The Baby Blues
James freaks out when he hears about Lily's pregnancy, Sirius talks some sense into him
QLFC Round 4: It's a Horror Story Out There!
Tutshill Tornados, Chaser 3
Prompt: Hotel
Words: 2905
Optional prompts:
- [word] Priority
- [colour] Pink
- [creature] Bowtruckle
It was a sign.
As James starred unseeing at the pink bedspread, that was all that he could think. Why else would this muggle hotel choose this specific colour today? The only explanation was that the universe was trying to tell him something, and he wasn't happy with that message.
A baby. How the hell had this happened? It wasn't that long ago that they were just leaving school themselves, and now he was expected to look after another human being. He could barely cook and clean for himself, to add the responsibility of fatherhood on top of that was too terrifying to think.
When he had got home that evening he had been in good spirits after his first full week as a proper auror, having graduated from his training a couple of days earlier. James was looking forward to spending the weekend with his wife in their new house; whether that entailed emptying boxes from the move or just not leaving their bed all weekend. Instead he had been met with a pale faced Lily and a weird plastic stick that made no sense.
Muggle devices had always intrigued the man and he was constantly amazed at how quickly they got anything done without magic. Although he knew nothing about it himself, the way that science had been developed and implemented to figure things out had always amazed him. That being said, James was less than happy with what this device had told the young newlyweds.
He glanced away from the pink duvet and gulped down some water that the hotel staff had left for him. They had taken one look at the haunted look in his eyes and his slightly staggered walking and had refused to give him any more alcohol. James didn't need the mirror in the ensuite to know that he looked awful.
It wasn't that he didn't want kids, it's just that he never imagined that it would happen this early. Only last week, he and Sirius had been joking back and forth with Alice about her pregnancy announcement, and now here he was in exactly the same predicament. He looked back at the pink sheet and sighed.
If he was a superstitious man and believed in divination at all he would have paid attention to the signs. First, he had woken up to the sound of Lily being sick again, no doubt from the dodgy curry that they had eaten a couple of days prior, his mind reasoned. After that, he had gotten into a rather long and tedious conversation with his colleague about his children, to only then be interrupted by a call in about some idiots experimenting with magic on some birds. Specifically storks, for some odd reason.
Now that he was thinking about it, these signs began popping up more and more, the most notable piece of evidence already being ensconced in his pocket. He took it out to stare at it for a second and pondered over why he had bought it in the first place.
Alice had been planning a get together for a couple of weeks now, and when she found out that she and Frank were expecting, she had quickly changed the party into a sort of baby shower congratulations sort of thing. This of course meant that they were expected to bring presents, and unfortunately for James, Lily hadn't the time to quickly go shopping for her. After all, life as a trainee healer had a much more intensive schedule than that of a low level auror.
This left James to go shopping for baby presents, and as a man who had never held a baby in a life, he was at a loss for where to start. In the end, he had decided on some funky looking shoes and a hat, not realising that they would never actually fit on a newborn baby, which Lily had pointed out later. But as he had been leaving the shop, his eye had been drawn to the display of toys by the door.
Being one of the only magical shops that catered specifically for babies, there was quite a large selection of magical themed toys. Hippogriffs, centaurs, dragons and various other creatures stared back at him from the clear case in various stages of movement. Obviously charmed to walk around and move like the animals they looked like, it was hard not to get distracted by them.
Even then, it was not the most vibrant, nor the most active toy that caught his eye, but probably the most mundane and simple stuffed toy in the box. From where the lifeless and squishy Bowtruckle toy now sat in his palm, James thought back to why he had decided to buy it in the first place.
One of the first times when James had noticed how truly beautiful Lily is was during a Care of the Magical creatures class in third year. They had been studying the creatures at the time and he had glanced over at her as she fed woodlice to a couple of them. It had been the last lesson of the day and the setting sun had shone brightly through her red hair, illuminating her features as she laughed at the creature's antics.
In that second, no one had ever looked as stunning as she had, and James had realised the reason he kept feeling the compelling urge to tease her at any given moment. The creatures weren't typically seen as interesting, funny or even cute, and yet here this girl sat amazed at their antics, where everyone else in the class was bored.
He had pretended that he was getting this for Alice and yet when the time came to attend the party, he had put it aside, knowing that it was really Lily that he had been thinking of. It was a perfect amalgamation of them both, depicting a magical creature but in a muggle way, perfectly depicting the love and fascination with which she viewed the world, and which he loved her for.
