"So what do you think?" I said, strutting into the bathroom where James was getting ready.

"Oh my god, leopard print?! I thought the dress you bought was green..." He said, laughing as I twirled and spun, pretending to be one of those catwalk models.

"It is but Tuney hates leopard print and as I'm not her bridesmaid, I guess I can wear I want!" I said, laughing to cover up the fact that I was genuinely upset. I was her sister for god's sake and she doesn't even pick me as a bridesmaid? I knew that she didn't like me but I never thought it went this far.

"Lily..." James said with a sad smile, "Maybe she only wanted young bridesmaid, some women like to have little kids so they don't get outshined or maybe she didn't want any. It probably has more to do with her than it does with you."

"I guess." I replied, vaguely trying to disguise the sadness I was feeling and probably would still be feeling throughout the entire wedding, "I won't wear the leopard print for her and for me - I hate it too."

"I personally like it, it makes you look wild like a party animal." James replied with a laugh so I couldn't tell if he was serious or not.

"That would be good if I were going to a party but I think Tuney wants her wedding to be demure, refined and elegant." I said, "Hopefully my dress will fit her standards."

"Why wouldn't it? It's green and gold and bloody expensive." James replied, admiring the dress as I pulled out of the cupboard, "Imagine if it was more expensive than Petunia's dress..."

"Oh God, don't say that. She'd never forgive me if I did that, accuse me of trying to outshine her or something crazy." The dress really was lovely if I did say so myself. Sirius had gone shopping with me as he had a surprisingly good eye for fabric. I'd wanted to buy this long sleeved blue dress but Sirius had been sceptical, he was sure we'd find something better in the next shop and sure enough he was right. The next store we went to we found the dress so it had been a good thing we'd waited.

I felt like a princess as I slipped the silky, green fabric over my head and it let it fall around my body. Even though it was beautiful, it felt slightly bittersweet as I knew I'd forever associate it with the guilt and hurt of Tuney not choosing me to be part of her bridal party. James reckoned it was nothing personal but I knew my sister better than that: this was a passive aggressive jab at me, a way of telling me that although she'd acted curtly to me before, I was not forgiven.

"You look beautiful. Petunia is going to have some serious competition." James said, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his head on my shoulder.

"If I outshine her at her own wedding, she'd hate me." I said with a small, wistful smile, "You'll outshine Vernon for sure though."

"That's not hard from what I've heard." Sirius said from behind us suddenly. Thanks to the amazing phenomenon of reflections, I didn't have to turn around to see Sirius casually leaning against the door frame, "If I was there, I think I'd knock everyone out of the park though."

"You'd probably get knocked out of the wedding too." I said.

"Knocked out of the wedding?" Sirius replied, raising his eyebrow sceptically.

"I was making a play on words, I was going to say kicked but you said knocked so I had to..." I trailed off, "We need to head off soon unfortunately."

"Wish us luck, Padfoot." James said with a grin, "I have to talk to the whale with a moustache - "

"James, you don't have to - " I began but James interrupted.

"Lily, I have to. If I'm going to marry you, I'm also marrying Vernon - "

"What?" Sirius laughed, "Something you're not telling us, Prongs?"

"No, no! What I meant was I'm marrying into your family so I'll have to put up with hundreds of dinners with him. I might as well at least try and get on with him rather than have years of awkward Christmases or whenever I see him." James explained.

"I get it but if you think we're spending Christmas with him, you're bonkers, James." I said with a smile.

Despite the fact we could apparate, we still managed to arrive late for the wedding and guests were already filing in by the time we walked up to the Church.

"Ready?" James whispered, slowly entwining his fingers with mine as we walked through the gates of the large, beautiful church.

"To see my sister marry a man like him? Ready as I'll ever be." I whispered back, giving his hand a squeeze. I wasn't sure where to sit but luckily my Mum noticed us and quickly waved us over to her. We awkwardly squeezed down the Church rows next to my Mum who already had tears glistening in her eyes.

"Lily, James, you both look absolutely lovely, it's all so beautiful." My Mum sniffled, "If Oliver could see this all, he'd be so happy... you should have seen Petunia, she looks absolutely beautiful. The dress is amazing, I helped her choose it."

"I'm sure it's beautiful, Mum." I said, giving her an awkward side hug. Mum had a lot to tell me and James so we barely got a word in edge ways. She talked and talked about the man at her gardening club who keeps leaving carrots on her doorstep, about how she went for a walk in my Dad's honour and how she was considering getting to dogs to keep her company to avoid the lonely cat woman stereotype. She insisted on seeing my ring many times, telling me how beautiful it looked and how proud she was that both me and Tuney had found such wonderful men (I heard James almost laugh at this but he held it in for my mother's sake).

