A/N: Sirius's POV, this chapter is dedicated to new reader Farrellm21! Enjoy!
-C
I had gotten Amy's permission to be the one to tell our friends the news. We'd just finished an Order meeting and I'd told the other Marauders, Lily, and Marlene to stay after because I had some news.
They sat around the table, watching me expectantly as I stood up.
"Remus already knew this was coming," I said excitedly, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet, "but as it's official I thought he ought to be here too." Remus grinned at me approvingly. It was so good to see him smile again. "I asked Amy to marry me a few weeks ago, and she said yes."
Marlene and Lily squealed in delight, just as Marlene had done when James proposed to Lily. Remus and James clapped and cheered happily, and Peter just blinked at me with wide, surprised eyes.
"You're all invited to a party tomorrow night," I said. "Amy won't start wearing the ring until you've all seen it for some reason, so I want to get you all over as soon as possible so I can start looking at it on her hand."
They all agreed to come to the party, and we dispersed. James and Remus caught me before they left.
"Congratulations, mate," James said happily. "Although maybe you should have waited until Lily and I get married. Now we'll have two psychotic brides-to-be pushing us in every which way."
"I doubt Amy is going to be like Lily," Remus pointed out with a smile. "She's not half as bossy, and her tastes are very simple."
"I heard all that," Lily said with a frown from the doorway and we all blanched.
"Coming, dear," James muttered, giving me an apologetic smile and a clap on the shoulder before hurrying off after Lily.
I turned to Remus to see him beaming at me.
I was thrilled that he was taking this all so well, especially after how depressed he was when James prosed to Lily. I was honestly worried that my proposing to Amy would send him into a completely irreversible state of depression, which was why I got him involved in picking the ring. I had hoped that by giving him a stake in the whole thing he would be excited and pleased, and it turned out I was right.
"So she liked the ring?" he asked, putting on his cloak.
"Oh, you should have seen her eyes, Moony," I sighed, recalling the way her eyes lit up in surprise and delight when she opened the box from Carulio's. I couldn't give her my family ring, but if possible I found an even better one, although it had cost me dearly.
She was worth every Knut.
"Good," Remus sighed. "I'm excited to see it on her finger. She doesn't know how much it cost you, does she?"
I frowned.
I hadn't actually asked. It was possible she had an idea. The fact alone that it was from Carulio's suggested great expense. But the actual ring?
"Maybe?" I said. "I don't know. Does it matter?"
Remus considered for a moment and finally said, "With Amy? Probably not."
I was relieved at that, and we said goodnight, parting until the party the following night.
They all showed up, of course. Peter was the most fascinated by the ring, followed closely by Marlene. They both had interest in shiny things.
I was surprised, though, when Marlene squealed, "Merlin, Amy, it's the ring!"
"What?" I asked, confused.
"This ring was in one of Lily's bridal magazines!" Marlene explained to me. "Carulio's, right? It's the most expensive ring in the wizarding world!"
I swallowed.
It was?
Remus raised his eyebrows at me, and I realized that if there was something featuring it the girls probably knew exactly how much I'd spent on that ring. Amy might not care, or it might not change anything, but Lily was looking at me thoughtfully, and Marlene obviously cared.
What had I gotten myself into?
"So, no double wedding?" James joked.
"Merlin, no," I said, grasping onto the subject change eagerly as Amy slipped the ring onto her finger for the first time. "As if we would encroach on Lily's special day."
Merlin forbid I had such a death wish as to even suggest such a thing.
"Well, that's good," James said with a laugh. "Now you can be my best man and I can be yours, just like we promised!"
Amy rolled her eyes, asking Peter if he wanted anything to drink. He asked for firewhiskey, which she went into the kitchen to retrieve. I followed her.
"Amy?" I asked as she opened the cupboard for a glass. "Can we talk for a second?"
"Sure," she said, standing on her tip-toe to reach the glass, carefully coming down onto the full foot once she had a good grip. "What's up?"
I hesitated as she poured the drink for Peter, but then I finally said, "It doesn't bother you, does it? The cost of the ring, I mean."
She looked up at me with a bemused smile on her face.
"Sirius, it's your money," she said with a shrug. "If it was important for you to spend it this way, who am I to argue?"
"But it's not just my money soon," I countered. "It'll be our money. You're sure it's not…I don't know, upsetting or awkward or…."
"No," she said firmly. "I like the ring. You like the ring. What else matters? You forget, Sirius, there's a McAuley house ring as well, sitting in a vault somewhere. I knew exactly what you had in mind the moment I saw the ring. It's how we were raised." She kissed me. "I just want to marry you. What does it matter how much the ring cost if you can afford it?"
