where the women in the house had convened to prepare Davie for her wedding - she was wearing a wool robe, not having put on her dress yet, but Molly Weasley had already done up her face quite nightly and was standing behind her, pinning her hair back ornately. "You're beautiful," Ginny continued with a dreamy smile.

"And the way Sirius looks at you," Hermione said, leaning against a nearby counter and allowing herself a rare moment of candid romanticism that caught Davie by surprise. She and Molly Weasley exchanged glances at the two girls' pining. "I wish someone would look at me that way."

"Hermione," Davie chided, though she gave a knowing smile, knowing that someone in fact did, despite her lack of awareness. "It's far too soon for you to be thinking of things like that."

"And how old were you when you first started falling for Sirius Black? I seem to recall a pair of Gryffindors who couldn't go a day without bickering - and something about fudge for Honeydukes," Molly asked with a gleeful laugh, causing Davie's face to go a bit red as she finally began to put on her dress - it was fortuitous, Davie decided, that they had put her makeup on first. Molly, however, did not press the issue further, not wanting to follow the train of thought that soon, her only daughter would be old enough to fall in love as well. "I'm so pleased you allowed me to be part of this - I wasn't quite as close to you and the others in the Order, years ago," Molly said.

"James, you can't keep trying to poke your head in here, it's bad luck!"

Davie raised a shoe threateningly as she had turned around in her bedroom once again and seen the door move ajar ever so slightly, and an eye attempting to peer in at Lily, who was thankfully hidden behind her gaggle of bridesmaids doting over her to prepare for the ceremony. Davie, the maid of honor, stepped out and began waving her finger at James bossily.

"You know that you can't look at her yet," Davie chided, although she still had a smile on her face. Sirius, of course, was standing next to James, egging him on as always. "Why don't you go do something about that hair, Prongs? It's sticking up in the back again."

"Come on, Daves. Can you blame a man for wanting to make sure this is all real?" James laughed, showing an uncharacteristic level of sentimentality that softened Davie's demeanor. "I'm about to marry the woman that I'm pretty sure I've been in love with since I was thirteen," he laughed, reaching up and ruffling his hair reflexively. "I'm sure Padfoot's going to be exactly the same when -"

"Wait 'til you see her, Prongs," Sirius said in a bright voice, and Davie wrinkled her nose when she turned around to see that Sirius had taken the opportunity to sneak a peek into the room while Davie and James were talking. "You're going to absolutely die -"

"Alright, you," Davie chuckled, reaching over and playfully pulling Sirius away from the door by his ear and back to the center of the upstairs hallway. "You need to go back to your duties of getting the groom ready."

"Right," Sirius smirked. "One more thing?"

"Hm?"

"You're absolutely stunning."

"You. Flatterer." Davie laughed, leaning forward and kissing Sirius lightly before shooing him away again and returning to the room where the girls were still getting ready, and staring at Davie knowingly.

"After today, you're the last bachelorette standing," Marlene McKinnon pointed out with a wan smile. "Honestly, woman, Sirius Black. How did you manage? Even I fancied him while we were in school!"

"They were always a bit slow," Lily added with a laugh. "Did you all hear what James and I had to go through to get them together?"

"I heard a rumor," Alice Longbottom began playfully, "that you had to drag them into the Forbidden Forest and refuse to let them out until they stopped being so thick."

"No one dragged us into the Forbidden Forest," Davie laughed, rolling her eyes. "That's a load of -"

"I pretended to write a letter to Sirius from another girl - said he showed me a lovely time over the summer," Lily laughed reminiscently, recalling how she had been absolutely terrified at the idea of being dishonest with her best friend. "Oh, Merlin - Davie's face when she saw it!"

"It was you all along! I knew it was a fake but - it was you!" Davie laughed shrilly in disbelief, as though a long-kept mystery had just been solved. "If I hadn't worked so hard on doing your hair, I'd chuck a pillow at you," Davie added, and all of the girls laughed mirthfully.

"It worked, didn't it?" Lily added brightly, putting on a pair of earrings. "Not long from now, you'll be in my shoes, and I'll be in yours. I'll be your maid of honor, won't I, Daves?"

"What sort of question is that, Lily?" Davie asked with a fond smile. "We've only been friends for a decade - the bridal jitters are going to your brain, of course you are!"

Davie's closest friends in the Order after Hogwarts had always been Lily, Alice Longbottom (nee Dorsey), and Marlene McKinnon - they were the younger ladies, while Molly was more of their older sister, who already had a few children and quite a few more responsibilities. Lily, Alice, Davie, and Marlene were still very much young girls who enjoyed gussying themselves up and going out at night, gossiping, and simply making the most of their youth. Davie felt her eyes well up slightly at the thought of being the only one truly left - Marlene and Lily were dead, Alice would be in St. Mungo's for the rest of her life. Davie gave a meek sniff before Molly reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

"I know this isn't what you and Sirius were dreaming of when you thought of getting married," Molly said in a warm voice, "but you must be thankful. Not everyone gets a second chance."

A small smile settled onto Davie's features at this thought, as Molly was absolutely correct. Especially in their position, second chances were hard to come by. Fate rarely forgave people for walking away from good things put in front of them, and Fate certainly did not appreciate being told to wait.

Everyone in the room looked up at the sound of knuckles rapping against the door outside, and Hermione was the first to get up and peer outside curiously. There, she found Arthur Weasley standing outside of the room.

"Whenever you're ready," he said brightly. "Sirius has just gotten out of his room, he's getting a bit fidgety and asked me to check that you hadn't run away through a window," he added with a laugh.

"Tell him I'll be there," Davie replied with a watery smile, finding herself inexplicably biting back tears already, before clearing her throat and regaining her composure. "Just - just a couple more moments."

A/N's

I'm completing this chapter right before heading over to watch Deathly Hallows Part 2 - I know I promised to update much sooner than I have, but I've been distracted by real-life stuff, as well as trying to focus on reliving all of the Harry Potter franchise before I watch this movie.

Anyway, I'm not going to keep you too long with this author's note, because I have the actual wedding scene written as well, and am planning on posting that very soon. I just have a bit o it to write after the movie, as I need to write something happy after watching it. I'm hoping the movie brings back my quick-writing muse, because it's about time to get to the heavy stuff in this story, for which many of you will probably hate me.

In any case, if you haven't yet, you are all assigned to watch Deathly Hallows Part 2 if you haven't yet. I'm about to get dressed up and head out to the movies for the last time - is this surreal to anyone else?

Anyway, until next time! Cheers!