He woke with a start to a knock.

It sounded like the hollow echo of an old, rotted tree, but the noise was persistent, and he jumped when he noticed the small fist that was pounding the tabletop beside his head.

"Ah!"

The fist stopped and sped off the table, the body it was attached to jumping from its perch on a chair and running full speed away from the newly awakened Sirius.

It was Jenny, wide awake despite the late hour.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and blinked to adjust to the strange lighting of the room. The door of the pub opened suddenly and for a moment Sirius wondered if it was really early morning rather than late at night. He half expected Tom to walk in, ready to open up again for business, only to find the table occupied. The other half of him knew that Tom was more than likely still hunched over his newspaper in the back room, probably trying not to doze off in front of the steaming brew of coffee he kept going just for the purpose of keeping himself awake.

Instead, the door opened and in popped a dark haired young man, a giddy expression strewn across his face.

He scanned the room as if looking for something, and started forward, still in a kind of daze when he landed on Sirius.

"What are you still doing here?" James said with a smile. "Thought you were heading back to the house. I went all the way back there for nothing!"

He pulled up a chair and sat across from Sirius, leaning across the table as if to see him better. His foot tapped the floor excitedly like a dragon who'd just visited a Gringott's vault.

"Yeah, I think I might've fallen asleep," Sirius said, immediately yawning widely. "Hm, this little kid woke me up. I dunno where - " He turned stiffly and glanced around the room for the sandy braids and green ribbons, but she seemed to have disappeared back to her room.

Soon after, however, footfalls could be heard across the creaking floorboards of the upstairs and Melissa appeared at the top, her hair disheveled and only partially still in the bun it had been earlier. She wore a turquoise top and a pair of bright orange shorts.

She looked as if she'd just woken up from an either really good or really bad dream, a kind of haze around her that said she wasn't quite sure where she was. She must have rushed to get out of her room because a pair of mismatched flip-flops adorned her feet.

She spotted Sirius and James and practically ran down the steps.

"Have you seen Jenny?" she asked, wild panic in her eyes.

James looked confusedly at his friend who in turn blinked daftly before nodding in answer. "Uh-huh. Haven't the slightest where she disappeared to now though. Probably the back." He stood rather painfully and flinched at the crick in his neck from its odd angle on the table before stumbling off around the corner right behind Melissa.

James stayed where he was, at a loss for words. Obviously, he'd missed something while he was gone.

"There you are!" Melissa's voice said, followed by a tiny, high-pitched giggle that could only have belonged to Jenny. All three reappeared and the little girl struggled from the woman's arms until finally she was let down. Once she was stable and once more at knee height on the two adults, she promptly latched onto Sirius's fingers, taking him much by surprise.

Melissa covered her mouth with a hand, trying her hardest to stifle a laugh while Sirius stared uncomprehendingly at Jenny.

"Jen, sweetie," she said after finally composing herself. "Let go and let's go back to bed. Say goodbye, love. Mr. Sirius has got to sleep too, you know."

The toddler looked up at him with her big curious eyes and slowly detached her little fist from his. "Night night," she said simply before taking up Melissa's hand again and starting up the stairs.

Melissa shrugged and apologized one last time for bothering him, turned, and skipped back upstairs to their room.

Sirius hesitated a moment before returning his attention to James, whom he realized was still present, and sitting sluggishly back at the table. He knocked the rather sad and very stale cup of cold coffee around the table, the clink of glass echoing dimly through the room. "So how was your night?" he said tiredly.

"How was yours?" James replied with a smirk. "Busy, were you?"

"Not quite sure 'busy''s the right word. But what did you do? How's my favorite flower?"

James let his smile drop, though he was clearly struggling to resist the urge to grin. "Good," he said casually, dully. "Not too exciting."

"Oh, good. Wouldn't want that now, would we?" Sirius said coyly. There was something about James' demeanor that told him the date was more exciting than he was letting on.

"I asked her, Sirius," James said after a second's silence.

"Sorry?"

"I asked Lily to marry me."

Sirius must have been staring harder than he meant to, because James suddenly seemed concerned.

"Bloody hell, Prongs," he said, a smile of his own growing on his face. "Bloody hell and she said yes? To you?"

"I know, novel idea, isn't it?" And the two friends were laughing just like they used to, and they never wanted to stop.