All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

The War : Summer 1979

I

I will be king

And you

You will be queen

Though nothing will drive them away

We can beat them, just for one day

We can be heroes, just for one day

 

Sirius was determined to be the best man ever. The best best man ever, that is. He felt properly penitent about the way he’d acted when James and Lily announced their engagement, and as the preparations got underway he jumped to do everything the couple asked of him—and then some. After all, there was plenty to do.

The wedding was set for late September, which meant they only had a few months to prepare (something that would be unthinkable in the Black household, where weddings were an event that took at minimum a full year of planning). Fortunately, James and Lily wanted to keep things relatively small, mostly close friends and family, and they already had the venue figured out: the gardens on the Potters’ estate if the weather was nice, indoors if it wasn’t.

Sirius got to work right away, ordering new dress robes for the groomsmen from Madam Malkin’s, picking up the rings from the jeweller, and making sure James understood that he had access to the entire record collection for the reception, and not just Aladdin Sane. Sirius even offered to hand-write all of the invitations—though it meant revealing his talent for calligraphy to Lily, and suffering through the hour of teasing that she and Remus put him through afterwards. Still, she happily took him up on the offer, which resulted in an afternoon spent hunched over the dining table for four hours giving himself carpal tunnel.

“Fifty-eight!” Sirius crowed, finishing the final invitation and setting his quill down with a flourish.

“Well done.” Remus looked over from where he was reading the newspaper, smirking, “Ahh, look at your pretty handwriting! So dainty!”

“Better than your chicken-scratch!” Sirius retorted, blowing on the ink to dry it.

Remus chuckled. “Just don’t tell anyone you did them, or you’ll start getting requests.”

“Do you really think they’re that good?” Sirius frowned, holding up one of the cream-coloured cards to inspect his penmanship.

“They’re gorgeous. Really.” When he looked back down, Remus was watching him, with a small smile on his face.

“Well, this is the only time I’m doing it,” Sirius declared, stacking the cards neatly, “This is the one and only wedding I will ever support.”

“What if Mary got married? Or Pete?”

“I’d show up and get drunk, but secretly I would hate every minute.”

“Very reasonable,” Remus said, still smiling.

“Another thing you can blame the noble and most ancient house of cack for,” Sirius shook his head. “Do you know how many engagement dinners and weddings I’ve been to? Ugh.” He shuddered, remembering the last wedding he’d been to—Bellatrix’s. “So I’m sorry, Moony, but you’ll never make an honest man of me.”