Previously in the Darklyverse: The Order discovered there's a spy in their midst but didn't know who it was. Lily, who was pregnant, and James went into hiding.

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March 31st, 1980: James Potter

Weeks after finding out, James can still hardly believe that there's a spy in the Order who's secretly working for the Death Eaters. He keeps cycling through everyone in the Order in his head, trying to think who could possibly have a motive to turn on all of them and work for Voldemort, but he comes up blank every time. Who out of those supposedly on their side could possibly want Voldemort to win the war? Who could possibly look at pregnant Lily Potter and wish harm on their child?

Maybe Snape is wrong, he tells himself. After all, Snape has probably been a Death Eater for years now—if they couldn't trust them before, they probably still can't trust him now. But why would Snape switch sides and try so hard to protect Lily only to turn around and tell tall tales to mislead them? It doesn't make sense. Nothing about any of this makes sense.

For his part, James is going to go stir crazy sooner rather than later locked up in this house like this. To his credit, Sirius did pick a good house. It's two stories tall with three bedrooms, so that they'll have space for a second child if they decide they want one at some point. Before they went into hiding, that was the plan, after all—to have at least two kids so that Harry would have siblings to play and grow up with. Now, of course, James doesn't want to have any more kids until he knows that they're not going to be personally hunted by Voldemort. Everything hits differently when the darkest lord in history wants you and your family, personally, dead. James doubts that they would have even conceived Harry if they had known Harry was going to have a death sentence on his head.

But Harry is on his way now, whether they're ready or not, and James has to admit there's a part of him that can't wait to be a dad. His own mum and dad were such wonderful parents to him that James just wants to pay it forward, foster the kind of relationship with Harry that James had with his parents when he was a child. He's sad that his parents and Harry won't ever get to meet, but he knows that they'll live on in the legacy he inherited and leaves for Harry.

And—the prophecy says that Harry will have the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. It didn't say anything about the Dark Lord vanquishing Harry. Sure, there was that "neither can live while the other survives" bit that has haunted James since he saw Dumbledore's memory of the prophecy in the Pensieve, but he's trying to focus on the positives here.

It feels petty to say it, but the worst thing about being confined to their new house in Godric's Hollow might be the boredom. There's so little happening in James's life that he feels almost desperate to get news of something, anything, going on in everybody else's. But aside from the same old drama with Mary and Marlene, and Remus and Sirius pining over each other when everybody knows they should just get back together already, there hasn't been much happening for his cohort from Hogwarts, which means there isn't a lot going on for anybody to report back to James.

Instead, James finds himself obsessively thinking about Snape because Lily is obsessively thinking about Snape and James literally, physically can't get away from her. "I still can't believe he wants to talk," she's saying now as they eat their dinner. "I can't believe him. After all these years, what could he possibly have to say to me after everything he's done? It's not like he could possibly think there's any chance in hell of me making up with him after he joined the Death Eaters."

"I know," says James. In truth, he's only half listening, as they've been down this road before many times in the last several weeks.

"I'll bet you anything that he'd still be working as Voldemort's little lap dog if he hadn't decided to target me. If he were going after Alice and Frank instead, Alice would be dead by now, and Severus never would have changed allegiance. If—oh."

James's reaction is a little delayed. "What? Is everything okay?"

"I just—oh, that hurts."

"Is it the baby? It's not Harry, is it?"

"I think—I think it might be," says Lily. Her voice sounds thin and strained. "It's probably nothing. We shouldn't worry."

But the pain recurs three times over the next twenty minutes until James insists, "We need to get you to a Healer."

"How? We can't leave the house. Padfoot would have to find a Healer and tell them our location so that they can check me out here, and even then, they might not have access to everything they need to take a proper look or try to resolve the issue, assuming that there is an issue."

"Of course there's an issue. You're pregnant, and you're in pain. What if you lose—what if we—"

Lily's face melts into something sympathetic, though a moment later she's wincing again. "I can take care of it myself," she says. "I've been trained for this, you know, back when I still was working at St. Mungo's."

"If there's anything you can't do yourself, you can talk me through it," says James. "And we can always send Padfoot a Patronus to ask him to send a Healer down here."

"There's this diagnostic spell… you might want to write this all down."

So they check her for preeclampsia and placental abruption and round ligament pain. Finally, Lily tells James that it looks like she's having Braxton Hicks contractions. "Are those serious?"

"No," says Lily, laughing. He takes it as a good sign that she's still able to laugh. "They're like false labor pains, basically. They should subside soon, and they're totally benign."

"Okay," says James. "But I still want to find you a Healer who can drop by and make house calls every few weeks. We should be getting you checked out every once in a while and have somebody on hand who can help with any complications that may come up. And, you know, the birth, obviously."

"I'll send Padfoot an owl."

Two days later, Sirius sends along help in the form of Healer Ida Bones, who recognizes Lily from the hospital. "Didn't you just finish training a couple of months ago? I thought you started in Spell Damage on the fourth floor."

"I did, but I had to drop out of the program. I—uh—we're being targeted by Lord Voldemort, so leaving the house isn't an option for us right now."

