An Auspicious Occasion
5 July 1977

The Hogs Head sign creaked overhead as three cloaked figures cast a furtive look up and down the empty Hogsmeade street, before letting themselves inside. The bar room itself was alive with music and talk, the summer evening drawing not only regulars but also holidaymakers into the small, country tavern.
James clutched Lily's hand tighter as Sirius led them towards the bar.

The barman hovered in a dark doorway that lead from behind the bar to what seemed to be a small back room, but he stepped forward into the light to serve his customers with a suspicious expression.
"And how may I help you young folk tonight?"
James frowned, slipping his hood back slightly to reveal his face. "Aberforth? Well!" he sounded impressed. "I never thought I'd see you working in here!"
The old man squinted, then grinned.
"Why it's the young P- Parkinson lad!" he exclaimed, recalling at the very last minute that yelling Potter out in a bar was not necessarily the most intelligent of ideas. "How are you, son?"
James grinned. "Very well, thank you."
"And what would you like? Anything, on the house, for you and your friends!"
Lily pushed back her hood slightly and leant forward.
"Actually," she began rather nervously. "We were…. We were wondering if you might light the fire for us? Only, it's awfully cold for summer."

Aberforth frowned, his eyes not betraying even a flicker of surprise. He had been expecting them, then. "Nay, lass, that I can not do. I've had a few complaints that t'is too hot in here already! Tell ye what, you lot can sit in my back room, here. I have a fire going with my dinner, and you can be as warm as you please without disturbing these good folk."
Aberforth eyed an old man further down the bar, who was eavesdropping intently.
James pulled his hood further forward once more, and the three of them followed Aberforth into his back room. The older man closed the door, before checking that all the windows were covered and pulling back the hearthrug. Next, he produced his grimy looking wand from his sleeve, and set it to a particular stone in the floor. He tapped the stone.
Nothing happened for a few moments: but then, the stone began to wiggle, and much in the manner of the wall in Diagon Alley, the flagged-stone flooring quickly made way for a trapdoor.

Aberforth's eyes glinted in the flickering light from his fireplace.
"Down you go, young folk, and I hope that nothing too dangerous mars your path tonight."
Sirius led the way, and James sent Lily down next. He paused to shake the old man's hand.
"I was sorry to hear of your parent's passing," Aberforth said quietly.
James smiled grimly, touched. "Thank you."

…

Sirius, Lily and James emerged at the bottom of the stairs and made their way along a short passageway lit by flickering torches.
"Bit like the Honeydukes passage," Sirius murmured reminiscently, his smile ghostly.
James nodded thoughtfully, while Lily looked between the two, confused. "What passage?" she demanded suspiciously.

James said nothing, simply pressing a finger to her lips as they reached yet another doorway. Sirius opened it tentatively to reveal a well-lit chamber. Talk ceased abruptly as the newcomers filed in and waited shyly by the doorway.

Dumbledore's voice emerged from the crowd, and their former headmaster stood, looking pleased.

"Ah, more young people!" he gestured toward Remus and Peter, who sat awkwardly with two red-haired twins, and another young, sandy-haired man, a year or two older than them, that Lily recognized from Hogwarts. Beside him, much to Lily's surprise sat Alice Prewett, her former dorm-mate.

"James Potter, Sirius Black, Lily Evans," Dumbledore introduced them, his eyes twinkling. "Welcome, to the Order of the Phoenix."

Brotherhood
17 March 1978

It was raining. Sirius watched silently as large, round drops of water smattered against the windowpanes of his small flat, and sighed. Across the hall, in James' new apartment, he could hear music, and laughter. A part of him wanted to take his keys, lock up the flat and to join them, there in their happy home. But it was a very small part that urged to do this. The larger part of Sirius' mind knew that he heard the beginnings of their celebration of Lily moving in, and he felt he would just be interrupting. And even though they would have handed him his own glass of wine to celebrate, and that they would have made him welcome, Sirius didn't feel like interrupting.

Something crinkled in Sirius' jacket pocket, and he inserted two fingers suspiciously to withdraw a rumpled piece of paper, a name and phone number scrawled across it in haste. Sally.

Perhaps, he had promised to call this Sally. To be honest, Sirius didn't really remember, or care. He wondered if now would be an inappropriate time to make it up to Sally?
Someone knocked on his door, and Sirius leapt to his feet in his haste for some human company.

