Thanks to my Chapter 36 reviewers! 16 reviews in less than a day- yall rock! Thanks The Marauders and Lily, Sunni Bunni, Kaedwen, dracosbabygrl, The Next Marauder, sowing seeds of truth and love, AnIrishLily, larney, grannyHPfan, luv24+Alias, Teainamug, Young Prewett, brona, NikkyB, aznphreak1218, and A Tall Midget.
So, I couldn't leave yall hanging like that, nor could I leave my best friend/editor Jess without an explanation before going to the beach. Seems that you can do a lot of writing in one morning when you have nothing to do. I just had to write this chapter because I knew exactly what I wanted to happen. Hey, I might even have the next one up before I leave, too, but don't count on it. I'll stop babbling on- Enjoy!
Chapter 37- I Should Tell You
Lily took a deep breath. While Rachel's reply had been what she expected, it meant even more when said out loud. She had no clue what to say, but she needed to think of something fast. The tears were welling up in Rachel's eyes quicker than she could brush them away.
"Well... are you sure? Have you done a test or anything?" Lily asked, feeling stupid that she knew nothing about wizarding pregnancy tests.
Rachel shook her head. "I was going to ask Jez, but she had that thing this weekend."
"She comes back this morning. We can ask her."
Rachel nodded and took a deep breath. Lily figured she needed to keep talking so she could keep Rachel from crying, because once Rachel started crying, it was going to be hard to get her to stop.
"I didn't know that... you and Sirius had..." Lily began, but she couldn't find the rest of the words.
"Had sex? Yeah." Rachel began picking at her fingernails.
"When, and where did you get away with it in this school?" Lily asked.
Rachel gave a little laugh. "Well... it was that night after we won the Quidditch Cup."
"Oh, that's romantic," Lily joked.
"It actually was, thank you very much," Rachel told her. "As for where, our lovely little Room of Requirement."
There was another silence before Lily couldn't restrain herself from asking "How was it?"
"Fantastic," Rachel answered quickly. "Honestly, Lil... I thought that time with Michael was good, but... wow, was I ever wrong."
Both girls laughed, which seemed strange and out of place for such a weighty subject. Another silence swept over them.
"Not trying to be mean, Rach, but... the Contraceptive Charm isn't that difficult to remember," Lily said. "It takes like, two seconds."
Rachel gave Lily a look. "Lily, you and James haven't-"
Lily shook her head. "No. We haven't."
"Then don't say that it's not that difficult to remember," Rachel told her.
"Well, didn't you even think about it?"
"Yeah, and we used it the first time... and the second... but it was the third time that we forgot."
Lily smiled. "Third time?"
"Yeah," Rachel answered with a smile.
"Have you told him yet?"
Rachel's smile faded. "I can't."
"Rach, you have to-"
"Don't tell me I have to! It's all his fault, anyway."
"I wouldn't say that. You were there too, Rach, and I'm sure you had something to do with it," Lily corrected.
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Lily, I can't tell him. I don't even know how I'd begin the conversation."
"Rachel, you need to tell him. If you are pregnant, he needs to know. It's his kid, too."
"Do you really think that Sirius Black would stand beside me and be the perfect father?" Rachel asked. "Come on, Lily! It's not him! He'll probably break up with me as soon as I tell him!"
"Don't say that, Rachel," Lily said softly. "He's a good guy, I know he'll be there for you."
Rachel just shook her head. "Lily, telling Sirius is the least of my worries right now. I'm seventeen. What the hell am I going to do with a baby? I'm going into Auror training in a few weeks. Do you really think they'll take a pregnant girl? And then there's my parents. My mum is already a bitch. How do you think she'll take it when I tell her that her only daughter is pregnant?"
"You've forgotten one very important thing," Lily interrupted.
"Oh yeah? What's that?" Rachel snapped.
"You have me. And you have Jez and James and Remus and Sirius. We'll all be here for you. We'll help you get through this," Lily whispered.
The tears that Rachel had been trying to keep away suddenly sprung to her eyes. "Thanks. I needed that," she sobbed, letting the tears fall.
"Hey hey hey! Is anybody home?" Jez's voice rang throughout Lily's quarters. The sound of bags dropping to the floor was followed by Jez's happy, pretty face appearing in the bathroom door. Her smile fell when she saw her two best friends on the bathroom floor, one of them in tears. "What's going on? Rach, what's wrong?" she asked, pulling herself down to Rachel and Lily's level.
"What do you know about wizarding pregnancies, Jez?" Lily asked quietly.
