The Secrets of Beautiful People
In eight parts
A/N: This is something a little different for me, stylistically. I wrote it with Sirius/Remus in mind, but no names are mentioned. If you can't figure out who everyone is, there's a cast list of sorts at the end.
Premise: "It was the same the last time -Voldemort- was powerful, people eloping left, right, and center..." (Page 93, Book 6). James and Lily married under these circumstances. So maybe one of the other Marauders found himself a girl. But it's never as simple as that, is it?
People in photographs always smile with their mouths. The bride-to-be smiles with her eyes.
Her fiancé doesn't, but no one notices. Not even the photographer.
The man's eyes don't light up when the camera bulb flashes. The gray is always clouded, and veiled, and distant. A storm is brewing somewhere, but whether it will ever break over land remains uncertain, unimportant. For now it's far away and no one heeds the warning.
His eyes don't change as they're guided through all of the poses. They don't lose the sadness when she wraps herself around him and leans her head on his chest and broadens her simile. There's no laughter there when she leans up to press her flawless lips against his cheek. The only time the pain is masked is when he lowers his lids as he kisses the top of her head, the straight blonde hair which shines like gold. Perfect. Perfect for each other.
"You look like models," says the photographer to the two beautiful people. "Best smiles I've seen in years."
Almost.
Not quite.
No one knows.
It's appropriate that they meet at a bar.
He's there almost by accident. Nobody cares.
At least, she doesn't, and that's all that matters.
Because she's the type of girl his parents wouldn't have wanted him to fool with, which makes her immediately attractive on a purely superficial level. And his leather and his too-long hair and the earring make her think the same thing. But under the gorgeous features and the sweet-as-sugar smile, she has a mind that works like his. Almost exactly like his. Under any other circumstances, that would have made them incompatible from the start.
But he's there to forget, and she's there to find. And he's handsome enough to catch her attention and clever enough to keep it.
It isn't supposed to be anything more than one-night stand, but people are desperate when there's a war going on.
And three months later they're taking photographs.
When the friend is approached to be one of the groomsmen, he doesn't balk.
He should. He doesn't. And so he's safe, and no one knows.
Instead he only looks at the fiancé and smiles weakly and offers his congratulations. And he's pale, but he's always pale, and his knees are holding up, and he isn't going to faint, and so he's safe, and no one knows.
And the fiancé smiles back with his mouth and it's the same smile that will be captured in all those photographs a month later. And the friend should notice, but he doesn't, and it's unfortunate for both of them, because he's too busy averting his eyes, the eyes which betray, which are also unsmiling.
"When's the wedding?" he says.
And suddenly they're both trapped by a promise of golden bands and white dresses and bouquets and girls who shouldn't be there at all.
"September."
A month has never seemed closer.
A day in the company of a happy couple can reveal so much.
The best man has recently gotten married himself. The fiancé and his bride-to-be notice so much, too much. All the ways the two find to accidentally touch, brush, even for a second. Whenever they sit down, it's on the couch, and it's together, and the best man always has his hand on his wife's knee. The way the redhead's green eyes always smile, and the way her husband's hazel eyes always do the same. They can't get enough of each other. They're in love.
Because that's what perfect really is.
"I wish we were more like them," says the bride-to-be softly.
Nobody notices but her fiancé, who isn't thinking the same. Because how are "we" supposed to be more like them when there shouldn't be a "we" in the first place?
So he says "I know" and they leave it at that.
Talking is for the wedded, and thinking is for after the wedding.
It is an accident, honestly.
But no one cares after it's happened.
Because that one night when the fiancé and the bride-to-be go out to dine at the fancy restaurant, they have only been together for two months, and he doesn't plan on a ring or a wedding or anything that comes attached with awkward, cumbersome strings.
And then in the middle of the appetizers, someone dies.
It is someone far away, someone important, and someone that the groom is almost close to, someone who he works with. The news comes during the main course. More than another casualty of war.
Life is horrifyingly short.
"I think we should get married," she says.
And in the moment, he can do nothing but agree.
And no one is there the night before the wedding when the friend clings to his pillow.
And he strokes the cotton with the pads of his fingers and pretends it's a shirt, and tries to forget that the feathers which can be squeezed and flattened under him aren't actually warm and forgiving flesh and muscle and skin. Skin which he so desperately wants to touch for real, that he tricks himself into believing in every single night.
It's never really there, of course, but nobody would blame a man for his dreams.
A tear trickles down his cheek and leaves a spot of wet where the versatile fabric absorbs it. A surprise. It's never happened before. He doesn't want it to ever happen again. Skin wouldn't absorb water, and he wishes for nothing to remind him. He wants to get lost. To lose himself. Is that too much to ask?
He watches the tear fade and vanish with a sense of hopelessness. If only it was never there at all.
All he wants is for someone to be there to hear when he whispers "I love you."
All he wants is for someone to say it back.
And it's the wedding day and no one could have seen it coming.
The groom doesn't want to be there. The bride thinks she knows. The friend doesn't want to have to stand there and look happy through it all. And everyone else just thinks that that was an awfully short time to date before a marriage. Nothing more.
And the photographs are everywhere, the ones that the photographer took of the beautiful people with the beautiful smiles when no one cared to tell him differently. The bride thinks they're pretty, and the groom secretly wants to hide from each and every one. The friend can't escape them. The eyes. Those stormy gray eyes.
He realizes.
He says nothing, but he knows that the fiancé is making the biggest mistake of his life.
And maybe he is too.
And the bride never makes it to the altar that day.
Because for a reason hidden behind veiled gray irises, the fiancé takes the friend aside and asks nonchalantly if he's alright, pretending to be distracted, to not give the other his full attention. And the friend can't lie.
"You don't want to do this," he says.
And the fiancé stops straightening his tie and looks up and says it's just cold feet and he'll be fine and besides, he gave a girl a promise and a ring and he can't go back on his word. Because that would be unfair.
But it's an admission.
And it's enough.
"It would be unfair to you to do something you don't want," says the friend, before he leans forward and kisses the fiancé on the lips.
And apologies can wait until later, because beautiful people are more than beautiful when they're in love.
And everyone knows.
And it's enough.
Cast:
The fiancé: Sirius
The friend: Remus
The bride-to-be: OC
The happy couple: Lily and James
The person who died: Member of the Order