It was, much to his surprise, Remus.
Remus blinked, looking equally as surprised. He was plainly soaked through, and it was clear that Sirius had notbeen the person he was expecting to answer the door.
"Sirius! I thought this was James'-?"
Sirius' heart fell. "Oh," he replied quickly. "No, that's… that one." He pointed to the doorway directly opposite.
Remus nodded. "Oh," he repeated. "Well, er, sorry to disturb you, I guess…."
"No!"
Sirius seemed to be a man grappling with the last vestige of childhood. "What are you doing here, anyway?" he asked conversationally.
Remus looked away. "I… er, well, Lily always said that if I needed a place to stay…"

Sirius' eyes widened, and for the first time he noticed the worn suitcase leaning against his friend's leg.
"Moony," he said quietly, voice low. "Why didn't you come to us for help?"
Remus shrugged, and a droplet from his hair rolled down his nose.
"Didn't want to imposition you," he mumbled.
Sirius rolled his eyes, bent down and seized the suitcase. It was much heavier than he had anticipated, but he hid it well.

"Don't be an idiot. Come and stay with me. I even have a spare room all set up for you. I know… I know you intended for them," he gestured toward Lily and James' door, "but really, you don't want to go in there right now, they're celebrating, and if they share the love anymore I think I'm going to vomit so…. Come stay with me?"

Sirius' eyes expressed what his words could not: 'I'm lonely.'
Remus seemed to consider it, before shrugging. "I guess you have a point, about the young love and all," he murmured gruffly, and Sirius stood back to let him in.
Remus paused in the doorway, looking still uncertain.
"Stay for as long as you want," Sirius prompted him, feeling that this was the answer to his unasked question.

The werewolf gave a small smile. "Thanks."

Christmas
25 December 1978

"We're here!"
Sirius' voice carried through the doorway of James and Lily's flat moments before the man himself, arms laden with brown paper bags. Lily, her hair drawn back in a messy ponytail, stuck her head out the doorway of the kitchen and waved him in.
"James is just in the shower, come in!"
Sirius wove his way through the dining and lounge room, and made it to the entrance to the kitchen before he stopped. Emmeline raised her champagne glass to him in greeting.
"Merry Christmas!"
Sirius appeared to falter only for a moment. "Merry Christmas, Em," he murmured, swooping to kiss her on the cheek as he set down his load. "Remus and I are doing the nibblies," he announced. "How's Benjy?"
Emmeline checked her watch. "He's great, he should be here soon, imagine having to work on Christmas Day! I do hope he remembers the dessert!"
Lily reappeared in the kitchen, face momentarily sad as she paused to reflect. "These are the times, I suppose," she murmured quietly, referring to the working on Christmas Day.

She was lucky, she knew, that James hadn't been called in too, although she pushed the thought away, setting upon Sirius' bags.
"Now what do we have here?"
Sirius grinned and shrugged. "I have no idea. Moony was chatting up the girl in the delicatessen and she suggested all these for – what did she call them?"
"Canapes," Remus supplied from the doorway, smiling. "Merry Christmas everyone!"

"Did I hear gourmet?" James' voice called down the hallway, preceding it's owner, who soon appeared beside Remus, wearing nothing but a white towel and his glasses. His hair was still damp from the shower, and a droplet of water ran down his forehead.
"James, go get dressed!" Lily scolded, which was his signal to move forward and wrap his arms around her, nuzzling her neck.
"Oi, you two, we do plan to eat some of this food you're exposing yourself to at the moment."
James turned and cocked an eyebrow at Sirius. "Who's exposing anything?"
Sirius smirked, eyeing James' towel. "No one, yet."
Lily took charge. "James, go get dressed. Everyone else, out of the kitchen!"

Remus stood aside as Emmeline and Sirius filed past him, an odd expression on the werewolf's face.
"And how are you doing?" Lily asked him sweetly as she bent to check the oven. "Would you like a drink? That's Em's department – Em! – Get her to find you something?"
Remus chuckled. "No thanks, Lily, I'm fine."
"Sirius tells me you're chatting up the delicatessen girl now?" Lily prodded, making Remus grin.
"Well, she is a pretty little thing, although nothing on some of the girls Sirius has brought home."
Lily and Remus exchanged a look that clearly and with full contempt, said "Aurors!"
"What about St Mungos?"
Lily closed the oven door, wiping her hands on her apron as she set to the potatoes. "Mungos is good," she replied absently, looking around her for a clean bowl. "It's such a relief to have almost finished my internship, though. So hopefully soon I can be released on the field with the rest of the Aurors as a Healer, which is much more use that I'm being now, and Oh! Can you see the colander anywhere?"