"Well, I do know that because of magic, you can find things out quicker than Muggle pregnancies," Jez began, spouting off things like a dictionary. "Like if it's a boy or a girl, if it's going to have any problems. Things are also more sensitive. Like you have to be careful what spells and potions you come in contact with. One wrong thing could mean a miscarriage. Plus you need a lot of prenatal care, especially if the child in question was conceived by parents who were both of magical blood. You need to have regular appointments with a Healer- wait, why do you want to know? Lil, you're not pregnant, are you?"
Lily shook her head and drifted her gaze to the floor, casually jerking her head toward a sobbing Rachel.
"Oh, Rach!" Jez cried, moving over and wrapping her arms around the girl. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You weren't here," Rachel said, laughing through the tears.
"True," Jez said, shrugging her shoulders. "Are you sure? If you are, since when? Have you told Sirius yet?"
"No, I'm not sure. But I've been moody as hell, I can't stop puking and eating, and I'm over a month late. I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant. I just don't know what the test is."
"Praegnans," Jez said.
"Do what?"
"Praegnans," Jez repeated. "It's the Latin word for pregnant, and it just happens to be the quickest and most accurate test. All you do is point your wand at your abdomen and say the spell. You give it a few seconds. If your wand glows blue, you're not pregnant, but if it glows red, you are."
"Well that's simple enough. Why don't we go ahead and do it now?" Lily suggested.
"I don't want to. I don't want to know," Rachel said, shaking her head.
"You have to know, Rach!" Jez told her. "If you are, we need to start giving our future niece or nephew the best care possible!"
Rachel took a deep breath. "Fine. Go ahead. Do it. I can't do it myself," she whispered.
"It'll be okay, either way, Rach," Jez said, giving her hand a squeeze. Jez took her wand out of her back pocket, but her hand was shaking too badly to even hold the wand straight.
"I can't do it either. I'm too nervous. Here, Lil, you do it."
"Me? I don't even know what I'm doing!" Lily shouted.
"Point it at my stomach and say Praegnans! That's all you've got to do, Lily!" Rachel shouted back.
Lily took a deep breath. "Okay. I can do this," she whispered. Jez held onto Rachel's hand tightly as Lily did the spell.
Three seconds later, the tip of Jez's wand glowed a bright red. All three girls sighed.
"Well, that's that. I'll start brewing you something with some nutrients and stuff that the baby needs, and we'll have to go get Madame Pomfrey to check you out, just to be safe," Jez said.
Rachel nodded, but Lily was just staring at the glowing wand.
"Jez, I heard you were back, I-"
At that moment, James had come into Lily's bathroom to find the three girls sitting on the floor, Rachel's face bearing the signs of tears and Lily holding the positive pregnancy test.
"What's going on?" James asked. "That's not a- Lily, you're not-"
"No," Lily said, shaking her head.
James breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Thank Merlin. That scared me, because I know we haven't- wait, then whose is it?"
His hazel eyes turned back to Rachel's tear-stained face.
"Whoa. Wait a minute- does Padfoot know?"
All three girls shook their heads.
"Well you're going to tell him, aren't you?"
"I don't know yet," Rachel whispered.
"Of course she's going to tell him," Jez corrected. "She has to."
"I don't have to do anything," Rachel snapped.
"Uh, yeah, you do, Rachel," James said. "He would want to know."
"Why? So he can break up with me?"
"So he can take care of you, you idiot," James snapped back.
"What makes you think you can tell me what to do?"
"Because we care about you, Rachel! Why can't you see that?"
"What's all the shouting for?" Remus asked as he came in. "And why are we all in Lily's bathroom?"
"Rachel's pregnant and doesn't want to tell Sirius," James said without thinking.
"What?" Remus asked, shocked.
"James, you can't just go telling people every damn thing you know!" Lily shouted.
"Well someone else ought to know if she's not telling the father!"
"She IS telling the father, damn it!" Jez yelled.
"Am not! You can't tell me what to do!" Rachel retorted.
"You are telling him and that's that!"
Soon, two individual arguments were going on and Remus couldn't keep up with either of them. Jez and Rachel were arguing over whether Rachel was going to tell Sirius or not, and Lily and James were arguing over why James was telling everyone's business when he had no idea what everyone else was going through.
This was insane. It had to stop.
Remus took out his wand. "Silencio!" he yelled. Everyone in the room promptly shut up. Their mouths kept moving, but no sound was coming out. They all looked at him angrily.