I sighed in relief, nodded, and let her go back to the party carrying Peter's drink. Then I poured one for myself, just beginning to relax when the kitchen door opened and in walked Lily and Marlene looking stern and I was anxious once more.
"Ladies," I said as smoothly as possible, wondering if I might not be able to find a way to sneak out while they got drinks or something.
"Sit down, Sirius," Marlene said with a sly sort of smile that looked out of place on her face. I swallowed, sitting.
It didn't seem the right scenario to argue.
"That was quite a ring, Sirius," Lily said, eyebrows raised at me as she looked down at me. This felt strangely like an interrogation.
Maybe it was.
"Thank you," I offered weakly.
"That was a ring that cost eighty-five thousand Galleons," Marlene said in a voice that tried to be stern but was obviously still so impressed that she was having a hard time with the pretense.
"Yes," I said slowly, wondering where they were going to take this.
Lily tapped her fingers on the countertop as if waiting for some kind of explanation, and when I didn't give one, she said, "Well, why did you get her such and expensive ring, Sirius?"
I sighed.
Here we go.
"First of all, I'm going to premise this with the fact that Amy doesn't care that it's expensive." I suddenly knew why Remus had asked the question in the first place. Birds were insane about this stuff. "Secondly, I had standards. Amy and I were raised looking at our family's ancestral rings. I wanted to give her something that grand, even though I no longer have access to the Black family ring. Plus, I looked at it and I just…. It just looked like it belonged on her finger, you know? I'd saved up about a hundred thousand Galleons. I wasn't sure how much I would spend, but…Remus approved."
I waited for some sort of attack with fists clenched under the table.
They said nothing for a long moment before the both of them took a seat on either side of me, both fixing me with their most stern gazes. It was not a comfortable place to be.
"Let's get this perfectly straight, Sirius," Lily said with a frown. "You may be James's best friend and you may have proved to me that you're not as bad as I originally thought, but you had better make certain that nothing you do makes me think you don't deserve to be married to Amy."
"This is your one and only warning to treat Amy right," Marlene added. "Or we'll chop off your bollocks and maybe worse."
"And if we do worse," Lily said, green eyes flashing, "rest assured, Sirius, they'll never find the body."
I raised my eyebrows.
I had no doubts, of course, that if they desired to kill me or maim me that they could find a way to do so. What was more, if Lily wanted to ensure no one found a body, it would not be found. I didn't need to be assured of this at all.
But they were basically nuts, because I the last thing I wanted was to hurt Amy.
"That seems fair," I said slowly. "As long as we're clear that you only take these actions if Amy approves. I wouldn't want such vigilante justice to come between you as friends."
They exchanged another look at my single term before the pair of them nodded in unison.
"Agreed," Lily said in her stuffy way when she was in charge of something she deemed important.
With that, the three of us smiled again and I poured drinks so that we could return to the party.
Amy raised her eyebrows at me when we returned to the others, but I just shook my head, kissed her cheek, and frowned at the sparkling water she was drinking in lieu of wine.
I had wanted her to drink champagne at this party at the very least, but she hadn't been feeling well for the past couple of days and the smell of alcohol was making her feel a bit sick since she got up that morning.
"Wait," I muttered, "did you feel sick when you poured Peter a drink?"
She blinked at me for a moment, then looked down at her drink and shrugged.
"I didn't notice," she said dismissively.
Nausea was a strange thing, so I put it out of my mind, kissing her temple and turning back to James, who was telling stories about all the times he'd walked in on us having sex or snogging in the dormitory in the last few months of school.
"And then," he said with a pained expression, "I heard her moan and I knew exactly what was going on in there."
The others laughed, including Amy, who was blushing slightly.
I had a sneaking suspicion that he hadn't, in fact, known exactly what was going on, but I didn't want to correct him. Amy probably didn't want me to tell everyone exactly what I'd been doing to her on that specific instance, but I remembered it with fondness, the way she'd moaned, the way she'd rewarded me….
I sighed and the heads all whipped around to look at me and Peter's eyes actually widened in horror.
"Sorry," I muttered, but I wasn't. Amy was laughing, so I couldn't really be sorry.
All in all, the engagement party was a success. Lily and Marlene got out of the way their silly albeit mildly worrying threats. James got to tell all the embarrassing stories he could think of so he wouldn't have to tell them at the actual wedding. Remus seemed to enjoy himself and be at peace with the fact that Amy was marrying me despite his crush on her.
But most importantly, Amy was wearing the ring, and it looked so perfect on her hand that I felt my whole self swelling with pride every time I saw it.
She was going to be mine, and mine forever. Nothing could be more important than that, especially with the stories Caradoc told me at each meeting.
