Author's Note: What's up, guys? Time for an update, finally! This chapter grew far too long and I really wasn't happy with it. It felt really out of place for this one chapter to be double the length of every other one, so for now, here's part one. The next should hopefully be with you tomorrow or Saturday. The song for this chapter is mentioned in the second scene.

Please enjoy, and I'd like to preface this chapter by promising, 100%, that the next chapter - and indeed, the rest of this fic - is going to be all James Potter, all the time. There was meant to be more of him in this chapter than there is now, but soon you'll be sick of him, honestly (that's a lie - who could ever be sick of James?)

Chapter 5

Ta-Dah!

She had told James - then, before her life erupted like a cola bottle geyser - that she'd once wanted to be a private detective, and Lily felt like one now, skulking in the darkened entrance of the closed sandwich shop that stood across the road from Trelawney's house, with her hood pulled down almost over her face to protect from an unprecedented downpour, watching the front door like a hawk and waiting for her mark to make an appearance.

It wasn't fun, like she'd thought it would be as a curious, idealistic child. It wasn't anything. It didn't feel like anything because all she was capable of feeling was the rock-hard knot of anxiety that had settled in her chest one week ago, given every sheen-coated plan she'd ever made a hasty middle-finger, and covered itself in cement.

Mary had suggested she go to Trelawney's class and talk to Remus that way, because really, wasn't standing outside in the rain a little dramatic? Wasn't it something Sirius would do in a crisis situation? Wasn't Lily likely to get a cold if she stayed outside for too long in such terrible weather, and wouldn't that be bad for the baby?

Baby. Baby. Baby.

She might as well have called it a deluge.

It was alright for Mary, this only affected her in an abstract sort of way. She'd cleaned the toilet after the sheer emotional upheaval of three positive tests saw Lily hunched over the porcelain to spill her guts like a popped water balloon. She'd held her hair then, and her hand, at the doctor's office the next day, but Mary didn't have to walk around wondering if the things she touched and drank and ingested were good for the baby. Mary could have some pâté on toast without worrying that she'd pass listeria to the baby. Mary wasn't grappling with the prospect of dropping out of uni because she couldn't afford the baby. Mary had slept pretty well for the past few nights because she wasn't being kept up with terrifying thoughts of the baby. And Mary cared, so much, but Lily was alone, and frightened, and not yet ready for someone, anyone, to look her in the eye in all seriousness and say, "Won't that be bad for the baby?"

Babies didn't get you from the day they were born, they got you from the day you knew they existed, and Lily had silenced her with a look.

This fucking, fucking, fucking baby.

She hated this fucking baby.

But she wanted this fucking baby.

Remus was one in a procession of students who filed out of Trelawney's house with rucksacks slung over their backs, visible in the darkness only by the light from a nearby street lamp. When he paused at her front gate to open his umbrella, Lily dashed across the empty road, splashing through a deceptively deep puddle that immediately soaked her trainers and socks.

She'd probably catch a cold and be forced to sit in silence while Mary rubbed VapoRub into her back and assured her in anxious tones that embryonic pneumonia wasn't a thing, which didn't sound so bad, at least, not the back rub. She could have used a massage, if it were permissible for pregnant women to get them. That was yet another question to add to the list of hundreds, and with each one came the growing certainty that she was an utterly terrible mother in the making.

Her friend jumped slightly as she appeared around the side of Trelawney's forest green Fiat Punto, his eyes widening. "Lily?"

"Remus!" she cried, in an attempt to sound breezy that fell flat on its face before it left her lips. "Just the man I was looking for!"

"You weren't in class—"

"I know, I know, I had a thing," she said, and stepped beneath the umbrella that Remus extended towards her. "No Sirius?"

"Sirius is still inside."

"Getting dressed?"

"Packing up," said Remus, looking pained. "He's joined the class."

"Are you serious?"

"Trelawney finally decided that we needed to move on to still life compositions, so she offered him unlimited free lessons as a thank you for his hard work."

"But all he did was sit there naked."

"That was enough to satiate whatever primal urge Trelawney tried and failed to conceal from us, it seems." Remus shifted his weight from one foot to another, inadvertently jerking the umbrella and sending droplets of rainwater skittering in all directions. "Are you alright?"

Lily didn't know how to tell him that she'd spent the past week skipping uni, watching Riverdale in her pyjamas and crying snotty tears into her pillow because an incompetent masked killer on the loose in a small town somehow didn't seem as terrifying as her own predicament. "Fantastic, thanks. I was just hoping to talk to you."

"About...?"

"Maybe we could go and sit down somewhere? Get a hot chocolate or something?" she suggested, as Sirius appeared in Trelawney's doorway and came bounding down the garden path as if he'd caught Remus being mugged, not simply chatting to a friend. "Just you and me? I don't think Sirius would—"

"Evans," said Sirius coldly, halting before her.

