Sirius awoke with the sensation of Remus getting out of bed. "Moony," he whined, "Get your gorgeous bum back in bed, my love."

Remus's tone was low, "Go back to sleep, Siri." He kissed Sirius's forehead. "I'll be back in time for our appointment at the Ministry."

More alert now, Sirius sat up. "What are you on about being back in time?"

"I've got work today," Remus replied.

Sirius stared at him. "You're shitting me, Moons. You've got to be shitting me."

"I do?" Remus looked confused.

"You do!" Sirius replied. "Don't you think rather than trampling about the countryside with the Tonks's child that we ought to be spending our wedding morning together?!"

Remus chuckled, "Oh Padfoot, honestly! How do you think bills are paid about this place? Or did you think magical money fairies flutter in to do it?"

Sirius shrugged. "I dunno but who gives a fairy fart today, huh? It's our day... we - we ought at least be together, even if we're not having a grand celebration..."

Remus frowned and sighed, he went over and kissed Sirius's forehead. They could hear James moving about outside the bedroom door, preparing to leave. "I will see you before it is time to go to the Ministry," Remus promised, and before Sirius could protest or he could feel too much guilt to leave, he hurried out the door, grabbing his prepacked rucksack at the very last moment.

James was in the kitchen, arranging things on the table carefully. Peter sat, watching him, grinning as James worked at it. He looked up when Remus came down the hall. "How'd he take it?" James whispered.

"Oh he's rather angry with me, I'm sure of it, but he'll be alright once he finds this." Remus smiled at James's handiwork.

"C'mon let's go before he comes out and tries to stop you and spoils everything."

They hurried out the front door and down the rickety steps and out onto the street. They nodded to the man who rented the restaurant space below their apartment as he set up a signboard with his daily specials written upon it, and he glared at them (he thought they were too noisy to be good neighbors). Together, the three of them hurried down the street, headed to a small cafe at the corner.

Regulus was sitting on the curb outside the cafe, watching traffic go past as all of London came awake. He looked up and saw the three Marauders and leaped to his feet, grabbing onto the handle of a very fine suitcase, embossed with the Black family crest and his name. "I was going to wait inside," he explained as they approached, "I don't have any muggle money, though, and I didn't think I ought to go in without buying anything..."

"It's alright!" James replied, "We aren't staying here."

"We aren't?"

"No, of course not! Would we have made you pack if we were celebrating at a cafe?"

"I suppose not," Regulus ceded. "So... where are we going then?"

James smiled as Peter and Remus snuck down the narrow alley behind the cafe. "You've done side along apparition before, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"C'mon," James winked and waved for Regulus to follow as he followed after Peter and Remus.

Just as James had predicted, Sirius didn't immediately get out of bed. Instead, he curled back up and went back to sleep, feeling quite sorry for himself. It was nearly noon before he got up, groaning and dragging himself from the bed.

Roger was waiting in the door way, and rubbed against Sirius's legs as he walked down the hallway. "Hullo you bloody cat," he sighed. "I s'pose it's just you and me, again, as usual." The kneazle followed him along. "I know, you don't think I should sound so disappointed, do you? Think I should be happy for your presence. Well, you're a little bugger, and you clearly do not understand how important today is supposed to be, being a kneazle and all."

Roger purred and went ahead of Sirius into the kitchen, leaping up onto the edge of the sink and getting a drink from the drippy faucet. Sirius went in, too, and opener the fridge. "Leaving me alone on our wedding day! A day that's meant to be special! I wish that he understood how important weddings ought to be!" He took out the orange juice and turned around to find Roget sitting on the table... next to a large pineapple.

"What the bloody hell?" he numbly put the orange juice on the counter and walked over to the table, confused. Beside the pineapple lay a thin box.

OPEN ME.

Intrigued, Sirius picked up the box and opened it. Inside was the pistachio green bowtie he had seen at Madam Malkin's. He smiled and picked it up, running his fingers over the silk. Had Moony done this? He wondered. And he suddenly remembered he'd forgotten to go back for the red tie and he felt quite ashamed, and he started to turn back to go get his money purse and go to Diagon Alley right that moment. Except he remembered the pineapple.

He turned around and looked at it.

Roger was on the chair in front of it, staring at it, and even he looked confused.

Sirius stepped up to the table, leaning to inspect the pineapple. "Huh," he said, and he reached out and picked it up.