Bowtruckle's are naturally small and so the toy was probably the only one in the case that was actually life size. As it was dwarfed in his shaking hands, James imagined how massive it would look clasped in his baby daughter's.
At this point, it was safe to assume that it had to be a girl, the bedspread pretty much confirmed it, especially when absolutely nothing else in this room was in blue. Even the bloody Bowtruckle was green, but if his assumptions for the colour of the duvet carried on, then this must have meant that his baby would end up a Slytherin. As confused as his alcohol riddled mind was, he hoped that this just couldn't be the case.
James's disjointed mutterings were soon interrupted by the sound of a loud banging at his hotel door. Wrongly assuming that it was room service, he shouted out some garbled attempt to tell them to go away, not knowing it would only further incentivise his pursuer.
"What the hell are you doing here!" The voice of Sirius Black finally broke through the haze of fog shrouding his mind and James looked up to where his friend had broken through the door.
"What do you mean? How did you find me?" He replied, his slightly slurred speech and fragrant breath indicating his drunken state.
Sirius grimaced, moving his head away from James face, handing over a sobering potion in the process, "It wasn't particularly hard, I just went to the closest hotel to the Leaky once Tom told me he kicked you out. I can see why he did."
James just frowned at the discoloured potion he had been handed before knocking it back, already annoyed that the alcohol had not blocked out the thoughts he had been trying to keep at bay. He glanced behind his friend to see if anyone else was there, but he was just met with an empty doorway.
"Where's Moony? I thought you were meant to be with Marlene tonight anyway."
His friend frowned, "I was, before we were interrupted by your wife asking for her. Turns out that when your husband runs away from you during a fight, it can cause quite the upset…" Sirius left the sentence hanging for James to reply, eyebrows raised.
"It wasn't a fight…" Came out quiet, petulant and still slightly slurred from the drink.
Sirius only sighed and turned to close the door, muttering under his breath, "Oh I've heard. Am I offering congratulations or commiserations then for the new dad, or have you not decided yet?"
James lowered his eyes yet again to the toy in his hands, rubbing his fingertips over the enlarged eyes and noting how they made the creature look far cuter than they were in real life. By this point, the sobering potion had begun to take effect and so the edges of his vision were slightly less blurred.
The silence of the room indicated that Sirius was probably just standing watching him and so James quietly asked, "Is she really upset then?"
His scoff made James look up again, "You think? Why did you run?"
"I didn't mean to, she just said it and I had to get out of that room. I mean, what do you think you'd do if Marlene came and told you the same?"
Sirius didn't miss a beat, "I'd congratulate her and ask who the father is because it sure as hell wouldn't be me, I'm very careful."
James let out an exasperated sigh, "I thought we were too, but we must have forgotten to say the charm once. I keep thinking back, and it must've been after Halloween because we were both absolutely plastered. If only I…"
"What's the point in doing that, it's done now." Sirius cut into his tirade, clearly expecting the train of thought, "What's important is sorting out what you're going to do next."
"Next? What do you mean? There's nothing we can do now." James had never heard himself speaking in such a defeated tone before, but he couldn't bring himself to care at the moment.
Sirius nonchalantly put his hands in his pockets, "Well you could keep it, or if it's too early you could put it up for adoption or even get rid of it."
The still panicking part of James's mind lingered on the last statement, "You mean get an abortion, why would we do that?" Unbidden, the image of a baby girl with Lily's auburn hair flashed across his mind, smiling up at him. A flash of mingled disgust and anger rippled through him, "I can't believe you'd even suggest that."
Sirius continued to rock on his heels, not even looking at him, "I was only pointing out the possibilities, you could always…"
"No stop," James cut in, irritated by how blasé his friend was talking in this way about his kid, "Mate, I know this isn't planned, but I can't believe you'd think we'd do that. It's our baby at the end of the day, and I love Lily so we'll sort it out."
Finally, Sirius deigned to look at him and James was surprised to see him smiling, "Guess I'm meant to be congratulating you then?"
Now that his admission was out there, James realised what Sirius had been doing, "Stop putting words into my mouth, we both know that this is a bad idea with the war and all."
Sirius nodded, "But you can see some positives, right? We did talk about it the other day."