"You poor dears," says Ida with a sympathetic twist of the lips. "Targeted for what reason, might I ask?"

"It's the baby," says Lily. "There was a prophecy about our son taking him down, and now he wants him. Or me, before he's born."

"That explains why Sirius Black had to be the one to book me," says Ida. "We're going to do everything we can to make sure that your son is born safe and alive, you hear me?"

"Okay," Lily says, smiling. "You're Edgar Bones's sister, right?"

"Sister-in-law," she amends. "My husband, Jonah, is Eddie's brother."

"Do you two have children?"

"A daughter. Susan. She was just born a few months ago, actually."

"Oh, congratulations!" says Lily.

Even though Ida says that everything about Lily and her pregnancy look healthy, James feels like he's not going to believe it until he can see Harry safe and sound in front of him with his own two eyes. It's like the whole world—first Voldemort and the Death Eaters, now nature—is conspiring against him to take Harry away from them before they've even had him. And then what, once he's born? What kind of life will Harry be able to lead if he's unable to come out of hiding his whole life?

Lily keeps telling James not to worry, that they'll deal with it as it comes, but James thinks she's only saying that because she's trying and failing to convince herself that it's true, too. It doesn't help that it seems like they're having fewer and fewer visitors with each passing day, like their friends have forgotten about them now that the initial interest in their situation has worn off. On Monday, the Marauders did the full moon at James and Lily's house—always awkward nowadays because Sirius and Remus still aren't on great terms—but they don't get another guest until Friday, when Sirius and Emmeline drop by at the end of their work day.

"It's so good to see both of you," says Lily, hugging them both. "How are things?"

"Fine," says Sirius. "Did it work out okay with Ida the other day?"

"Yeah. She's Eddie's sister-in-law, did you know? Her daughter will be in the same class as Harry when they get to Hogwarts," Lily says.

James suppresses a comment about whether or not Harry will ever be able to attend Hogwarts under the circumstances. He wants to ask Sirius about how he and Remus are doing, whether he still suspects that Remus is Voldemort's spy in the Order—the theory that James only knows about because he weaseled it out of Peter—but he doesn't know if Sirius has looped Em in on his suspicions, so he keeps quiet about it.

They don't stay for long—just long enough to join James and Lily for the dinner James makes—but after Emmeline Disapparates, James puts a hand on Sirius's arm. "Can we talk for a second?" he asks.

"I—yeah, sure," says Sirius, and they step into the living room while Lily is clearing up their dirty dishes.

"I wanted to ask—well, really, Lily and I both wanted to ask—if you'd be willing to be Harry's godfather once he's born."

Relief breaks out over Sirius's face. "I thought you were going to tell me more bad news," he says with a laugh. "Of course I will, yeah. Of course I'll be godfather. Can't wait to meet the little rascal."

"Under four months to go now," says James. "Can you send Marlene our way if you happen to see her soon? Lily wants her for godmother."

"I'll tell her to come by if I see her," says Sirius, "but that's no guarantee that I will see her. We tend to avoid each other more than not these days—we have for a long time now."

"No chance that you'll be friends someday, huh?"

"Probably not, no. I'm past it, but I don't really see Marlene as ever being able to get past what happened. There's a lot of baggage there."

"Is it worth it to you to try and work through it? I mean, not that I would blame you if you don't want to."

Sirius shrugs. "If she asked me to sit down with her and talk through everything that happened, I would do it, but I don't think she's going to, and I'm certainly not going to ask her. Besides, if I did go to her, she could easily get the wrong impression and think I want to get back together, which I don't."

"Is that the way you feel about Moony?" James asks.

"I… not exactly. If he wanted to talk, I would love to do that and come to some kind of understanding, but I don't think he does, and I don't want to push it."

"But you come to full moons. You were here on Monday."

"That was different. We don't have to talk when we're the wolf and the dog. I just don't think I have it in me to give that up unless he point-blank asks me to, which he hasn't. Of course, that was before…"

James says quickly, "I know. I—er—got Wormtail to tell me, you know, that you think Moony is the spy."

"Dammit, Wormy," says Sirius, rolling his eyes. "I specifically told him I didn't want to trouble you with this with everything you have going on."

"Seriously, mate, trouble me with it. I'm starved for action over here."

"Well," Sirius continues, "that was before Snape told us that there's a spy in the Order, because what if it is Moony? I'm almost sort of—sort of afraid to ask him about it because what if it's true? Or, worse, what if he lies to me when he tells me it's not him? Again, it's different when it's a full moon, because we can just coexist and I can pretend like none of this is happening, but the rest of the time—I almost wonder if part of why he's avoiding me is because it is him and he knows that I suspect that of him."

"Moony started avoiding you months ago, ever since you two broke up. I doubt it's related. Anyway, it's not like he's avoiding me or Wormtail at all."

"Maybe you're right," says Sirius. "I hope you're right. I don't want to believe that any one of us could do a thing like this to each other."

"Maybe Snape is wrong," James suggests, and Sirius says, "Maybe he is."

But James knows that neither one of them believes it.