She lifted her hand for a half-hearted wave. "Hi, Sirius."

"It's been some time."

"Um - yeah, I suppose?"

Sirius was looking at her as if she was a snail in his lunch. "What's a dame like you doing in a place like this?"

"Why are you talking like we're in a film noir?"

"He watched The Big Sleep last night and thinks he's Humphrey Bogart all of a sudden," said Remus, and elbowed his friend's chest. "Shut up, Sirius. Lily needs to talk to me about something, so we're going to Costa, maybe?"

She nodded. "Costa is fine."

"Anything to get out of this rain."

"All three of us, I assume?" said Sirius.

"No, just me and Lil."

"Oh." The downpour was so heavy that Sirius's long hair was already rain-sodden, but he didn't seem to care that Remus hadn't offered him the same shelter he'd offered Lily. "Working your way through my mates, are you?"

"Sirius—"

She felt herself shrink into her shoulders a little, which wouldn't have happened if she'd been at full strength, but she was so far from okay that her usual talent for a cutting comeback had all but disintegrated into nonexistence. "I wasn't—"

"It's nothing," said Remus firmly.

"I think she deserves to hear it," said Sirius. "He's our best mate—"

"—and a grown man."

"I wouldn't have thought you capable, Evans," Sirius continued. "You seemed so sweet and innocent."

"Let's go, Lily," said Remus loudly, and gripped her elbow to tug her away. "Before Sirius says something stupid and offensive, as he so often loves to do."

"You enabler," Sirius accused.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw Remus roll his eyes to heaven. "Sod off and go home," he called over his shoulder. "And remember to get toilet paper on the way."

"I'll remember to forget."

"Of course he will," said Remus under his breath.

They didn't speak properly again - nothing but meaningless comments about the weather, or a quick exchange of orders - until they'd made the short walk to the Costa Coffee on Mill Road and settled in at a table, with a tea for Lily and a hot chocolate for Remus. As he joined her at the table with their drinks, she remembered far too late that Sirius had let Mary give him a handjob before announcing his vow of chastity, and that she should have given him a bollocking for it, rather than wilt away like the meek, witless woman she wasn't.

Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again" was playing on the café's speakers, which was prophetic, or depressing, or both. She'd been going it alone since her parents' deaths, with little or no help from anyone, including and most especially her sister, who rarely answered her texts and phoned her only when she had a big announcement to brag about. The last one had been about a big deal her husband had struck with a prominent building contractor that would be greatly beneficial to his drill company.

Petunia would be livid when she found out about the pregnancy.

Before she told her sister, though, Lily needed to tell James, and it had to be face-to-face, or she would be the worst possible version of herself. For that, she needed Remus, who normally had a gift for inspiring calm, but some situations were too fraught to be soothed, even by him.

"So," he said, after a brief chat about their respective workloads. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Just things," she said, rather lamely.

"What things?"

"I don't see why we have to get into it immediately—"

"And if I was less worried about you, I'd agree," said Remus emphatically, wiping a drop of whipped cream from the edge of his mug and pressing his finger into a napkin. "But you've been acting off lately and this place is only open for another hour, so getting into it immediately might be in both our best interests."

"How are you more mature than I am?"

Remus grinned, and picked up his drink. "You can thank congenital heart disease for that one."

"And my dead parents count for nothing?"

"I've had my problem since birth," he reminded her. "You've got years to go yet. Tell me what you need to talk about, and I'll preface this conversation by assuming you haven't brought me here to give me my half of that cake."

Remus wasn't the one to hold her hand through all of this, but his joke helped, and he hadn't turned on her like Sirius appeared to have done.

"Alright," she agreed, and pursed her lips to expel a puff of air. "So, do you remember your friend, James?"

"I've known him since I was five, so there's a vague recollection." Remus didn't look surprised by the mention of him. "He said things went a little south with you two."

"He did?"

Remus nodded.

"What do you mean, things went a little south?" she said, and didn't bother trying to hide the dismay. "What did he say?"

"Just that - well, he's not the type to share details, honestly - he only said that you had a nice night together, but that you didn't seem too happy with him the next morning."

"He said that?"

Again, Remus nodded. "Not verbatim, but you know—"

"Oh, God," Lily groaned, and buried her face in her hands. "Of course he bloody did."

"Did he do something to upset you, or—"

"No."

"Then what happened?"

She ran her palms along her face, then rubbed her middle fingers across her lower eyelids. "Nothing. I really liked him, but I woke up with my mum's bloody voice in my head, went into a shame spiral and acted like a total idiot, which apparently made him feel like I didn't."

