Lily looked put the glass vial to her lips. The clear liquid took on a sweet taste as she swished it around her mouth, and she knew what this meant. Sweet meant positive—but maybe in her fear she was imagining things. She spit it into the sink and, although she meant to keep her eyes squeezed tight, she peeked and noticed as it disappeared down the drain that the potion had turned a distinct blue in her mouth. If it stayed clear, she was definitively negative. But blue meant positive. Not only that—blue meant…

"Fuck it," Lily said to herself, wiping her lips with the back of her hand as if ridding herself of the taste—an extraordinarily pleasant taste, she had to admit—would rid her of the situation. Who was she, relying on some potion anyway? She was a woman of science, and although she wasn't quite sure how the whole pee-stick thing worked—something to do with hormones—she knew she could research it to much avail if she so chose. To hell with the potion, she thought, but her chin was trembling as she called, "Marlene!" Her heart raced faster. "Marlene!"

She heard her friend's hurried footsteps, and then Marlene knocked on the door. "Lil? Lily, are you okay?" Lily opened the door just a crack. Marlene put a hand to her heart, evidently relieved to see Lily was all right.

"Marlene, listen to me. I need to you to go to a Muggle drugstore and get me something, okay?" Lily was glad Marlene was the only one home, and she was glad that her friend had a Muggle father and that therefore her request would not be so foreign.

Marlene nodded. "What do you need?" she said seriously.

"Can you please, please hurry and get me a pregnancy test?"

It was to Marlene's immense credit that she simply nodded again and was off. She did not ask if Lily had taken a potion or subsequently insist on its accuracy. Lily could not have stood it. As long as there was another test to be done, there was hope that this all might just go away. Still, Lily did not feel very hopeful. She closed the bathroom door behind her friend and slunk to the ground, leaning against it and holding her knees against her chest. She put her head down and closed her eyes, forcing herself, briefly, to imagine how she would proceed if the tests were accurate.

It wasn't that Lily was actively opposed to having children—rather, the case was that she had not given kids much thought. Her marriage to James was not borne of a yearning for white-picket-fence domesticity but rather a yearning of stability in a world rocked by war. It was more than that, too, of course. She loved James, and she knew she wanted to be with him forever. Waiting seemed silly, and when her father's health began to wane the previous December, the two decided to hurry up and go through with it while they still had one parent alive to see the show. Still, she was not a housewife. She was only nineteen, and she wanted what any nineteen year-old wanted: to have sex, to drink with friends, and to fight a war. She and James didn't even live alone, but rather with three roommates: Marlene, Dorcas, and Sirius. They were not a married couple; they were a couple who happened to be married.

More specifically, Lily and James were warriors. Lily considered the Order of the Phoenix to be her first priority, and she could not begin to fathom how a little kid—her little kid—could fit into the already complicated equation that was their lives.

Her chest felt heavy and tight. Before tears could well up, however, Lily sprung to her feet. She burst from the bathroom and ran to her and James' room. In their closet she found a jar of Muggle money and pocketed a few coins. As she ran for the door, she passed Marlene coming in, pregnancy test in hand.

"Lily?"

"I'll be right back, Marlene," she said breathlessly and then, as an afterthought, "—If James comes home, hide it!"

Lily left their small, first-floor apartment and made her way through the Muggle streets. She would take the test when she got home, but she was no longer in a rush to do so. Who was she kidding? She knew what it would say. When she reached the payphone on the corner, she dialed a number she hadn't called for some time but knew by heart. The phone rang twice, and then the voice on the other end was warm and familiar.

"Hello?"

"Ryan?"

"Lily!" Ryan exclaimed. "Lily fucking Evans!"