The Birds & The Bees

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A short series on how Lily and James find out that they're going to be parents


Chapter One - The Glove Fiasco

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James Potter was fucked. Utterly, completely, and undeniably fucked.

"What's taking so long?" Lily asked, from their bedroom, her voice fatigued and sleepy. "The bed's getting cold!"

"Just give me a minute, love!" James heard her mutter quietly to herself as he cast a silencing charm on the bathroom and her voice was drowned out.

With shaky hands, James pulled out the shard of glass in the second drawer underneath the bathroom sink. He hadn't had to use it in a while, and he only hoped that Sirius wasn't drunk off his arse or out and about.

"Sirius?" James muttered, panicked. He shut the lid on the toilet and sat down as he waited for his friend's face to appear. After thirty seconds of frantic whispering and calling out for him, his best friend finally appeared, apparently half-naked too. "What the bloody hell took you so long?"

"I'll have you know you just ruined my chances at having a pre-breakfast shag with Celestina just now," Sirius said, his cheeks flush from whatever he was doing before. "I'm thoroughly put out and pissed at you, so you'd better have a bloody good excuse for interrupting."

James considered how to explain his predicament to his mate, but as the look of annoyance on Sirius' face grew, he gave up on trying to tell him delicately and decided to just come out with it.

"I forgot to cast the glove charm," he muttered, internally kicking himself for his idiocy.

It was obvious Sirius wasn't fully awake yet, and after a few seconds realised what his friend had said, his eyes becoming wide and his face full of shock at the realisation.

"Shit."

"Yeah, shit is right. I'm fucked."

"Well, yeah, but so is she." Sirius's face came in and out of focus of the small shard of mirror before his surroundings settled, it seemed as though he'd gone out on his flat's terrace judging by the added sounds of cars and people. "What are you going to do?"

"I dunno! That's why I called you isn't it?"

"Well you've got to tell her," Sirius said as he ran a hand through his unruly hair. In the background, James could hear a woman's voice singing and Sirius' eyes strayed to something out of view.

"Yeah, no shit Padfoot, but how?"

"I dunno, maybe you could just go up to her and be like, hey Evans, ever fancy being a mother? Because now you will be!"

James loved his best mate, but he was a git sometimes.

"Not helpful, not helpful at all."

"Well I'm sorry! I've never had to tell a bird that I forgot to cast a glove charm before shagging her, that's just a rookie mistake Prongs, I mean what kind of idiot forgets?"

He had a point really. Usually, before he and Lily shagged he'd discreetly cast the charm on himself before anything actually happened. But last night, the first night they'd spent together after both of them had been out on missions for the Order, they had been so lost in one another that the thought hadn't even entered James' mind to cast the spell at all.

It was only this morning, when he had realised that his wand was nowhere in sight and had been left downstairs, on the kitchen island, that he had never cast the bloody charm at all. He was probably overreacting about the whole thing, nothing would probably come of it, lots of people shagged unprotected and were fine, but there was the voice in his head that said, what if. Infuriating as it was, it was the what if that scared him more than anything.

"Look, I've really got to go, but you have to tell her mate. I'll swing by later!"

James opened his mouth to reply to his friend but without any warning, Sirius' face disappeared and all he could see was black. He loved his friend, but at that moment James wished that he'd called Remus instead of him. Surely his problems were far more important than going off to shag some bird named Celestina. But apparently not.

Shoving the shard of glass back into the drawer, James waved his wand and reversed the silencing charm. Drawing in a deep breath, James steeled himself to tell his girlfriend the news.

Had he mentioned he was fucked? Because he was. Utterly, completely, and undeniably so.

"Bollocks," he cursed.


Author's Note