"Ah."

"Blame the societal conditioning that made me this way," she instructed him, and dropped her hands on the table. "Or my parents, but not me. Maybe a little bit me. This is such a mess."

Remus was smiling knowingly at his hot chocolate. "So you do like him, then?"

"He and I can't happen."

"But you just said—"

"Do I think he's the fittest man I've ever met? Yes. Would I have gone out with him if he'd asked me to, at the time? Of course. Only a lunatic wouldn't, but honestly, that doesn't even matter now and it's not what I should be thinking about."

"Why not?"

"Doesn't matter," she said, and shook her shoulder as if to displace an irksome fly. "It's just that I need to talk to him about something, and I'd rather do it face-to-face, so I was hoping you'd invite him up this weekend."

"Why?" Remus let out a dry laugh. "You're not pregnant, are you?"

He said it like it was the funniest, most impossible thing he could imagine - his studious, responsible, I've-got-a-plan-for-everything friend getting knocked up by his best mate after a drunken night of unprotected sex - and Lily felt as if he'd thrown his drink in her face.

"Yeah," she said, in a deadened kind of way.

She hadn't wanted to tell anyone but Mary until she talked to James, but there was no hiding the hollow misery in her sleep-deprived face, as sure as the rain that hammered relentlessly on the pavement outside, and she watched his brown eyes widen as the truth sank in, reflecting her own feelings back at her.

"You're—" He touched his mouth with the tips of his three middle fingers, staring not at her but though her, it seemed. "Really?"

She nodded.

"This isn't a joke?"

"I think I'm funny enough to think of something better than that, Remus," she said, though she could feel a now-familiar pricking in the corners of her eyes, and a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob escaped her. "Come on, now."

"Oh my God."

"Yup."

"I'm so sorry, Lil, I didn't mean—"

"It's fine."

"No, I shouldn't have said - I just - oh my God," he repeated. He looked mortified, either by her news or by the poor-timing of his own joke, staring at her as if an extra head had spouted from her shoulder. "But you - I didn't think—"

"—that I'd be that stupid?"

"No, of course not," he said, looking panicked. "I meant that I assumed you'd used something."

"I have a birth control implant, which I thought was working because like an idiot I lost track of dates," she said, annoyed by the solitary tear that slid down her cheek, so strangely juxtaposed with the cold, clinical way in which she was speaking. "But it wasn't, and neither of us so much as mentioned a condom, so I can kiss goodbye to my PhD and your friend is going to be a father, which just about covers it, I think, so you'll understand why I need to see him as soon as possible."

"You're keeping the baby?"

She nodded, and brushed her thumb across her cheek to wipe the tear away, straining her eyes to keep more from spilling. Her tea was going to get cold.

"So, what are you going to do about uni?" he said. He still looked utterly bamboozled, but he was taking the news better than Mary, who had stupidly suggested vodka before realising that a night of heavy drinking wouldn't be an option for Lily, at which point she had sat down and given herself in to a bout of nervous, hysterical laughter for a good five minutes. "Are you going to finish the year first? Will you take—"

"I love you, Remus," she interrupted. There was a table between them, but if there weren't, she would have put a hand on his shoulder. "I really do. You're one of my best friends, and as much as I think you'd be a great shoulder to cry on, I don't - I can't talk about this right now because I don't know, and honestly I don't even want to."

"That's understandable, I suppose."

"Also, I think I'm supposed to be having these discussions with the father first."

"Right," said Remus. "The father." He wrapped his hands around his mug. "Shit."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Lily's nerves were too frayed for her to let that go. "He's going to hate me, isn't he?"

"He'd never—"

"He's going to think I got pregnant on purpose, or he won't want anything to do with the baby, or—"

"No, of course not!" said Remus quickly, the volume of his voice rising a little higher than perhaps he would have liked. "James is one of the best people I know, he'll step up and do the right thing. It's just strange to think of him having a baby, that's all."

Her racing heart, lately so quick to assume the worst, slowed a little. "Oh."

"He's always wanted to be a dad."

"Has he?"

"Yeah, even when we were kids. Sirius and I thought it was a little weird, to be honest."

There was no reason to point out that James probably wanted to become a father in the same way most people would - when he was older, and in a long-lasting, stable relationship with someone he loved and trusted enough to want to make children with - because they both already knew.

She toyed with the sleeve of her rain-dampened hoodie. "Have you - you and Sirius and James, and Peter - have you all been friends since you were children?"

"Best mates since Year 1," said Remus. "The four of us have always been tight-knit, but James and Sirius are like nothing else I've ever seen."

"They're very close?"

"Like brothers, except most brothers I know don't get along as well as they do."

"And Sirius is protective of him?"

