Disclaimer: These characters belong to JKR, I'm only playing.

Author's Notes: This is a sequel of sorts to "I'm Sorry", so I strongly recommend that you read that first, as you'll be able to appreciate it more.

o.o.o.o

The last time she'd done this she'd been seventeen, playing a prank on a boy who wasn't used to being the victim. Strangely, that had been easier.

Leaning closer to where he sat at the other end of the couch, Lily took a deep breath and said, "James, I'm pregnant."

"Mm, that's nice, dear," her husband mumbled. He didn't look up from his newspaper. In fact, he turned the page and kept reading.

At first, she assumed he just hadn't heard her. She sighed.

"James! I'm going to have a baby!" she declared in a much louder and more annoying tone.

He nodded and replied, "Yes, dear, I heard you the first time. Shall we put him in the blue room when he gets here?"

Lily blinked and stared at him. What in the world did he mean?

"In the--" she began, mindlessly repeating what he'd said.

James turned another page, though he hadn't had time to finish the other one. "Sirius, I mean," he said, his voice tight.

"Why would Sirius--" Lily demanded, utterly bewildered. Her husband wasn't making any sense.

At last, James lowered his newspaper and looked at her. He caught her eye and raised one of his brows contemptuously as he said, "I expect he'll want to be around his child, don't you?"

Absolutely floored, Lily gaped at him. "His chi--"

"Lily, I don't know if you've looked at a calendar, but it's November, not April, and it isn't even the first of the month," James hissed, much more sharply than she would have expected. "And if you really thought I'd fall for that one again, then you married the wrong man."

Oh, dear.

"You think I'm joking," gasped Lily, as she realized exactly what was going through his head.

"It's a very bad joke," he retorted, and snapped his paper back open and refocused his eyes on it. "It was a very bad joke the first time around, as a matter of fact, and it definitely hasn't gotten any better."

Lily sat staring at him, letting him read, for several minutes as she absorbed this information. She was trying to let her husband know that they were going to be parents, and he thought she was joking.

Of course, she supposed she kind of did deserve it, after what she'd done on April Fool's Day that last year at Hogwarts... Bah.

How was a person supposed to prove something like this? Short of waiting until he noticed on his own, that was. Lily had a feeling that would take awhile, anyway.

After thinking for a bit, she got up and went into the other room. When she returned, she was carrying a couple of things, and her jaw was set. She walked up and stopped right in front of him.

"James," she snarled, in her best Head Girl voice, "put down the paper."

He glanced at her briefly, not at all looking as if he wanted to do any such thing. What he saw, however, must have convinced him to, because he sighed and lowered the Prophet, folding it in his lap. "What is it, Lily?"

The first item in her hands was thrust into his face. He blinked and took it reflexively; it was a calendar. The calendar that Lily kept in their bathroom, if one wanted to be specific. A day was circled in bright red, making it very hard to ignore, but she pointed an angry finger at it anyway.

"That was when I was supposed to start," she snapped. He didn't have to ask what she should have started, because the only thing she used that particular calendar for was to keep track of her... woman thing. "Do you see what day that is?"

James sighed again. Clearly, she was going to try a bit harder to convince him this time -- she'd have to, since he wasn't as gullible as he'd been when he was seventeen. "Yes, I see what day that is."

The small calendar was yanked from his grip, and a larger one replaced it.

James blinked. It was the wall calendar his mother had given them, that Lily kept in the kitchen. It was November, and almost all of the days had been crossed off already.

"What does this have to do with--" he started to ask, but Lily cut him off. She was glaring at him, her hands on her hips.

"Find the day I was supposed to start, James," she ordered. Her tone was more than slightly patronizing; in fact, he'd heard her use it on some particularly obtuse fellow students more times than one.

Rolling his eyes, he obliged.

Then he stopped, and checked again.

"Lily..." he muttered slowly, then stopped, because he realized he really didn't have anything to say.

"IT WAS OVER THREE WEEKS AGO!" Lily yelled, throwing the smaller calendar at his head in a fit of temper. (It missed, thankfully.) Men could be so frustrating!

She pulled something else from her pocket, which he recognized as a diagnosis and prescription slip from her medi-witch. His brain was starting to work again, and his stomach rolled as the paper replaced the calendar in his hand.

"Read it," instructed Lily, beginning to sound slightly deranged.

James read it.

A few seconds passed.

James dropped it.

"You're not joking?" he exclaimed, staring at her. When she nodded, he leapt to his feet and threw his arms around her. "Oh, that's-- Lily, I--"

He lifted her off her feet and spun her in a circle, right there in their living room. He felt like laughing, and couldn't finish a complete sentence. In a while he was going to start getting scared -- honestly, him, a parent! -- but then he was just ecstatic.

"I should have showed you that first," Lily said breathlessly, when he'd got done kissing her. "I didn't realize you might think I was playing a prank on you. I'm sorry."

He shook his head, beaming. He kissed her again, and said, "No, it's all right, I shouldn't have jumped... to... conclusions."

Despite how pleased she was that he'd gotten the message at last, she narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him when his words trailed off. "James?"

James's eyes had lit up. Evilly. He put her back on her feet and smirked at her. "... Wanna help me tell Sirius?"

fin