The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

The Stag Party

"Ladies and gentlemen - bros and does - you've gathered together here tonight for a spectacular event - an event unlike no other... a gathering to end all gatherings... a celebration of staggering proportions. It's the end of an era... the start of an age... the age of Jily, the age of Lames, the age -- of an unsingle Prongs --"

A shout went up as all the lads gathered cheered and several hands slammed into James's back with approval.

"-- and a wedded Lilith!"

The girls in the room shrieked and clapped, and Marlene Mackinnon stamped her feet on the floor.

It was two nights after the early Christmas celebration at Fallengunder, and here was Sirius Black was standing on the coffee table in the flat in East London. He wore a top hat, shiny and stiff, perched upon the very top of his head, his hair tucked up inside in a knot. He was wearing a red coat-tailed jacket, looking every bit the part of the Ringmaster that he was pretending to be as he waved his arms about, speaking grandly to the small crowd before him.

The couches and chairs had been cleared back and James Potter sat before Sirius in a red velvet high backed arm chair that Remus had conjured up. Surrounding him was a cloud of all his favorite lads - Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Regulus Black, Jasper Odair, Frank Longbottom, Bilius Weasley, and the Prewett twins. Beside James in a matching high backed chair was Lily Evans, a crown made of paper flowers on her head, and all of her best friends - Alice Prewitt, Marlene and Annalee Mackinnon, Emmaline Vance, and Meg Johnson.

Several bottles of firewhisky and a dark red merlot were open on the coffee table around Sirius's feet and the lads all held low ball glasses full of the firewhiskey in their hands - Sirius holding his up over his head as he spoke - and the girls held wide mouthed wine glasses full of the merlot. With the exception, that is, of Marlene, who had poured the firewhisky into her wine glass with several large ice cubes ("looks graceful, but more my speed," she'd said, winking at Sirius when she'd poured it under his smirking stare).

"Alright, alright, lot listen up - this part's important, alright? It goes like this." He cleared his throat. "Before we get started with the fun and games - and we do have some fun and games planned tonight might I add - let's get some of the mushier rot out of the way, shall we?" He took a deep breath and turned to look at James.

"Eight years ago, an extremely good looking eleven year old climbed aboard the Hogwarts Express and found himself a compartment with a blubbering lass and history rewrote itself in the instant. Nothing was ever the same because that was the moment when these two idiots looked at one another for the first time." Sirius waved at James and Lily.

James laughed, smiling and looked at Lily, who blushed and shook her head.

"IT TOOK SEVEN YEARS YOU LOT -- seven years of waiting and waiting and waiting for you two to jam it in your thick skulls what the rest of us already saw and knew all along."

"Hey I knew," James said, "I knew from the start!"

"Shh, Potter, no interrupting the best man's speech."

James laughed.

"Alright now where was I? Oh, yes... So that's the first time they looked at each other, but the true love of both their lives walked into the compartment a moment later... I'm talking about myself, of course.... James Potter's first wife."

Everyone laughed and James said, "I'll drink to that!" and took a mouthful of the firewhiskey, which burned down his throat and sat warm and delicious in his belly. The other lads (and Marlene) shouted and took a sip, too, and Sirius waved his wand, setting the bottle of firewhiskey to floating about among them, refilling their glasses.