Sunday 11th May 1980

Potter Manor, 14:30

Eventually, his tears ran out and he was just sniffling, trying to catch his breath. It had been a long, messy cry. The kind where a load of snot came out your nose and your face went all red and blotchy. It made you look as bad as you felt. Which wasn't good at all. Lily was still stroking his hair though he didn't know when she had started but he didn't want her to stop.

"You good?" She asked quietly.

His breath caught in his throat and he shook his head mutely. He wasn't okay. He wasn't okay at all.

"Okay," she said soothingly. "You don't have to talk right now."

Right. Okay. He didn't have to talk. He could just sit here. Or lie here. Whatever. He didn't have to say anything. He could just be here with his thoughts. Though, maybe that wasn't such a good thing. Thinking too much was what had got him into this mess and he didn't want to start crying again. That would be embarrassing. Especially since he was just starting to get control of himself again and shame for his outburst was starting to sink in.

"I'm okay now," he said quietly but made no move to get up.

He didn't want to get up but he knew he should. He shouldn't be offloading all of this all on Lily. Not with the state she was in right now. It wasn't fair and he should be able to deal with his own problems.

"You really aren't," she said matter-of-factly, still stroking his hair. If he was some sort of despicable cat, he was sure he would be purring right now. "Don't start lying to me now, Remus."

And now that was making him feel ashamed. Lily was his friend. One of his best friends. And all he was doing was being difficult. He couldn't win either way. Either he told her all his troubles and worried her or he didn't say anything a probably still worry her. A real no win situation in his book.

So, what should he do? He wished someone would tell him what to do. He didn't want to be the one to make the decision. Any decision. Because any decision he would make would just turn out to be the wrong one, he was sure of it.

But Lily was looking at him with those sympathetic, understanding eyes of hers and he found himself wanting to say something to her. To explain himself. To ask for help.

"I- I don't... I feel like I don't know what I'm doing," he quietly admitted.

Silence. Just silence. He didn't know what to say after admitting that to himself and Lily didn't say anything. Why wasn't she saying anything?

"I feel like nothing's in my control," he pushed on, seemingly unable to stop talking now that he had started. And talking was better than silence. "I don't have control over anything anymore."

He didn't like not knowing what he was doing or feeling like he didn't have any control. Which was ironic, he knew, considering he turned into a werewolf once a month. But this was different. Way, way different.

He thought he had a handle on it, be really did. He was trying to fix things with Dora. He was trying not to feel too down about the fact that it was difficult for him to keep a job. Trying being the main word there. It seemed that he simply could never try hard enough. And it sucked.

"How long have you been feeling like this, Remus?" she asked softly.

"Not long," he sniffed. "Or for ages. Always. Just this week? I don't know."

He really didn't know. Some of the feeling and worries had been around for a while, since he knew Dora was pregnant. But he had thought that he'd pushed those ones away. Apparently not. And then there were the more recent ones. The ones about the werewolf curse. You'd think that that would have been a prominent worry right from the start for him but it had only hit him recently that he was going to be an actual dad to a real live baby the past month or so. It had all been an abstract concept up until then. Was that bad? He was pretty sure that that was bad.

A real baby meant that it was, well, real. With hands and feet and a teeny, tiny body that he could hurt. He didn't want to hurt his child!

Lily sighed and Remus didn't think she was exasperated with him but she did sound tired.

"What if I never make amends with Dora?" He continued. "I've already messed that up enough. What kind of misfortune would I bring to a child?"

"You're going to make a great father, Remus." Lily said with misplaced conviction.

"You don't know that."

"Of course, I do. You're a great person, Remus Lupin, any child would be lucky to have you as a father."

"Yeah," Remus snorted. "A father who's shunned for being cursed and who can't hold down a job and screws everything up."

"You do not screw everything up," Lily scolded him.

"I am the other things though."

"And you can't help those other things. That doesn't mean you won't be a good dad!"

"Doesn't it, though?"

And now that was an exasperated sigh from Lily. She even rubbed at her eyes. Thankfully, she didn't try any meaningless platitudes on him. He didn't think he would be able to stick it.

"It will all turn out okay," she said optimistically.

Remus wanted to but he didn't think he could believe her. Not yet, anyway.

Wednesday 14th May 1980

The Ministry, 12:30

Peter couldn't help but feel a bit smug as the group he hung around with at work discussed how the Wizangamot was actually considering a piece of legislation that had fallen through twice before over lunch today. There was hardly any opposition now, you see. Of course, it still had to go up against all the Lords and such but the fact that it was being placed before the Wizangamot was a big step. And he had had a hand in it. Not that he could brag about it, unfortunately. He didn't want to get himself in any sort of trouble even if he was doing some good. Certain people wouldn't see it that way. 3ven amongst people like this who agreed with the result but didn't like to think about how you got to that result.