The ceremony was delayed by almost half an hour due to 'unspecified difficulties' although I reckon it was probably because Tuney had had tantrum about the flowers or something and refused to start the wedding without them. Vernon stood awkwardly at the front of the Church, an equally pompous best man standing next to him. Although they both appeared to be calm and reserves from afar, I could tell from his twitching moustache that Vernon was getting impatient. He may love Tuney but she wasn't exempt from his irritation.

Finally, one of Tuney's bridesmaids ran up the aisle and whispered something to the priest who quickly gestured for everyone to be quiet. A sudden hush fell over the room as we all waited expectantly for the ceremony to actually start. The anticipation was killing me, especially as I was desperate to see the 'amazing' dress Tuney had, it had been hyped so much that I wasn't sure if anything could compare now.

After yet another tedious wait, the doors finally opened and Tuney stood in the entrance, a refined smile on her face. The wedding band hastily started playing as she walked slowly and gracefully down the aisle, giving little waves here and there as if she were the Queen of England. Mum was right, the dress was fabulous with a detailed, embroidered bodice and a long flowing skirt that seemed to float behind her. I had to hand it to Tuney, there was no risk of her being outshined. Despite the immense amounts of concealer, I could still see that her eyes were slightly red and puffy although she was doing a good job of pretending to be serene.

As she walked past, I gave her a small wave which she did not return, instead quickly looking in the other direction. I felt a lump in my throat form at this but it was Tuney's wedding and I wasn't going to ruin it with silly tears.

The ceremony went by without a hitch although there were a few near disasters when one of the bridesmaids nearly ran over her train with her dirty feet. Luckily before this could happen, Tuney's maid of honour scooped her up without a word before placing her a few rows back with some people who I assumed where her parents (if not that would be just a little bit weird). When Tuney said in her vows that she'd always be there to hold Vernon, James muttered, "Yeah, if she can get her arms around him." which almost made me burst out laughing but I managed to hold it in, partly due to fear of what Tuney would do if I laughed at her wedding.

Although the ceremony was beautiful, my mother assured me that the reception would be much more spectacular as Tuney had apparently boasted about how marvellous it was over supper a few weeks back. Truthfully, I assumed this was an exaggeration as although Vernon was rich, I'd always assumed he wasn't as wealthy as he pretended to be as he did have a slight tendency to over exaggerate. However, I was proven wrong as we walked up to the castle that Tuney had hired up for the reception.

Hogwarts was bigger but I got the feeling that this castle had cost more to build. For a start it was a beautiful red brick with two massive towers at the front like a fort. The roof was a subtle pale green although James said it kind of reminded him of moss. Unlike Hogwarts, which reminded me of a fairytale castle, this one seemed to be the sort where nobles would have met to matters of the state and who had the best tea set... or whatever nobles talked about.

"What do you think of the reception?" James asked as we filed into one of the large rooms which was fillled with large round tables covered with frilly table cloths and delicate name labels with curved writing on them.

"It's pleasant... a bit too frilly for my taste." I whispered, watching Tuney out of the corner of my mind who was kissing some elderly guest on the cheek, beaming from ear to ear. Vernon was by her side with a large smile on his face - he was probably boasting about his drilll company or whatever it was. That seemed to give him the most pleasure in life. Even though Tuney had made a point of ignoring me for the wedding, it still brought a small flicker of a smile to my face to her so genuinely happy. Although the petty part of me still wished I'd worn a short, red cocktail dress or something like that to steal the attention off of her, I knew I would have regretted it. This was her day.

"Shall we try and talk to them?" James asked.

"Maybe after, let's go and see if we can find our name labels first," I grabbed his hand and pulled him along, "I used to do this when I was younger like a treasure hunt with Tuney at every wedding. My Grandpa used to set up treasure hunts for us when he came round and I loved it so I began to do it at weddings too. He was a retired maths teacher who used to give us simple maths problems as clues - "

"Maths problems?" James snorted, "Just when I thought you couldn't be anymore of a dork."

"Shut up, you like crossowrds." I replied with a smirk.

"Crosswords are for everyone!" James retaliated quickly, "Besides, it's fun to guess the little world clue things."

"Dork." I grinned.

"It's all your influence... hey, I found them!" James said, abruptly tugging me in the other direction making me let out a little squeak of surprise. I bumped into an old woman who turned around and instantly jumped back as if I was infectious. Judging from the fact she looked like a clean shaven Vernon, she could only be a relative of his.

"I think that's her..." I heard her say as James pulled me away. I looked back at her, my heart instantly dropping. Her gaze lingered on me but the moment she realised I was looking back, her head snapped away as if it was attached to a lever.

