June 24th, 1979
James stuck his sweaty palms inside his pockets. Today was going to be the day. The day he was going to pop Lily the fatidic question. He’d been waiting for this moment for months, preparing for it for what seemed like ages… yet now he didn’t feel so sure of himself any longer. What if Lily said no? Sure, the two had been boyfriend and girlfriend for over two years after Hogwarts, and he felt she was the one for him… but what if the feeling wasn’t mutual? Marriage was a big step, he knew it. And yet, the two had been through thick and thin together…
He paced around in his flat. Lily was late, as always. He’d told her to come at noon, that it was urgent. But since when did Lily actually listen to him? He felt the velvet box in his hand… Everything was going to go perfectly… right?
A sudden knock on the door startled him. “James!” called a voice he had no problem recognizing.
By the time he reached the door, nerves and anxiety for what he was about to do took over completely. “About time, Lily! I told you it was urgent, but since when do you care if it’s about me?! Huh?!”
He was looking so angry that Lily was actually frightened. “I”I’m sorry, James. You know Mr. Turner, he wouldn’t”“
“Whatever,” he said savagely, gesturing her in. “So.” Okay. Calm down, dude. I can’t scare her away before actually proposing to her. “So,” he said, more calmly.
“Yes, Jamsie?” asked Lily.
Breathe. Easy does it. “Yeah, sorry about that, Lils, I’m a bit stressed out, you know, work, stuff like that…”
“Yeah,” said the redhead, smiling.
“But, um, anyway, I, uh… I asked you to come because I, uh… I was meaning to ask you something… something rather important, actually…” he stammered.
“Fire away,” said Lily, dying with curiosity by now.
“Yeah, um, what I “ what I wanted to-to ask you was, um…” Get a grip on yourself, man! Are you JAMES POTTER or not?! he scolded himself. “I was meaning to ask you if you… perhaps… wanted to- to… go to dinner with me tomorrow night…. I reckon we could go to Suze’s, we haven’t been there in a long time…” Oh great, Potter, well done. You blew it!.
“Sure,” said Lily.
“Okay, great, um, I’d already made reservations, actually,” he finished, laughing nervously. He couldn’t help running a hand through his hair, even if he knew it annoyed Lily most immensely. “Right,” he plunged on. “Right, but I was, I was actually meaning to ask you something else, too.”
“Go on, Jamsie, I’m listening.”
“Goody… so um, I was wondering whether you… you…” Say it, Potter! Just say it! “Did you see the Loners lost to the Tornadoes yesterday?” he finished lamely.
“Oh yeah!” answered Lily enthusiastically. She was a great fan of the Tornadoes. “Yeah, that save Corrington made at the end of the match, you know, when Blinkley was flying full force toward him with the Quaffle, that was magic! Absolutely fantastic!”
“Yeah,” answered James distractedly. Now. He’d have to do it now. Was he a Gryffindor or not? Then be brave! he urged himself. “Lily, I… I was wondering another thing, though…”
“Just one more?” asked Lily, smiling.
“Yeah.” He gulped. Now or never. “Lily, do you think you might wanna… Do you reckon you…” Deep, steadying breath. “Lily, will you marry me?”
Lily stared. And stared. For the first time in her life, she was completely speechless. Whatever she was expecting, it definitely wasn’t a proposal. Her brain didn’t seem to be working properly. After about two minutes of staring (to James it seemed like two years) she finally unglued her tongue. She wanted to say yes, but what came out was, “Are you serious?”
It was James’s turn to stare. Oh no. It had already been awfully difficult saying it once, and Lily actually wanted him to repeat it? No way. He decided to play it cool, as he always did in these cases. “No,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “No, I don’t mean it. I just wanted to say something really impressive and stupid, and somehow, the sentence ‘Sirius has just been kidnapped by aliens’ didn’t sound too appropriate.”
Lily nodded. “Yes.”
“Yes? Yes, what?” asked James. His eyes widened. “Oh my God, Sirius has really been kidnapped by aliens?!”
“Yes I’ll marry you, you dolt.”
“Oh,” said James. He grinned. “Okay then. Here,” he added, taking out the velvet box. “Have a ring.”
Lily couldn’t help giggling as she took the box from him. He could be ever so romantic sometimes… and others just… not. She gasped as she opened the box. “Oh my Goodness! James, it’s… it’s beautiful!” she cried, as she took out a gold ring with a huge ruby.