He sniffed at that thought. Cowards that made them, in his opinion. Yoyo had to do things in order to get things done. That much he knew now.

And he was doing things. Useful things. Everyone had told him how useful he was being now and he rather liked it. Even though most of the time they were saying it incredulously, like they were shocked he could do something but he would take it.

It was pretty amazing what you could overhear at the Ministry if you made yourself inconspicuous enough. And Peter was a pretty inconspicuous person. People just didn't seem to pay any attention to him. Which, normally, he loathed - he hated being ignored - but for this it was actually a good thing. A very good thing. Because he learned so much. Who knew you could learn so much from just listening in on people? It was great!

He'd even turned into Wormtail for some of his eavesdropping. Not that he was ever going to tell anyone that particular detail. But it was a very successful way of doing that. Nott and Avery and everyone who was imprimatur in this whole group had been very impressed with him. They even said that he might progress up faster than all the others, he was that good! Peter hoped that was the case because that would be amazing.

See? He could be useful and good at something. He just needed to be doing the right thing and it turned out that this was it, how cool was that? He ways had been a good lookout for the Marauders and somehow this was even easier. No McGonagall to contend with, for one. Or sneaky portraits.

Yep, he was doing a pretty good job, these days. And that felt good.

Saturday 17th May 1980

Marauder Flat, 11:00

"You need to talk to Remus," Lily said, sitting next to her, making the sofa dip.

"Excuse me?" Dora asked with a frown.

Why did she have to talk to Remus? Had he done something? Was he going to do something?

"What's wrong?" She asked in a panic, her mind jumping to all the worst possible scenarios.

Was he hurt? Injured badly? Was he in the hospital? Or not? Bleeding?

"Hey, hey," Lily said, eyes widening as she noticed the change to Dora's breathing. "He's not hurt or anything. He's okay. Relatively speaking."

"What do you mean "relatively speaking"?" She asked, her voice going shrill.

"Nothing. I mean. None of us okay anymore but, you know what Remus is like," she rambled.

She wasn't making any sense and Dora hated when things didn't make any sense.

"So, what's wrong with him then?" She demanded. "What did he tell you?"

But Lily was shaking her head.

"I can't tell you that. You need to ask him."

"How am I supposed to do that if I don't know what's wrong?"

Lily could just tell her and then she could fix whatever needed fixing! But Lily was still shaking her head.

"No. It was said to me in confidence."

"But you're telling me that something's wrong."

"Because you can fix it."

"Even though you're not telling me what I need to fix?" Dora asked sceptically.

Lily nodded and patted her on the leg before standing up again. "Exactly."

Tuesday 20th May 1980

Godric's Hollow, 17:30

"I like this," Lily said, looking around them. "I really like this."

"You do?"

James was so hopeful looking at her announcement. They were back to looking for their own little house. Something smaller than Potter Manor. James couldn't face living there right now, despite them not needing a place away from his parents now. Lily understood. She knew he saw ghosts around every corner. He wasn't comfortable there anymore. And she wanted their home to be somewhere safe for him. Safe for both of them.

Hence, the house searching. This was the second one of the day and who knows what number it was out of their original list.

But it was a successful one. Even more so than some of the others that they'd liked. Somehow, she felt like this one was different. Better even. Yes, it was smaller than some of the houses they'd been looking it. It only had three bedrooms, for one. But it was cosy and inviting. And that was far more important to her. That and the gorgeous, big fireplace in the living room. She'd always wanted one like that.

"I could see us and our baby loving here and growing up here," she said, pressing a kiss to his lips.

It was a nice, homey sort of place. Just perfect for a small family.

"And the Marauders," James added.

Lily laughed. "Of course, we couldn't leave half of the family out."

Because you couldn't, they were all that tightly entwined. She could imagine Sunday dinners here, with everyone in attendance. Siri's playing with their baby. Remus reading to it. Dora amusing it with her hair. Chryssie singing to it. Severus trying to teach it. Board games. Card games. Curled up around the fire. She could imagine all of it. And she couldn't wait. That was the kind of future she wanted, James wanted and it looked like they were getting closer and closer to that.

"We should really start thinking of names," James said with a smile. "Stop calling it 'the baby'."

"I still want to be surprised," Lily said stubbornly.

Something positive to surprise her for a change, that had been her latest decision on their baby's sex. Which had changed at their last appointment but whatever.

"I know," James reassured her. "But we could come up with names for boys and girls."

"True."

That sounded like a lot of fun, actually. Something different. Something exciting. Something that would make their baby more real.

Thursday 22nd May 1980

Longbottom Manor, 15:00

"Oh, please, Frank," Alice pleaded.

