If we’re talking tragic prongsfoot - as much as I love them one sided/unrequited, I absolutely adore missed opportunity prongsfoot. Like they are absolutely in love with each other but they think that there’s no chance it’s requited and everyone ends up a little miserable.
Sirius made peace with the fact that James loved so much that there just wasn’t room for him to take up more than his fair share. James tried his best to control himself because as loud and as bright as he was, he wasn’t who Sirius needed.
So Sirius looked around and saw Remus. He could be happy with Remus he supposed so he settled down with him and he was content but what he couldn’t have with James constantly haunted the back of his mind. Remus could tell and it killed him a little but he took what he could get. After all, who would want a broken, messed up, werewolf over the embodiment of the sun? He couldn’t blame Sirius for that.
When james looked for someone to hold together the pieces of his heart, first he saw Regulus. Regulus who was Sirius’ brother, Regulus who looked like Sirius, Regulus who liked him. And he almost did it. James almost asked out the boy who he knew would say yes but he couldn’t do it in the end because it wouldn’t have been fair. He’d always be thinking of Reg as the next best thing to the boy he truly wanted. So instead he turned to Lily. The girl who he acted an idiot over before he realised who he was trying to impress. She didn’t love him and he didn’t love her but they loved the idea of the life that they could give each other. They had a child, Harry, and they both loved him with everything they had, hoping that he could fill the holes in their hearts left by the people that didn’t want them. He couldn’t but it’s a different kind of love, and James and Lily had a life they adore but it would never be quite enough. Never exactly what they wanted. James never stopped imagining what it would’ve been like if he could have been what Sirius needed.
When James and Lily died, they left everything to Sirius, including Harry. James took comfort in the fact that Sirius loved his son even if he didn’t love him. Lily just wanted her child to be raised by someone who would love him. But it broke her heart a little that even though the love of James’ life might not have loved him back, Sirius at least loved him enough to raise his child, enough to stick around. She couldn’t say the same for Mary.
