"I'm pregnant," she said.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"I wouldn't say anything if I wasn't sure," she said.

"Oh."

It was done. Hermione sighed and relaxed back against the cushions of here favourite armchair. She had been a nervous wreck for the past three days waiting to get an opportunity to speak to Harry alone. Between wedding plans and work, he had had to keep rescheduling and her anxiety had slowly crept up. But it was done now, she had told the father of her child that she was pregnant.

"Is it mine?" Harry asked so quietly she almost didn't hear it. That he was talking to his feet didn't help matters either.

"Yes."

"I'm getting married in two weeks, Hermione."

"I know that, Harry. Do you not think that given the current circumstances, I know that better then anyone? Of course I know that, Harry."

She had thought long and hard about whether to keep that baby and once that had been decided, whether or not to tell Harry at all. Realising that he would put one and one together and see how that had turned into three she knew she had to tell him about the baby. Their baby.

"No one has to know," she said. "Ginny doesn't need to know. If anyone asks I'll just tell them it was muggle I knew as a girl." It was a weak cover but it was all she could think of. If she had tried to tell her family and friends that she had used a sperm donor, they would have doubted her sanity at wanting to be a single mother at twenty-one when her career was just starting to kick off. No one would have believed it. A silly mistake though, that they might accept. She was only human after all.

"No, Hermione. No." Harry was shaking his head.

"Yes, Harry. Women have babies all the time without being married."

"In the muggle world," Harry countered. "Open your eyes, Hermione. No one does that here." He gestured out the window to Diagon Alley below. "You'll be fired, shunned. Do you think the Ministry want an unmarried mother as their Magical Creature department deputy?"

She hadn't thought of that. She had spent her first eleven years as a muggle and was looking at the problem from that prospective. She had never once stopped to look at it from a magical one. But surely it wouldn't be that bad. This was a modern world even if some magical practices were old fashioned. No divorces was the first one that came to mind. The marriage vows a witch and wizard said were for life, a kind of unbreakable vow.

"I can't do this to Ginny," Harry said, standing up to pace her small flat. "I'm getting married in two weeks, Hermione!"

"Don't shout at me, Harry! We did this together, you and me. I didn't tie you to a bed and rape you."

"We were drunk, we didn't know what we were doing. This isn't fair."

Hermione laughed at that. When had life ever been fair? If life was fair Harry's parents would be alive, her own wouldn't be pretending she didn't exist.

"We need a plan," Harry said suddenly. He looked around as if one might suddenly pop into existence; a scroll with the words, 'Plan to Release Harry Potter from Impending Fatherhood to Best Friend Who is Not His Fiancé' written on it. "You need to marry, quick, within the next week. Someone we can trust." He stopped before a mirror hanging on the wall above a tall vase. "Someone who looks like me."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "No one looks like you, Harry. You don't have any brothers, cousins or uncles. What?" she asked as he suddenly turned to face her.

"No, no uncles. But I do have a godfather with dark brown hair."

"Sirius? Seriously" Hermione asked, laughing. "Pull the other one, Harry. I'm not marrying Sirius."

"There's no one else!" Harry said desperately, running his hand through his hair, making it stand up in messy clumps. "There is no one else. He's someone we trust, someone who loves me and will do this favour for me."

"Asking the man to raise your love child is a little more then a favour," Hermione said. She didn't want to marry Sirius. She didn't want to marry anyone. She wanted to stay in her little flat and hide while her stomach swelled, leaving only to go to work. She was scared now that Harry had pointed out the treatment she might have to face. But if he was right she wouldn't even be able to go to work. He was right.

She couldn't take Harry from Ginny. Bad enough that she should hurt her like this, this secret betrayal, let alone announcing for all the world to know that her and Harry will be getting married and having a baby together. Ginny could never know. Sirius was their best option, she had to begrudgingly admit. Of all their close friends they could trust, all the Weasley's were out, if for no other reason then their hair. But none would do that to their sister, either. Neville's hair was a light brown and that was where the list stopped. No one else could be trusted. But beyond simply keeping the secret they needed someone who would agree to it, to raise Harry's child with her. Who else but Sirius?

"We'll go now," Harry decided.


The lights in Godric's Hollow were just coming on as Harry and Hermione made their way to Sirius' house. It was large, though to look at it from the outside it seemed like a quaint little cottage. After his family home in Grimmauld Place had mysteriously burned to the ground, Sirius had decided to settle in Godric's Hollow where Harry had been in the process of building a new house on the land where once his parents' house had stood. He'd contemplated rebuilding the ruined house but Hermione and Ginny had convinced him to start anew. Now Harry's house was finished, waiting for Ginny to move into it in a few weeks, after the wedding, and Sirius had just finished renovating his. Magically of course.

Harry and Hermione shared one last anxious look before raising the dog's head door knocker and letting it fall.