The moment he did, the kitchen twisted and spun around him and he felt a jerk like a fish hook behind his belly button, tugging him into darkness, and suddenly he was falling through pitch black, the sensation of spinning wildly, and he held all the tighter onto the pineapple with one hand, his other fisted around the pistachio green bow tie. He thought he might just throw up if it didn't stop soon - he reckoned it was a portkey, but it was the longest bloody portkey he'd ever felt, and he was certain he'd somehow got stuck in some kind of weird in-between, until suddenly, he landed with a rib-crushing thud onto soft earth.

He lay there, eyes squeezed closed, still holding onto the bowtie and the pineapple, catching his breath, waiting for the spinning sensation to leave his stomach. As his body's reactions calmed, he realized that the earth was soft where he lay, and warm against his stomach and chest, and he could hear something roaring to his left... He opened his eyes and saw the ocean, crystal blue and stretching as far away as his eyes could see.

Sirius sat up, staring out at it, his eyes wide, and he released his grasp from the pineapple, still clutching the bowtie, though, and he struggled in what he now recognized was beach sand. He'd picked the pineapple up in his barefeet, still in his pyjamas, so his toes smooshed the sand as he walked over to the water's edge, the cool, clear blue kissing the tips of his toes with the foamy residue of waves that broke on rocks far off of shore.

"It's about time you got here, Sturgeon Orchid Black."

He turned around at the voice and saw Lily Evans standing at the end of a pathway that led off through thick foliage of tropical plants and trees. She was wearing a long pistachio green sleeveless sundress, and her hair was up, a braid wound about her forehead like a crown, with tiny little white flowers strung about in it. Her eyes shone so bright green that they took even Sirius's super gay breath away.

"Damn Lillian Joplin Evans, you clean up well," he said, smiling.

Lily smiled, too. "Hopefully you do, too, 'cause right now you look like rubbish and I rather doubt you want to get married wearing your ratty old Deep Purple t-shirt. Aren't you more into Queen now, anyway?"

Sirius stared at her. "Married?"

"Yes, married, you goose. C'mon." Lily waved for Sirius to follow her and he stepped gingerly up to the path and followed her through the thick of the foliage, looking around in awe. "Where are we?" he asked.

"Costa Rica," Lily answered, and she waved him ahead of her into a funny little hut of a cottage which had a thatched roof. Sirius ducked through the low door and  inside he found a little one-room space with a big comfy looking bed and a mini kitchen. In one corner was a familiar trunk he recognized from school as being James's, and on top of it was a yellow and pink flowered suitcase he was sure belonged to Lily.

"How?" he asked.

"Port Key," Lily answered, smiling. "James's uncle's done it. He's a really nice bloke." She went over to the suitcase and unzipped it. "You brought your bowtie, I see."

"Yes," he said, holding it up.

Lily reached into the suitcase and withdrew a pair of black pants, black shoes, pistachio green suspenders to match his tie and she had a sprig of the same flowers that were in her hair to slip through the loop on the suspenders. She shook out a white button-up shirt. "It's dreadfully hot, you don't want to be wearing a full suit coat. Here, let's get you ready," she said, and they worked at getting Sirius changed into the fesh clothing and she rolled up his sleeves to just above his elbows.

"Well, sir, it turns out you do clean up rather well yourself after all," Lily said.

Sirius grinned, looking at himself in the mirror. "Hell yeah, I'm damned fine, aren't I?" He tilted his head this way and that, inspecting his hair, and ran his thumb under his pistachio green suspenders. "I like these. I rather look like Newt Scamander with them on, I reckon."

Lily laughed. "Remus thought you would like them. They were his idea."

"Brilliant wolf, he is."

"Your brilliant wolf," Lily agreed, nodding.

"My brilliant wolf," murmured Sirius, his mind wrapping around the thought of it as he turned this way and that in the mirror, feeling every ounce of handsome that he possibly could. "Bloody hell it's really happening, isn't it?"

"It is. In just a few short hours, you'll be married." She leaned so her cheek rested against his shoulder and they looked ar one another in the mirror.

Sirius looked at her, "So, what are you, like my maid of honor or something?"

"Of course. Who else would be?" Lily challenged.

"Dunno," Sirius laughed, "I'd rather like to see James in that get up you're wearing there though."

Lily rolled her eyes, "Well he can't be your maid of honor, he's Remus's best man."

"Rude," Sirius murmured.

"Be glad you've got one of us at least, you ingrateful thing!"

Sirius laughed, "So... what, you're going to be the one to give me away, then, are you?"

"No," came a voice from the doorway. Sirius spun 'round to find Regulus standing there, wearing an outfit very similar to his own, except his button down was pistachio green and his tie and suspenders were black. "I am."