James rolled his eyes, "Yes, but in five years, not in 9 months. I'm not ready to be a dad!"
"That doesn't matter, you idiot. No one is ready at first, you just need to make it up as you go along. We're both pretty good at that."
In that moment, it seemed that Sirius had grown bored of standing and yelling at him and so sank down onto the bed. Before he could sit he was interrupted by James's scared yell, "No don't sit there!"
Sirius's incredulous frown deepened, "Why not?"
"It's pink." Was all the reply he received.
"I can see that."
"Well you can't sit there then," James reasoned as if it didn't sound insane.
Sirius smiled slightly, "I'm honoured that you care how I'll look, but with my colouring I can pull off any look."
James leapt up and yanked on his arm when Sirius made to sit down again, "I mean it, you can't sit there. It's a sign."
"I'm pretty sure it's just a bed."
"No not the bed you idiot. I mean the colour, it's got to be a sign that it's a girl. How can it not be?" James looked up at the end of this explanation, eyes open and frantically searching to be understood, "I've been seeing pink all day, and now this. It can't all be a coincidence."
Sirius chuckled though looking slightly disturbed, "Prongs, it is just a duvet cover, it doesn't mean anything."
"But what if it does! I can't have a daughter, I know how women are treated, we were just as bad. I can't deal with annoying teenage boys like we were, trailing after my daughter!"
"So what you're saying is, if I sit down on this bed then the powers of the universe will somehow dictate that you will have a girl. No matter that it is just a random coloured bedspread that they put on you bed by chance."
When Sirius pointed out James's thought process out loud to him, he suddenly realised how stupid he sounded. "Yeah, when you put it like that…" James hung his head and ended up collapsing onto the bed himself, ignoring his previous comments. "Sorry, it's just been a long day and I'm really tired."
James closed his eyes and lay backwards, feeling his muscles ache from the long day at work, not noticing how Sirius looked at him until he opened his mouth. "In a way, I'm glad that you voluntarily decided to flee and spend the night in a hotel, because if Lily could hear you talking right now then she'd probably kick you out herself."
It took a few moments for his comment to sink in, but when it did James's head immediately whipped up, "What?"
Sirius chuckled darkly, "Okay then, now that we've established that you're going to be a dad and your reservations about it, we need to talk about what's important."
James sat up again and scowled, "Thanks mate but I think I have my priorities in order, this sort of thing doesn't happen to a bloke everyday."
Before he could react, Sirius had slapped him over the back of the head. "Well it didn't happen solely to you, did it? If you want to talk about priorities then maybe consider your pregnant wife sitting at home crying her eyes out over her arsehole husband, while said husband is pissed and feeling sorry for himself in some random hotel."
When James didn't respond fast enough Sirius took the chance to continue, "Every single comment out of your mouth this evening has been about you, your problems and how you are so hard done by. Lily has to face the exact same problems as you do, but she's not having a breakdown and it's her who has to put up with a parasite living in her for the next few months."
After seeing how James had left the girl, Sirius was more than disgruntled, especially when his evening had been interrupted, "She was meant to spend this evening breaking the good news to you but instead you ran away and pissed her off, so now I have to put up with you. I'm meant to be on a date but instead I'm here!"
Sirius breathed out deeply before biting out his final comment, clearly frustrated that he was here instead of in Marlene's bed, "You need to get up off your arse and go home to your wife so she can deal with you instead of me because I've got better things to do."
As if the penny had just dropped, James bounded to his feet, already looking for his shoes that he had chucked across the room earlier. "Oh Merlin, she's going to kill me!"
Sirius watched as his friend attempted to put his left foot into the right shoe and decided to cut him a bit of slack, "You may have been a complete twat this evening, but I think you could actually be a decent dad so don't have another melt down. Just stick by Lily and you'll be fine, if she can put up with us then a kid will be a walk in the park."
After finally managing to get both his shoes on, James attempted to get out the door, but Sirius stopped him and they both turned to face the other, "If it's a girl, it's a girl, I'm sure you'll find out a way to act threatening if it comes to it." He stopped for a moment to think before his face split into a wide grin, "We'll do it together even, she can't have her Godfather let her down."
Sirius's jovial face was soon replaced by pale faced horror when James replied, "Actually I was thinking that Remus might be a better idea for that."
"WHAT?"
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