It took a minute of anxious waiting before Sirius answered the door, dressed casually for a night in. As he greeted them enthusiastically and lead them to his living room Hermione took the moment to really study him. Seeing him at least once a week for the last few years, it was easy to miss all the subtle changes in him. The lean, hard body had softened slightly, filling in some of the harsh lines on his face that years in Azkaban had given him. The once long straggly hair was now kept short, given him a neat, clean shaven look. And it was rare to see that wild, desperate look in his eyes that would once consume him in times of conflict. He looked content as he settled into his favourite chair, at ease with himself. She couldn't help but think they were about to destroy all that.

"Hermione?" Harry prompted. She had said she wanted to do the talking but now, looking at Sirius, so happy in his new, normal life, she could only force herself to say one word before she began to weep silently.

"Baby."

She buried her face in her hands and tried her best to ignore the intense conversation of the men. She didn't hear what Harry said, the excuses he gave, Sirius' response. She didn't hear anything above the own beating of her own heart, pounding deafening in her ears. At one point their raised angry voices penetrated her cocoon of defeatism but the words were lost to her. After a while she curled up in her armchair and must have slept for the next thing she knew, she was being carried up the stairs to one of Sirius' guest rooms.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said into Sirius' shoulder.

"I know," was all he said in response, his face blank, his tone emotionless.

When she woke next it was morning and her eyes itched. When she looked in the mirror in the corner of the room, a pale, puffy eyed scared looking girl looked back. She looked awful. Creeping into the bathroom down the hall, Hermione washed her face, rinsed out her mouth and tried to convince herself she didn't look anywhere near as bad as she felt.

She found Sirius down in the kitchen, eating a massive breakfast as Kreacher scurried around frying eggs and boiling the kettle for tea.

"Morning," Sirius said when he saw Hermione loitering in the doorway. The Daily Prophet was open at his elbow, a smiling photo of Ginny and Harry looked up at the ceiling. He had it open to the social section.

"It says here that Ginny will have eight bridesmaids. Eight!" Sirius stood and pulled back a chair for her. She sat, breathing deeply to quell the rolling in her stomach. She grabbed a piece of toast and nibbled at eat, gratefully accepting the cup of tea Kreacher put in front of her.

"Where do they get these 'sources' from do you think? I think they must just make them up." Sirius sat back down and dug into his bacon as if Hermione sleeping over was a regular occurrence.

"What did you and Harry-"

He put his hand up to stop her before addressing Kreacher.

"Leave us."

Hermione waited until the house elf had left the room before chastising Sirius.

"He wouldn't have said anything, you know that."

"Yes, I know that, but its still a very private subject."

Hermione stared down at her plate, shame washing over her anew.

"Did you agree?" she asked.

"Yes, I agreed. I'm not happy, I'm so disappointed in the two of you but what can I do? Of course I agreed."

Hermione's stomach rolled again. "You didn't have to agree. I'm grateful, don't get me wrong, more than you will ever know, but I don't want you to feel like you don't have a choice here."

"What would you have me do, Hermione? Throw you and my godson to the wolves? The press would have a field day with this, your lives as well as Ginny's and the Weasleys' would be ruined. I didn't really have a choice and you both knew it. No one is happy but that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that for the next few weeks we act like we want to be together, get married, quietly tell a few people the happy news and than hope that Harry and Ginny's wedding distracts them all."

"You have it all sorted out? All planned? Don't I get a say?" She knew she had lost the plot a bit the night before but she wasn't going to stand by while the men plan her life for her.

"No!" Sirius said, slamming his fist down on the newspaper. "You and Harry waltz in here and ask me to give up my life for you two. Three, the three of you." He gestured to her stomach. "And I'll do it because I love you both and I'd do anything for Harry but it doesn't mean that I'mgoing to let you dictate to me how the situation will be handled."

"It's my baby," Hermione said with quiet determination.

Sirius rose from his chair and towered over Hermione, putting one hand on the back of her chair, the other on her stomach.

"Let me make this very, very clear. This is our baby. Not your baby, not Harry's baby. Our baby. I will never think of him as anything other than that and expect the same of you. I'll not play happy families with you, Hermione. We will be a happy family. You will be my wife and you will do all the thing wives do. I'll be your husband. One day, when you are ready, we will try to give this baby a brother or a sister. You will never tell him that I am not his father. He's mine, understand? That's the deal, Hermione. I wont give up the chance of a future without full recompense."

"What if Harry wants him to know one day?" She was scared, though would never admit it. Sirius' intensity scared her. What if she was making a massive mistake? Sirius wasn't exactly husband material let alone father. He had lived a bachelor lifestyle the last year and she had presumed he would continue to do so after they were married, just a lot more discreetly. But he was asking her to give herself to him, something he was willing to do in return. Could she be Sirius' wife in more than just name?

"I thought he was our baby, not just yours." She held her breath while she waited for his response. He cupped his hand around her cheek, still keeping one on her stomach.

"Yes, ours."


A/N Okay, don't hate me but this is just a oneshot! I want to write more but I already have two unfinished stories and a half a dozen oneshots waiting to be finished so I wanted to share this with you but I'm not ready to expand on it just yet. Maybe down the track. So thank you for reading and please leave a review if you liked it or thought it was a bit different or interesting.