"Wow look at the writing," James looked genuinely happy as he picked his name card up and examined it. However, I noticed his face instantly fall as he said in a dismayed tone, "They spelt my name wrong... Jamie Potter. I've never gone by Jamie in my life, she knows it's James."

I slowly walked over to mine and picked it up. It said Lilith Evans. My own sister had spelt my name wrong. I scanned the room to see where she was and became suddenly aware that she was staring back, a sort of smug grin on her face. It took me a few seconds to realise that this wasn't just an accident that our names had been spelt wrong. She knew that I would go straight for the names, it was a direct jab at me.

"Lily, James, there you are..." I heard my mother's voice behind me and immediately spun around.

"Hey Mum..."

"Lily, you look like you're about to cry!" She exclaimed, glancing at James before turning back to me, "Whatever is the matter?"

"Nothing... I'm fine. It's just emotional..." I lied, "Tuney getting married and all, they're happy tears."

"Oh... okay." She didn't look convinced but she was clearly eager to speak so let it go for now, "Have you said hello to Petunia and Vernon yet? I'm sure they'd love to talk to you."

"Thanks Mum, I'll go do that." I forced a smile onto my face, the thought of talking to Tuney causing a sinking feeling in my stomach, "James, let's go."

He linked his hand in my mind and we as weaved through the crowds to where Tuney and Vermin were in the middle of talking to one of our relatives.

"Hey Tuney." I said softly, tapping her on the shoulder. She turned her head to me, her mouth curving down for a split second, glaring at the point where my fingers had just touched her pretty, white dress. Then, as if a switch had been pressed, her face transformed into a large, phoney grin although her pale green eyes were still narrowed into slits giving her a distinctly snakelike appearance.

"Lily!" She gently put her hands on my shoulders, before giving me a formal kiss on the cheek, "I'm so, so happy you could make it."

"Yeah... me too." I replied with all the energy I could muster. Her eyes briefly flicked to James and for a second, I thought she was going to acknowledge him but of course that was too good to be true, "You look stunning, I mean it."

"I know." She replied curtly, "You remember Vernon, my husband."

"Yes..." I said slowly as Vernon reluctantly held out his hand, shaking mine as if I had a subordinate species.

"Hi Vernon, about last time I wanted to see if you were willing to let bygones be bygones..." James held out his hand which Vernon looked at for a second before putting his nose in the air and abruptly, turning away from him to talk to a few people behind him, "Vernon?" Vernon clearly heard as his head jerked as if he was about to turn around but he decided to continue snubbing James, "Okay then..."

Petunia gave us a prim, satisfied smile before clasping her hands together and turning around to follow her new husband.

"Talk to Petunia, she said. They'd love to talk to you she said." James said sarcastically although he was careful to soften his voice so Tuney didn't over hear and cause drama.

"I guess she was wrong." I replied, trying to sound more upbeat than how I was feeling inside.

"I think I saw a man with a tray full of hors d'oeuvre just now." James said after a long pause, "We can at least get food - "

" - and her fiancée, James," Both James and I whipped around on the spot at the mention of his name. The mention came from Vernon who was speaking in an borderline ridiculous loud voice, "I don't think he has a job, from what I can tell he's some kind of amateur magician...."

James clearly didn't want to hear anymore, his body bristling at this. His hand tightened into a fist as he unexpectedly turned away and walked away, out of the doors. With one last look at Tuney who seemed to have a half satisfied and half guilty face, I turned on my heels and ran after him.

"James!" I called, dashing after him into the corridors, "James, it's just Vernon - "

"I want to leave." He said suddenly, his knuckles white. He was looking down at his feet, his face white with rage, "You can stay but I know if I don't go... I'm going to do something I regret. I'm sorry that this is your sister's wedding, I wanted to stay for you but they're just... they're just such awful people. We come all this way and they ignore us in the church, get our names wrong when James is not a hard name at all and then act like that when we talk to them. Who does that? I mean what sort of people do that..."

"My sister." I said sadly, "She wasn't like this at first. We used to be friends, she used to be alright... I don't know what happened. I think it was because I went to Hogwarts - "

"No. This is not on you, this is on her. I don't mean to be rude but someone like her... they'll always find something to be jealous about." He spat. For a second, I almost wanted to yell at him, to defend her but my mouth closed, no words coming out. Why should I defend her? He was right.

"I'm going too..." I said, biting my lips. Before I knew it, I was crying, fat tears rolling down my cheeks, "She's my sister... "

James wrapped me in his arms, "You don't deserve this, Lily, neither of us do... you okay to go?"

I nodded as he took my hand and we apparated away from this wreck of a day.

I've started yet another Jily book (because I'm low key obsessed) which is part of my new Greek Myths/Harry Potter crossover series which I hope you enjoy - E x