"Do we have to do this right now?"

"Yes! Of course, we do, don't you realise that we're running out of time?"

"You're due in two months," he pointed out. "That's more than enough time."

"Six weeks, you mean," she corrected. "And no, it's not!"

"It's just one word, Alice. It can't be that hard to come up with."

"One word that we both have to agree on!"

And their child was going to have to use it for the rest of his life! They couldn't mess that up, they just couldn't. This was important. Extremely important.

"Well," Frank said resolutely. "That can't be too hard, can it?"

"I have a few names that I like," Alice said by way of an answer. "What about you?"

"I haven't really been thinking about it," he admitted.

"Frank!"

"What?"

"You can't be serious?"

He hadn't thought about names at all? For their baby?

"Men don't think about these things," he said defensively.

"Oh, really?" She asked sceptically. "So, there are no names that you don't like?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then you have been thinking about it!"

"No, I haven't," he argued.

"Obviously, you have."

"Everyone has names they don't like."

This was a really stupid thing to argue about, it wasn't even about the names for crying out loud! They were arguing about thinking about names! How stupid was that? Alice couldn't believe it.

"Why don't you start and I'll see if I can come up with any names I like while you talk?" He suggested.

Alice pursed her lips at him, not completely happy with that. In her mind that meant that he'd put little to no thought into his names. Unlike her.

"Well, I suppose the middle name is easy," Alice said, figuring that it would be best to start off gently. "It should be your name."

"You don't want to use your dad's name or anything?" He asked.

Alice shook her head. "He should have yours. You have your father's name as your middle, don't you?"

Frank nodded. "I do. Trevor."

"And I have my mother's name as my middle name. We should keep to that."

And anyway, it was tradition for most purebloods to have their eldest children's middle names to be the same as their parents' names. Alice saw no reason to deviate from that. She kind of wished either the Longbottoms or the Smith had name traditions like the Black's because that meant that coming up with names would be a whole lot easier. There were just too many to choose from.

"So, something, Trevor Longbottom. That's a good start," Alice said, happy that they were thinking about this.

"We need a name that goes well with Trevor," was Frank's opinion.

And she had the perfect name for that. Well, she thought so, anyway.

"What about Vincent?"

It was one of her favourite names. It was so strong and manly sounding to her but Frank was shaking his head.

"Alice, we are not calling our child Vincent."

"Why not?" She asked indignantly. "It's a good name."

"It's really not."

Alice pouted. She thought it was a very sophisticated sounding name. Just the right sort of name for the Heir to the Longbottom family. Nice and strong.

"I like it."

"Well, I don't. And I'm pretty sure that we both have to agree on out child's name."

"Fine, then," she huffed. "Not Vincent."

"Thank you," Frank sighed in relief.

"What about Maurice?"

"Alice."

Tuesday 27th May 1980

Marauder Flat, 10:00

Remus looked down and frowned at her.

"What?" She asked impatiently. "You better not be trying to distract me..."

They were finally having a proper conversation and he does this? No, she didn't think so. They were going to shout and yell at each other until they eventually started talking like normal people and then they would sort this out. They had to sort this out, not keep shying away from this.

But Remus wasn't even looking at her. Not at her face, anyway. In fact, he was looking a lot lower, at her waist? Why was he pointing at her waist? She looked down in confusion.

"Ow," she said dumbly, seeing what had distracted him.

"Um, yeah," Remus said, biting his lip. "Is that-?"

"It's not pee," she said vehemently. Sure, she had a bladder the size of a freaking gobstone these days but that didn't mean she had lost all bladder control. Nope. Well, hopefully not. "I don't think it is," she added a little unsurely.

"But you're all wet," Remus said unnecessarily.

She gave him a glare at that. She was well aware of that, thank you very much. There was a massive dark and wet patch spreading across the crotch of her jeans. A spot that was getting progressive more uncomfortable the longer she stood there. Surely, she would have noticed if she had to pee that badly? At least it wasn't dripping onto the floor. It was carpet so that wouldn't be good.

Now really unsure of herself, she wiped a finger along the damp spot and brought it to her nose and took a big sniff. Was that weird? Almost definitely but she had to check, didn't she?

"It's not pee!" She said triumphantly and not with a little relief.

She hadn't wet herself after all! Now, that was something to celebrate. How pathetic but still, with pregnancy she had learned to take what you could and she was definitely taking this.

Remus was chucking at her so she reached over to thump him on the arm. Just because she was relieved didn't mean he could laugh at her!

And then the laughter stopped and his eyes widened.

"But that means..." Remus said, a look of horror crossing his face.

Dora was pretty sure hers was mirroring his and she came to the exact same relation and looked down at herself again.

Oh no.