Remus cast his gaze around the small, crowded kitchen. It rather looked as though an explosion of food had gone off within it. Remus thought with a smile of his own kitchen, mere metres away, that told a very different story. Instead of this unrestrained Christmas chaos, it spoke of a quiet disuse, of the many nights of takeaways and as its use as simple storage for alcohol and precooked meals that indicated a distinctlybachelor flavoured living. The logical thing to do would be to cast a summoning charm, Remus realised, grinning as he recalled the last time James had tried to summon anything from this kitchen. James and Lily had dined with him and Sirius, that night. Perhaps, Remus reflected, a summoning charm wasn't such a good idea after all.

"Sorry, Lily, no colander-"
"Could you rinse these potatoes, please? And just stick them in that pot, there- I'm sorry Remus, but I don't exactly trust anyone else in this kitchen with our food, Sirius would probably just make it explode and then where would we be-? James!"

…

Sirius leant against the doorway of his friend's bedroom and raised his eyebrows. Whether this was a comment on the ornamental pillows scattered across the elegant bedspread, or on James himself, primping in front of the full length mirror, shirt hanging open, Sirius himself was not sure.
"So have you done it yet?"
James turned from the mirror, surprised. "Padfoot, so crude!"
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Not that, Prongs, and you know exactly what I meant," he replied scathingly.
James smirked, pulling on his jacket and plunging his hand into the pocket, seizing on a little velvet box and turning it over and over in his fingers. "No, not yet. I'll pick my moment," he replied absently, a half smile lingering on his face.
Sirius shook his head in disgust. "Look what she's done to you, mate!"

"What have I done?" Lily asked innocently, making Sirius jump.
Lily strolled past him into the bedroom and faced James, hands on her hips. "Any idea where the colander is?" she asked sweetly.
James nodded shortly and left the room, a great determination on his face as if nothing were more important.
Lily and Sirius exchanged looks of surprise.

"Well, you certainly have him well trained," the best friend murmured, shocked.
Lily quirked her eyebrow at him. "Honestly, I don't. Perhaps, because it's Christmas, he's behaving himself?" she murmured, mostly to herself, wandering back down the hall to the kitchen.
Sirius remained in the doorway, an ironic smile on his face. Relationships had always seemed like too much effort when all he had to do was come across the hall and watch Lily and James' effortless domesticity. Really, Sirius wondered, when one had instant access to a readily adoptive family, what else did one need?
A mug of Butterbeer was pressed into his hands, and Sirius snapped out of his thoughts to thank Peter.

"Wormy! When did you get here?"
Peter smiled. Two years in Muggle Relations had served him well, and he was no longer the smallest Marauder - now a fully-grown man in his own right.
"Just now," he said, smiling mildly. "And not a moment too soon, I imagine."
"Dinner's ready!" Lily sung from the kitchen.
Soon, everyone was clustered around James' large dining table, which looked out of place in the modest flat. Benjy had arrived not long before Peter, and was seated beside Remus, discussing with pride the ins and outs of the professional Quidditch team Emmeline was now managing. Lily, the perfect hostess, saw everyone served before herself, and when she finally slid into her place beside James, she did so with great relief.

"I propose a toast," Emmeline announced, throwing her hair back from her shoulders with a toss of her head, and grinning, eyes sparkling with life.
Sirius swallowed, hard.
"Let us all raise our glasses to all the witches and wizards who are working away from their families today," Emmeline began. "To those who are bringing light to these darkening days."
"And to Lily and James for serving up an excellent meal for all us ungrateful souls," Sirius joked.
"To happiness," Remus added quietly, "And friendship, and to love."
"To happiness, friendship, love and hope," Peter finished with great solemnity.

"To happiness, friendship, love and hope," everyone echoed, clinking their glasses before they drained them.

Sirius, seated on James' other side, nudged him and winked. James felt the elbow connect with the little velvet box in his jacket pocket, and grinned. Plenty of time for that later.
Lily saw the sparkle in her boyfriend's eyes, and felt compelled to smile too. It was a telling sparkle – he was up to something, most certainly – but Lily didn't particularly mind. He would let her in on the joke, sooner or later, as he always did.

She just hoped he wasn't up to too much mischief.
Although, as Sirius had once scolded her, many years ago –
Nonsense, Lily, you can never cause enough mischief.

The End.