"Snap!" Peter yelled, just as the cards blew up in his face, much to the amusement of Sirius and Remus. Peter scowled at them. He took a swig of Firewhisky (wincing slightly at the burning sensation), and then got up to check his eyebrows in the mirror.

Suddenly, a distraction appeared in the form of a loud crack. Peter shrieked at the noise.

"S'only Prongs," sniggered Sirius, flashing a grin at the newcomer. "Thought you were staying at Lily's tonight," he added.

Remus frowned slightly, noticing the wide eyes and unusually pale skin of his friend. "What's wrong?"

James didn't appear able to respond. He looked slightly sick, and Sirius wondered vaguely if he was going to faint. Peter conjured a chair, and, after James merely continued to stand in front of it, shoved him back into it.

"Who's died?"

Remus winced slightly at the forced harshness of Peter's voice, the closed expression on the round, young face. James shook his head.

"You mean – no one's dead?"

James nodded, his gaze still focused on a point somewhere behind the other three. The atmosphere seemed to relax slightly.

"What's going on, then? Fight with Lily?"

A few long moments passed in which no one spoke, and Peter began to feel awkward; as though James didn't want to speak with him there. It was irrational, he knew - because the four of them had always been together, an unbreakable group of brilliant boys. And yet no one could deny that the friendship between James and Sirius was closer, somehow deeper, than any other pairings within the group. Peter sometimes wondered if they had only ever befriended him out of pity.

"I'll be off, if you don't mind. I've got Order stuff to do in the morning – see you later, yeah?"

"Me too, actually, Pete," Remus agreed. "I'll come by same time tomorrow, if you feel up to sharing."

The pair of them Disapparated almost simultaneously, leaving James and a very worried Sirius in the tiny living room of their shared flat.

"We're only nineteen," James said eventually. His voice was shaking.

"I'm twenty in three weeks," Sirius disagreed, seemingly just for the pleasure of contradiction. "But yes, I am aware of our age. What's that got to do with anything?"

James looked up at Sirius, still standing in front of him. "Don't you think... don't you ever think we're too young for this? We're only a year out of Hogwarts, and we're involved in this – this – this war, and people are dying, all the time, and... and what if it's one of us next, Padfoot?"

Sirius seemed to ignore this, and squashed himself next to James on the comfy red armchair.

"What's brought this on?" he asked eventually.

There was a small pause, and then - "Lily's pregnant."

In any other situation, James would have found the rapidity of Sirius's changing facial expressions amusing. As it was, he took the confused shock he settled on as confirmation that this was a bad development.

"It's definitely yours?" was, for whatever reason, the first thing Sirius managed to spit out. James let out a short, nervous, high-pitched laugh at this. "Shit," he added eloquently.

"We're just kids." James's eyes were fixed upon Sirius's face as he spoke: the hair casually falling into the grey eyes, the mouth that was naturally slightly upturned in a permanent mask of cheerfulness, the disgustingly well-defined cheekbones which, according to Lily, made him look 'interestingly arrogant'. "I'm not even turning twenty for five months. I can't – I can't be a father," he finished, sounding nothing short of terrified.

"I think we stopped being kids a while ago."

James laughed again, this time derisively with a slight hint of desperation. "Oh, Padfoot, if fighting means you're no longer a kid, we've been adults since first-year!"

Sirius frowned. "I don't mean the fighting, you pillock. I'm talking about this constant fear that I'm going to wake up and find out that – that Pete's been found all mutilated and bloody in a ditch somewhere, or -"

"Don't."

Sirius stopped, and for a moment they merely stared at each other: Sirius thinking vaguely about how James Potter looked no different right now than he did eight years ago on that first train ride; James contemplating the ridiculousness of the fact that he was jealously regarding Sirius's irritatingly attractive elegance in the middle of a war, and -

"You'll be the best bloody dad that kid could have, you idiot," Sirius grinned suddenly. It was a very awkward, scared sort of grin, but James wasn't about to argue with it. "Anyway, what'd you do with Lily after she told you?"

James's sheepish smile told him all he needed to know.

"You didn't just bugger off here, did you?"

"Um..."

"You complete idiot! You Floo her right now!"

"I'll have to marry her," James said, his smile promptly disappearing.

Sirius snickered. "That's awful. A Marauder all cosily shacked up with a wife and kid before he's even twenty-one! We might have to disown you before you get too domesticated."

"Shut up! What're you gonna do, though, carry on living here?"

"I'm sure I'll manage by myself. When are you thinking, anyway?"

James shrugged. "She's pregnant, isn't she? I s'pose it'll have to be relatively soon..." he went silent for a moment, before adding: "You'll be best man?"

"Who asks the best man before the bride?" Sirius asked, amused; though he nodded his agreement when James raised an eyebrow in irritation.

"Thanks, mate. I'd better go and see Lily and apologise for being so stupid..."

James climbed out of the chair he'd collapsed on earlier in the evening, leaving Sirius looking rather squashed to one side.

"Will you be back?" Sirius asked as James was about to throw the Floo powder into the fireplace.

"Yeah. I'll tell Lily I said so, that way she can't force me to stay. She hates leaving you alone. Don't bother waiting up though."

"All right, then. Send her my love – and good luck," he added with a grin. James smiled back, threw in the Floo powder, and disappeared into the bright green flame.