Lily raised her eyebrows. “Why? I mean—in general, why do you think that… James and I should… be together?” When Sirius did not respond at once, she carried on: “Up until now, I’ve rather assumed it was just one of your arbitrary whims or something—or because we’re matey and all that…”

“That’s not really it,” mused Sirius.

“I thought not. I mean—she’s… Carlotta Meloni. You should be… cheering him on or something, shouldn’t you?”

Sirius concentrated for a moment, as though contemplated how to best phrase this. At length, he began: “Prongs, Moony, Wormtail and I became mates in second year, right?”

“Right…”

“…And there wasn’t—wasn’t really a reason for it. I mean, I couldn’t explain it. One day the four of us just… clicked, or something. See?”

“So far…”

“And when we were younger, I’d always assumed that the four of us would—you know—end up old, mad bachelors together, chasing twenty-two year old witches and getting hammered and never really getting old, you know?”

“Mature.”

“Yes, well… the thing is—I don’t see that anymore. For some reason, and I can’t explain it anymore than I can explain the fact that Wormtail and Prongs are best mates, because you wouldn’t believe it to look at them—you, Evans, click.”

“I click?”

“You click.”

“Meaning?”

Sirius smirked. “It means that you had better adjust to the four of us fucking things up, because when you marry Prongs, you’re stuck with us. We’re sort of a collection—only come as the set, you know.”

Lily couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s very nice, Black, but I have no intention of marrying James.”

This detail failed to concern Sirius. “Sure, Ginger. Give it a year, yeah?” He saluted her, turned on his heel, and was gone.