”Gryffindor colours, you know,” said James offhandedly. He grinned. “Read the inscription inside.”
And as Lily did, her heart leapt. Inside where written three words. But not the three words she was expecting.
First Lasts Forever
And she threw herself at James. “I love you!”
He grinned as he kissed her. It went better than he’d expected.
They were startled as a loud crack sounded in the room. They looked up to see Sirius staring at them, a disgusted expression on his face. “Prongs, you’ve only just left work an hour ago, I can’t leave you alone for a moment that you immediately turn into a snogging machine. Please get a grip on yourselves, you two.”
“Padfoot, there is one thing right now I want and need from you, mate,” said James. “It’s called privacy.”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “Huh-uh.”
“Honestly,” said James, standing up, “I should really start putting charms on this house, at least to stop you Apparating in here every moment. Especially now,” he finished, smiling significantly at Lily.
“Why?” asked Sirius. “You haven’t put them up in the past two years, why should you do it now?”
Lily spoke up. “Sirius, James and I are getting married.”
He laughed. “Yeah, right.”
She showed him the engagement ring.
They heard a strangled cry as Sirius fell to the floor, out cold.
October 30th, 1981
“That was the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard, Lily,” said Alice as she sipped some tea at James’s and Lily’s house. Lily had only just finished recounting the unforgettable day when her husband had proposed to her.
Lily laughed. “It was not!”
Alice shrugged. “Okay, yeah, it wasn’t, but at least James plucked enough courage to pop the question, didn’t he? I had to ask Frank myself, otherwise Neville wouldn’t be here now, I’m sure,” she said. “Would you?” she cooed, tickling her son, who was seated in her lap.
“But let’s talk about me, shall we?” interrupted Helen, who was seated next to Lily. “Sirius hasn’t even proposed to me! If, you know,” she added hastily, “he intends to marry me at all.”
“Are you kidding me?” asked Lily. “You and Sirius have been going out for how long?”
“Two years and a half. Not counting two months at Hogwarts,” said Helen.
“Yeah,” said Alice, “and apart from you, how long had Sirius’s longest relationship lasted?”
“Two and a half days,” answered Lily. “So there, if he doesn’t wanna marry you, Hel, then he’s either crazy or unbelievably stupid.”
Helen grinned. “Oh great, then I’ve got no hope. We all know he’s unbelievably stupid!”
As the three friends laughed, Lily got up and picked up Harry, her one-year-old son. She seated him on her lap before joining back her friends on the sofa.
Helen broke the silence. “Any… any news about… about You-Know-Who?” she asked.
The tension that filled the air at those words was palpable. Lily shrugged. “He’s still after us, but Dumbledore’s plan seems to be working for now.” She looked at Alice. Because of Neville, Alice was in the very same position as Lily. “I can’t say anymore there, except, you know…” she sighed. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best, right?”
The two girls nodded gravely. “I’ll be glad when this’ll all be over,” said Alice. “If, you know, we’ll ever get to see the end of it.”
Helen stared reprovingly at her. “Don’t talk like that, Alice. We’ve got Dumbledore on our side, haven’t we? Hope is the only thing You-Know-Who can’t take away from us, we must hold on to it…”
Alice smiled. “You’re right, Hel.” She got up and grabbed her coat. “Listen, I’d better go. It’s late, I wouldn’t want Frank to worry.”
Helen got up as well. “I’d better go, too. I’m meeting Sirius later tonight.” She winked. “You never know…”
Lily nodded. “Yeah.” She turned to Harry. “My boy, we’d better get to bed, now, shouldn’t we?”
“Gaah!” said the little boy.
Lily smiled. “Yeah. Gotta get ready for tomorrow, it’s going to be your first Halloween party…”
And with that, she got up, said goodbye to her best friends and took Harry to his room, before going back downstairs to join her husband in the living room.
THE END
A/N: That’s all, folks! Sad, this last part, isn’t it? I wanted it to end with Harry’s first something, you know, since the whole story talks about firsts… Oh, I’m so sad now! I mean, we all know what’s gonna happen on Halloween, don’t we?
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story! Many thanks to all of you, my faithful readers, and especially those who took the time to review… This is it, end of story! I hope you all liked it and I also hope I’ll get a whole lot of reviews for it… what do you say?