Chapter Text
James Potter took a deep, grounding breath, rolling his neck a bit, trying to ease the tension from his body as he slowly sank down on one knee, ignoring the little twinge of pain that sparked in his leg when he knelt on the cold, unforgiving tiled floor. He had much more important things to focus on. Much more important people.
Fiddling with the emerald green, velvet-covered box in his hand, he took his time looking up and making eye contact, gently pulling back the small lid that hid the sparkling ring and swallowing thickly before he began to speak. Heart hammering in his chest, he knew he had to say the words, despite the people watching. It was now or never.
“I…God, I don’t even know what to say. I…will you marry me?” he whispered, though his words were clear enough.
He shook a bit as he waited for a response, trying not to think about the multiple pairs of eyes trained on him and to stay focused on the man in front of him.
And after a moment…a huge sigh.
“No, you’re totally right, it’s too simple,” Remus Lupin said, voice cutting through the tense silence, a frustrated noise leaving his mouth as his shoulders slumped. “I can definitely see it now. Sirius will want the other one.”
“Exactly,” James nodded triumphantly, relieved Remus agreed, snapping the box shut and standing with a little grunt. He placed the box on the counter of the jewelry store they were currently occupying and picked up a different ring, this one with more diamonds. “Do you want me to propose to you with this one, too, or…?”
“Please,” Remus agreed, a bit of anxiety in his eyes. “I just want to see exactly what he’ll see.”
Ever helpful, James again got down on one knee. Since this was now his second time ‘proposing’ in the small shop, he was able to summon some confidence and said a bit more clearly than last time, “Sirius Black, love of my life, apple of my eye, my partner in crime—” Remus snorted at that, “—will you marry me?”
The other man’s eyes lit up this time, though they were glued to the ring in James’s hand. “That’s the one,” he murmured, a soft smile stretching across his face. “It’s…it’s so Sirius. It’s perfect.”
Grinning as well, James stood, unbothered by the confused looks a few nearby customers were giving him. “It really is. He’s going to love it, Moons. Truly.”
Bouncing on the balls of his feet, Remus took the ring from James and stared at it in wonder, like he wasn’t sure it was actually real. “D’you think he’ll actually say yes?” he asked softly, biting at a dry piece of skin on his lip and running his finger over the silver band. “I mean, fuck, if he says no…”
James couldn’t help but laugh. “Remus, Sirius has been obsessed with you since his arse was still firmly planted in the closet. I swear, if you had asked him to marry you a week into dating, he would not have hesitated to say yes. The only reason he hasn’t proposed to you yet is because he’s convinced that you’re going to ‘realize he’s crazy’ and change your mind about him. Trust me, he’ll say yes.”
“I know he’s crazy,” Remus laughed, eyes bright. “That’s part of the reason I want to marry him. He’s the perfect amount of crazy, you know?”
“As romantic as that is, save it for the proposal, mate,” James chuckled, leading him over to a salesperson to pay.
It was a few hours later, after several more pep talks and a round of drinks, that James bid Remus goodbye and was able to run the errands he’d been putting off for too long.
“Good afternoon, Madame Malkin!” he called loudly as he ducked into a tiny shop, giving the woman behind the counter a jovial wave.
“Oh, James! Good to see you!” the seamstress called warmly, putting down the shimmering red dress she was holding and walking over to give him a hug. “How’ve you been? I trust your mother and father are well?”
“Good, good, everyone’s well,” James smiled as she stood on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Mum sends her love.”
Maryanne Malkin and Euphemia Potter had been friends for years. Indeed, she’d known James since he’d only been tall enough to come up to her waist.
“As do I,” Malkin responded with a grin. “How’s the restaurant going?”
“Very well, actually!” James grinned, thinking of the restaurant he helped run with his parents. What had started out when James was small as a tiny hole-in-the-wall with ten tables was now an extremely popular local business that was always crowded with people happy to eat Effie’s North Indian cuisine. A few years ago, when James had signed on to help his parents, they had moved Sapna to a bigger location and hired several employees, allowing James, Effie, and Fleamont to work regular hours while still earning a decent salary (along with the veritable fortune they already possessed from Fleamont’s grandparents).