"First of all, I'm glad James told me because now I can give you my opinion," Remus began. "You need to tell Sirius. He would want to know because he loves you, Rachel, and he'll want to make sure nothing happens to you. That baby is just as much his as it is yours, so I think he deserves to know. Second of all, you three do not need to be pressuring Rachel into telling him. She'll tell him when the time is right, and not a second before. She is under too much stress as it is, and she doesn't need you idiots thinking you can control her. And lastly, why was I the last to know that Jez was back?"
Everyone's mouths began moving at once, but Remus only took the Silencing Charm off of Jez.
"Because I had to see my girls first. I'm sorry, I was coming to see you right after this," she said, walking over to him. They kissed, but were soon interrupted.
"Hello! How can you two be making out? I'm pregnant here! Remember?" Rachel shouted, having taken the Silencing Charm off herself with Jez's abandoned wand. Everyone else soon saw how smart this was and did the same thing.
"Well then, Pregnant Girl, get dressed so we can go see Madame Pomfrey," Jez snapped, upset that Rachel had ruined her reunion with her boyfriend.
"That means you two have to get out," Lily said, standing and ushering the two guys out of her bathroom and bedroom.
"What about Sirius? What are we going to do with him? He's depressed over the whole fight with Rachel," James said to Lily as she shoved him out of her room.
"Keep him occupied until we get back from Madame Pomfrey," Lily told him. "Then we'll see what to do from there."
Lily then slammed the door in James's face, leaving James and Remus alone in the Common Room.
"Do you have this strange sinking feeling that this whole thing is about to go to hell in a handbasket?" Remus asked.
"Glad I'm not the only one," James answered, shaking his head in confusion as he plopped down on the sofa.
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"They're not in Lily's room, and you haven't seen them?" Sirius asked James.
James shrugged his shoulders. "I have no clue where they went. Maybe we should just stay here for a while. Or hey, want to go flying?"
It was later Sunday morning, and Sirius was bugging James with questions about where the girls were. He was on a mission to fix things with Rachel, but Rachel was no where to be found. James had sent Remus to look for the girls, wondering why it had taken so long to go see Madame Pomfrey.
"Nah. I spent a couple of hours out there yesterday and it didn't do me any good," Sirius sighed. "I just... I'm trying to be nice and caring. But she won't tell me what's wrong. I want to fix whatever it is, but she just won't let me. What am I supposed to do?"
"Maybe she just needs space," James offered.
Then Remus came through the portrait hole, shaking his head. "I can't find them. They must've taken off to go somewhere."
Sirius's expression fell again. But James was going to keep things bright and happy.
"What about a game of chess?" he suggested, pulling his board off a bookshelf. "Just like old times."
This seemed to keep Sirius's interest for a while, even if his thoughts were somewhere else.
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"I feel fat," Rachel moaned as the walked back to Gryffindor tower after visiting Madame Pomfrey. The Medi-Witch had been somewhat shocked, but she promised not to tell anyone. She set Rachel up with a healthier diet and a number of potions to keep her and the baby well, and sent them on their way to enjoy the bright, sunny day.
"Well you don't look fat," Lily told her.
"But I feel it."
"It's a state of mind. You're only saying that because you're pregnant and know that you will soon be fat," Jez explained.
"I don't want to be fat."
"Well you and Sirius shouldn't have-"
"Don't you dare say it, Lily," Rachel interrupted.
"Sorry. Just telling the truth."
"Well, I'm going to tell him," Rachel announced as they gave the Fat Lady the password.
"Really? Good for you, Rach!" Jez said happily, hugging her friend as they walked into the empty common room.
"But I don't know what I'll say," Rachel whined as Lily gave Gryffindor the Heads' password.
"I mean, how do you tell Sirius Black that you're pregnant with his kid?" Rachel asked as they walked into the common room...
Where Sirius and James were playing a game of chess as Remus looked on, everyone having heard every word Rachel just said. James's eyes were as big as saucers, Remus was looking the other way, Lily had turned red, and Jez was as white as a sheet.
But Sirius, whose jaw had dropped, could only look at Rachel, who looked scared.
"Apparently," Lily whispered. "That's how you tell him."
Dun dun dun! He knows... and the next chapter should be pretty good. Once again, I'll try to get it up before Friday, but I can make no promises. But then again, I may get super bored and find myself unable to resist updating. Today was very boring, aside from finding out that Jez lost her permit and us scouring the PA DMV site trying to figure out how much it would cost her to replace it (which we still don't know). Anyways, please review! I'd love to know what you think of all this craziness (as long as it's not too cruel). Review! Until next time, lots of love and eating Edy's ice cream straight out of the box, Emma.