The following morning, though, Amy woke up at about five in the morning and rushed into the bathroom. I woke up groggily, trying to comprehend what was happening and why Amy wasn't in my arms.
When I heard her retching I was up in a flash, totally awake, rushing into the bathroom after her.
I hated seeing her sick. I hated seeing her miserable. She was clutching the bowl of the toilet, retching pathetically. With a sigh I kneeled behind her, taking her beautiful brown hair in my hands and holding it back as she vomited.
Her whole body was trembling as the first wave subsided. Her face was pale, clammy, covered in sweat. Part of me wanted to reach out and touch her and part of me was admittedly repulsed. Thankfully I wasn't James and could handle watching other people be sick. After years of taking care of my brother when he was sick because my mother refused to look at vomit, this was nothing. James was an only child, and the evidence of that reared its ugly head at some unfortunate things.
Still, it was different, seeing the woman I loved in such obvious pain and misery.
"It's going to be okay," I whispered as she whimpered. "It's going to be fine. You're going to be fine."
There was nothing explicitly wrong with her. She was sick. The flu, maybe, or something like it. A stomach bug.
She nodded, but this was the wrong thing to do because a moment later she was leaning over the toilet bowl and retching again with even more force than before.
My own hands were shaking as I watched. It went on for an hour or more, with most of it consisting of painful dry heaving.
When she finally collapsed back into my arms I flushed the toilet, handed her a towel to wipe her face with, and petted her soft hair as she cried.
"It hurts," she whined, still trembling as I helped her to her feet. "And I miss breakfasts. I want to be able to eat breakfast like a normal person. I never thought I'd miss eggs so much."
"Don't," I warned. Mentioning eggs had been what set her off the day before. But she just shook her head.
"I'm done for the morning, Sirius," she sighed. "I feel fine already."
But she didn't look fine, so I wasn't convinced. She looked like death itself.
"Amy," I began, about to try to persuade her for about the dozenth time since she'd started to get sick to go to see someone at St. Mungo's, just to be sure there wasn't something more serious wrong, but she cut me off, anticipating my request.
"No," she said, and the firmness in her voice was heartening. She had stopped trembling, although she still looked terribly pale. "I'm not going to hospital, Sirius. I'll just baby my stomach and I'll be fine by lunch with any luck."
And she was.
She always was. Granted, Amy had always been very good at taking care of herself when sick. Even when she had a particularly nasty stomach flu in second year, she only vomited twice because she was so careful about babying her stomach, not irritating it.
She would start with sipping water, then soda water. She hated soda water, but she said it was better than the potions that were meant to calm the stomach. She hated the way those tasted and refused to take them no matter who tried shoving them down her throat.
Then she would move onto solid foods, starting by nibbling at crackers. When she could eat whole crackers in two bites instead of nibbles, she would then begin in on soup heavy with broth. Nothing creamy, she insisted. Still, there would be noodle and meat and vegetable bits in the soup, so it was still eating.
She then would eat starches, non-sugars, non-fats, and vegetables. If she didn't vomit in twenty-four hours once she'd reached this point, she would then return to eating normally once more.
Typically, as it worked in her favor. Only the one time had she ever had to start over at the beginning, and she'd reached the soup stage by that point.
The problem with this illness, whatever it was, was that almost every twenty-four hours like clockwork she would get sick again and have to start all over. She was miserable, both from the pain and discomfort of the act of sicking up and from not being able to eat like she wanted.
Amy without the capability of eating sweets was not a pleasant Amy, I was fast learning.
If it went on too much longer like this she would have to see a Healer about it. I wouldn't give her a choice, and she'd be too frustrated to argue.
Until then, though, I was watching her suffer every day, holding back her hair, feeding her empty words of comfort. Maybe this was what marriage was about, dealing with the little inconveniences and struggles like this.
For better or worse, in sickness and health.
I'd heard that somewhere, part of a Muggle ceremony.
For as long as you both shall live.
I shivered slightly, watching her wash her sweaty face before pouring herself a small glass of water to sip while she did some reading.
As long as we both shall live.
I watched her sip the water and thought of her face and eyes as I'd been holding back her hair.
In all likelihood I would die first. An Order mission, a vindictive relative…. There were dozens of ways I could die. But what if Amy went first? Getting through Mr. Potter's funeral had been completely dependent on having her with me.
How would I survive without her?
My throat began to close and I quickly went to the kitchen to busy myself with breakfast so she wouldn't see me cry.
I hoped to Merlin nothing serious was wrong with her as I made myself some toast and buried my face in my hands, unable to eat, knowing with near certainty that she would be ill again the following morning.