“That’s great to hear. My husband and I get takeout there every Saturday, always the highlight of the week,” she grinned. “Now, you’re picking up, right?”
“Yep!” James said, quickly pulling his receipt from his pocket and handing it to her.
“Another wedding, is it?” the woman asked casually as she walked over to a huge rack, shifting a few articles of clothing around. “How many is that, a hundred?”
“Erm…yeah,” James replied, flushing a bit as he leaned on the cluttered counter. “Feels like it, eh?”
It was true. It seemed that everyone he knew was getting married. Old school friends, coworkers, cousins, random people on the street. Everyone had someone.
“Ah! Here we are!” Malkin exclaimed, pulling two suits off of the rack and handing them to James, the flimsy plastic that covered them crinkling a bit as she moved. “Going to one tomorrow, then?”
James nodded slowly, suddenly feeling a bit tired. “Two, actually. My coworker, Amos, is getting married in the morning, and my old friend from college, Hestia, is getting married in the evening.”
The seamstress’s eyes widened like she was trying to imagine going to two weddings in one day. “That sounds like it’ll be…fun.”
James let out a bark of laughter. “That’s one word for it.”
And with that, he bid her goodbye and headed home.
James loved weddings. Everything about them. Whether it be weddings with intimate ceremonies, huge receptions, personal vows, or religious traditions– he didn’t care. He adored it all. He supposed it started from the very first wedding he’d attended—his own parents’ vow renewal—when he was five. Seeing Effie and Monty stare at each other with adoration, nothing but happiness in the air between them…he’d quickly fallen in love with the idea of being in love.
And he wasn’t ashamed of it. Even when he was young and other boys made fun of him for caring about such things. He just somehow felt so happy, watching others on their happiest day. He was always the one to tear up at the way the couple looked when they saw each other for the first time, pulling out a tissue from his suit pocket and blowing his nose as quietly as possible. He was known to sniffle loudly during the vows and ceremonies, honestly thrilled for the happy couple professing their love. He’d lost track of the number of pictures that had been snapped of him grinning like an idiot at one wedding or another as he watched the happy couple beam at each other during their first dance or cake cutting or the speeches.
There was only one problem.
As he grew older, his enjoyment of weddings grew a bit…bittersweet. Because when he hit his mid-twenties, the questions started coming.
“James! Have you brought anyone!”
“Oh, Potter! Here alone?”
“When’s it gonna be you up there, eh, James?”
It got a bit annoying after a while.
And, of course, he was still thrilled for the people experiencing their special day. That didn’t change. But now, as he sat in the crowd and watched Amos Diggory try to clear his throat and shift from side to side to hide the blissful tears flowing down his cheeks the moment he saw his bride, who looked absolutely stunning as she slowly walked down the aisle, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be in Amos’s place, choking up as he stared at the love of his life.
And, really, it didn’t help that people still asked about Lily. It had been two years, and yet, people acted like he belonged to her. Like they were still an inevitability.
They weren’t.
“Please,” James begged, voice broken and quiet, fracturing with every syllable. “Just…I don’t understand. We…we’re good together. Why would you…?”
But Lily’s green eyes, swimming with tears, just looked at him with sad pity. “Yes, James. We’re good. But…don’t you want something great ?”
“I want you,” he murmured, dread slowly eating away at his very lungs, threatening to hollow out his entire chest.
“I don’t think you do,” Lily said sadly.
She’d left the next day.
It took him a long time to process the cold, empty grief that had taken up the space of Lily’s absence, but after a while, he’d realized she was right: They were good together, but they weren’t great together.
But reminders of that still hit him like a kick in the gut from time to time.
The second wedding of the day was a perfect example. Because, while most people at Amos’s wedding only knew James as James, people at Hestia’s wedding had, at one point, known James as James and Lily.
And, to make things more complicated, Lily was there, with Mary. Mary, who was so sweet, and funny, and stunning, and who Lily looked at with stars in her eyes.
“Doing alright, mate?” Sirius asked James that night as the two of them took a break from dancing, each sipping at their watered-down complimentary cocktails and loosening their ties, their suit jackets already long-abandoned. “I saw Lils with Mary.”
