Life After Graduation

The next day Lily and James spent Christmas with both of their families. They were to Lily’s parent’s house first and around four they went to James’ house. It was the first time Lily had met his whole family and they were a rowdy bunch, but highly entertaining and fun.

James had gotten Lily a new bracelet that was platinum with lilies as the chains and in the center of them were small emeralds that matched the color of her eyes. Lily had given James a few dark arts detecting items and a new picture of her that he had been begging for to keep in his cloak pocket when he was at work.

Both of their birthdays came and passed, and because the wedding was coming up they were both short on money so they exchanged small gifts and went to dinner with their close friends in celebration. Over the past couple of months Lily had been out on battles a few more times and had yet to get hurt again, which boosted her confidence greatly.

As the wedding date neared, Lily started to become even more stressed, making final preparations including a photographer, the food, floral arrangements and tuxedo rentals for James and his groomsmen. Her bridal party consisted of her cousin Kenadie as her maid of honor, and Autumn, Melinda, Susan, and her sister as her other maids. James had Sirius as his best man, Remus, Peter, and his two cousins Michael and John as his groomsmen.

“Mother, if she made me wear that awful throw up pink dress for her wedding she can wear the dress I picked out for her, or she just won’t be in it!” Lily said as her mother came over for lunch. Apparently Petunia hated the color blue Lily had picked out, and the style of the dress, so much so she did not want be part of the wedding if she had to wear it, and demanded Lily change it at once.

Finally Petunia came around and agreed to wear the dress, which Lily thought was gorgeous. Her maid of honors’ dress was a darker blue, but the same design, same with Sirius’ tie. They went to just below the knees and the top was a simple straight cut with spaghetti straps, and white heels that matched the white trim below the breast line.

“You need to relax,” James said as he sat behind her on the bed massaging her shoulders as she poured over papers. “Everything is set; all that is left is for us to get married.”

“I know I just want everything to be perfect,” Lily said turning around to look at him.

“It will be I promise,” James said smiling before dropping his arms and wrapping them around her waist pulling her into his lap. “Just think in three days you are going to be Mrs. Potter.”

“I know,” Lily said smiling as she shut her eyes. “I like the sound of that.”

“I can’t wait to see you in that dress,” James said quietly into her ear as he rested his head on her shoulder. “Then for our honeymoon to Spain.”

“Me either,” Lily said quietly placing her hands over his. Their wedding present from her parents was their honeymoon, James’ parents had offered to pay for the wedding since James was their only son, and Lily’s parents had just paid for Petunia’s.

The week had been stressful for Lily between work, Order duty, and planning the wedding. She could not wait for her wedding day and to leave for their honeymoon. It was going to be relaxing out by the beach for seven days and nights just her and James. Sirius and Remus had offered to take Figaro for them during that time and they promised not to let anything happen to him.

April twenty fourth was the day before the wedding, and the whole wedding party went for rehearsal then dinner afterwards. “I swear to God Sirius Black, if you do that for real at my wedding I will not hesitate to kill you with my bare hands dress and all,” Lily snapped. During practice Sirius thought it would be great fun to make James babble nonsense, which was fine since everyone there knew about Lily and James since it was Lily’s close family. It was funny, but Lily had been under so much stress she could not help herself.

“I won’t I promise,” Sirius said with a smirk and he saw James laughing off to the side as well. He walked over to James when Lily’s mother came to interject before Lily flew off the handle.

When Lily finally sat down to eat Petunia walked over to her and asked to speak with her privately. Agreeing Lily rose from her chair and she could see James looking at her with an eyebrow raised, but he continued to eat.

“What does she want?” Sirius asked James under his breath. He had heard plenty of stories about James’ future sister-in-law, and just looking at her he could tell that she was smug, and her lovely husband was no better.

“No idea,” James mumbled as he shoved his glasses up his nose slightly looking around to where they had disappeared to. “But if she sets Lily off I am going to be extremely pissed. Lily is already stressed enough never mind her sister meddling. “

Suddenly there was a loud commotion causing everyone to stop talking, and eating for that matter. “Dammnit,” James muttered ruffling his hair.

“Well I just don’t understand!” James heard Petunia bark loudly.

“Because Petunia it is MY wedding, not yours you had your day less than a year ago!” Lily shrieked back. They were not in view of the rest of the guests but James knew Lily was probably close to tears, but he knew the best thing was just to let them go.

“I just think that Vernon should be James’ best man,” Petunia said her voice high and shrill.

“No Petunia! It is obvious that you cannot stand neither James nor I,” Lily said as sighed in frustration. “You only want Vernon to be his best man so you both can try to be the center of attention. Sirius is James’ best friend and I will NOT let you or…or your waste of a space husband ruin that!”

James’ head and eyes immediately snapped into the direction of where the fight was ensuing. “Lily is going to kill her,” he heard Sirius mutter.

“Sit down Vernon,” a woman’s voice snapped and to James surprise it was Lily’s mother. He could see the anger in her eyes and he smirked only slightly.

“Fine!” Petunia finally retorted a few seconds later. “I did not want you to even be at my wedding nor to be part of yours, but mother forced me to agree each time. The day you left I no longer viewed you as my sister, you are a freak and so is your future husband.”

“Go then!” Lily screamed tears flowing down her face. “Just go and don’t come back if that is what you think.” Her head was pounding now and she leaned against the wall for support this was too much to handle at the moment. Today was supposed to be great, she and James were to be married tomorrow and Petunia was ruining it.

With a smart look on her face Petunia whipped around the corner and her face instantly lost it’s triumphant look when she angry faces looking at her. “Let’s go Vernon,” she said walking past her husband who rose from his chair and followed close behind her.

“Don’t you dare show your face tomorrow,” James said as he pushed his chair back to stand as he watched them leave. Quickly he dashed around the corner to find Lily leaning against the wall her hair astray as she shook with anger.

“Love,” he said gingerly his hand reaching out to her face to wipe away a few tears. “She left,” he stated quietly before pulling her into a tight hug.

Lily collapsed into him, anger, sadness, and embarrassment only a few of the emotions she was feeling at the moment. “I c-can’t b-believe her, it’s the day before my w-wedding and she does that?” Lily stammered as she buried her face into James’ chest.

“I know it is hard,” James said quietly as he rubbed Lily’s back to calm her down, “but don’t let her get to you otherwise she wins.”

Lily sighed before pulling away from him nodding in agreement. Gently she rubbed the makeup that had run out from under her eyes before looking up at James. “You look brilliant love,” he said with a small smile. Lily took his outstretched hand and returned with him to dinner. Everyone was carrying on as if nothing had happened and Lily appreciated it.

While she ate she tried to think of another person to be one of her bridesmaids. “What about your cousin Michelle?” Lily asked James as she ate a spoonful of her ice cream.

“That’s fine; I will write her tonight, she will be excited. Then tomorrow mum can fit her properly into the dress,” James said smiling at Lily. He was glad that Petunia was not getting to her; at least if she was Lily was doing a good job at not showing it.

About an hour later everyone retreated to their homes or their hotels in the muggles cases. “Tomorrow we will officially be married,” James said quietly as he held her in bed until the both of them fell asleep.