“Yeah,” James nodded, and he really was doing okay, though he wasn’t sure Sirius believed him. “She’s happy. They both are. It’s good to see,” he said, eyes flickering to where Hestia’s new husband drunkenly twirled her around the sticky dancefloor, singing Piano Man at the top of his voice while the wedding party surrounded them, holding their drinks in the air. A funny pang of sadness hit him in the chest.
“Did you see the hot bridesmaid?” Sirius asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “I heard from the Mother of the Bride that she’s single! Want me to be your wingman?”
James couldn’t help but look toward the girl in question, a stunning blonde who was sitting at a table by herself, nursing a drink. “She’s single?” he asked, something warming in his chest.
Sirius smirked a knowing smirk and tilted his head. “Yep. And I have it on good authority that she likes obnoxious blokes who wear glasses.”
Sighing, James stood and sent Sirius a wink. “Don’t wait up, then.”
Unfortunately, it was while he literally had his head between Single Bridesmaid’s legs that he got the call from Sirius, who had somehow gotten significantly drunker in the span of two hours and all of a sudden could not find his way from the bathroom back to the dancefloor.
So he apologized profusely, ignoring the fact that he was still completely dressed and hard in his pants, and helped her under her blankets in the hotel room she’d brought him to that was in the same building as the wedding, and set off to murder his best friend.
Of course, when he found both Sirius and Remus giggling like children in the hallway by the bathrooms, he didn’t have the heart to do anything more than snap a picture and bring them to the car.
That night, after driving two completely plastered friends back to their flat, James finally entered his own little apartment, dropping his keys in the bowl on the counter, locking the door, and pulling on some old pajama pants before turning to his phone.
Sirius:
i lovu
bes frien
<3333333333
Grinning to himself, James sent a quick, ‘Go to sleep, you drunk prat’ text back, before opening the internet, finally turning to the website he’d been thinking about all evening. He settled onto his bed, curling under his soft duvet, and rested his head on his pillow, staring at the glowing screen.
Absentmindedly, he looked through updates from a few of his favorite blogs. Cooking tips and funny images flashed across his screen, but he only allowed himself a few minutes of scrolling before he searched the name he’d been thinking of for a while now, tapping on the small profile picture: a black-and-white shot of a young man leaning to the side in a chair. The man, with pale skin, a prominent nose, slightly-wrinkled brow, and short, straight, dark hair, stared at the camera with an intimidating look.
Eyes skimming over the top of the screen to the most-recent post, James began to read with a small smile.
Archive of Affection
@leo-laments
2 hours ago
I write today of Dante and Beatrice. Now, even as a former English Major, I still can’t claim to have a vast amount of knowledge on Dante Alighieri. I’ve only read parts of The Divine Comedy, and I’ve yet to read Vita Nuova. But it’s not Dante’s writings that I am thinking of this evening. Or, not directly. It is his true love.
The story is told that Dante met Beatrice Portinari for the first time when he was only nine, and she eight, when he saw her walking with her father. It was love at first sight, an instant connection, and something he never forgot, even as he grew older.
They didn’t see each other again for nine years, but he never forgot her. And one day, fate brought them back together again, though only for the briefest of moments. When she greeted him one day in the streets of Florence, he was so taken by her that he had a dream, which was to inspire his first sonnet, La Vita Nuova. Later, even though they both married different people, he still wrote of her, and she was to feature as a character in two of his works.
Of course, this story doesn’t have a happy ending. Beatrice died at the age of twenty-four, and it seems that Dante’s devastation at this loss was more than great, judging from the way he writes of her in his poems and uses The Divine Comedy to process her loss.
But even with the tragedy of this tale…imagine having a muse such as this. A person who inspires such deep devotion and love that you cannot help but write sonnets. Is this just the romanticization of a writer’s story from so long ago, or can these things actually happen? And imagine…falling for someone you have known since you were a child. Finding a person you never expected to see again, and realizing that somehow, nothing has changed, even when everything has.
Even if their story isn’t completely true, perhaps it reminds us that love can come from anywhere: the past, the present, and the future.
5,682 likes - 418 comments - 378 shares
Sighing, a strange mixture of emotions swirling inside him, James tapped the little heart on his screen, liking the post before he plugged his phone in and rolled over, allowing sleep to take over his brain.
That night, he dreamed of Italy.