Remus frowned. "If this is about what he said—"

"He hates me now, I suppose."

"No, he doesn't, he's just being dramatic. I think James was a little downcast because he thought, incorrectly, as we now know, that you weren't interested in seeing him again, and Sirius took offence. He's of the belief that everyone who knows James must love him as much as he does, or they're not worth speaking to."

A week ago, the news that James had wanted to see her again would have been music to her ears. Now, all it did was add to her trash heap of guilt and confusion. The bloody baby had pulverised any hope she had of starting something light and fun, and seeing where it went from there. Romance, now, had to be the last thing on her mind.

"Well, that's great," she said. "I can't wait to make everything better by ruining his best friend's life. Sirius will be over the moon."

"What Sirius thinks won't matter—"

"It'll matter to James—"

"It won't," said Remus firmly. "Sirius is his best friend, not his keeper, and I already told you, James is a good bloke. He'll take care of you."

"I can take care of myself, you know."

"I'm well aware," he said, with a sad, apologetic smile, and in a most un-Remus-like gesture, reached across the table to cover her hand with his own. "But he'll take care of you anyway."

Lily didn't catch a cold, and she and Remus hatched a plan between them.

James was contacted by phone right there in the café - while Lily sat across the table and nervously shredded a napkin to pieces with her fidgeting fingers, her stomach flip-flopping at the distant sound of his voice - and lured to Cambridge under the pretence of, "Sirius is missing you, why don't you pop up on Saturday and surprise him?" which, apparently, was not an uncommon request for Remus to make, and served the twofold purpose of getting James there and keeping Sirius in the dark about it.

Remus suspected, and Lily strongly agreed, that it was best for all involved if Sirius didn't know of the impending visit. He would likely refuse to give them any privacy, and his presence would only make things difficult.

Knowing that there was a plan did nothing to dissipate her anxieties, but it gave her the focus she needed to stop skipping uni and return to her coursework. She had three days to fill, so she busied herself in catching up on what she'd missed at school, while Mary threw out all of her microwave meals, presented her with hearty, home-cooked dinners in the evenings and reminded her to take her folic acid. Lily did as she was bidden and ate as much as she could, though she had no appetite to speak of, and always present was that knot of worry, but at least she had graduated from dirty sweatpants and ridiculous-yet-addictive teen drama shows.

If she had been faced with any other problem, Lily would have tackled it head on, with research, lists and careful planning, but everything seemed pointless until she spoke to James and knew for sure if she was bringing this baby into the world by herself, or as part of a team.

To spare herself unnecessary pain, she told herself she'd be alone, and tried to disregard everything Remus had told her.

Saturday took an age to come, and saw Lily trudging to the museum though the downpour that had battered the city for almost a week, wrapped in an oversized raincoat, complete with hat, gloves and scarf, which had been forced upon her by her increasingly watchful housemate. The past week-and-a-half had seen Mary morph from a carefree Classics student to Sarah Connor in a floral-print dress and woollen tights, utterly convinced that she alone stood between Lily's baby - whom she had named Mary Junior - and certain death. She wouldn't have been surprised to come home from uni one day to find Mary poised in the living room with a ceremonial sword, which she would lay at Lily's feet in order to swear fealty to her unborn child.

James was driving up at some point in the early afternoon, so said Remus, in order to arrive after Sirius was out of the house. She had a full shift to get through first, made all the more difficult by the presence of Kingsley, who was in a bad mood after a terrible Tinder date from the night before.

"I had to make him grilled cheese sandwiches when he got back because he was so depressed," said Anna moodily. She and Kingsley had been living together since the day he'd walked out on his long-term boyfriend and turned up on her doorstep with nothing but the clothes on his back and the Croquade waffle maker he'd won in an argument with said ex. "He woke me up at 2am, looking for comfort, as if I was his fucking mama," she added, with a glare for their boss. "You human disaster."

"Jesus, Kingsley," said Lily, wiping down the counter with a damp rag, privately thinking that she'd gladly swap her current situation for one date with a man who confessed halfway through the evening that his favourite show was The Big Bang Theory, and that she'd be able to handle it with a lot more grace than Kingsley had. She'd woken up feeling nauseous, and she wasn't sure if it was just nerves or the beginnings of morning sickness.

"You don't understand, you're both young and pretty," Kingsley retorted. "Your whole lives are ahead of you. I'm a geriatric—"

"You're forty-two," said Anna.

"You've had three stalkers," Lily put in.

"Not in years," Kingsley reminded her, running a hand over his shiny bald head. "My problem, children, is that I'm one of those beautiful, interesting people who carries on being beautiful but eventually stops being interesting, and all I can land at my age are the dregs who don't mind that I'm too old to stay out all night."

"Isn't Leicester playing today?" said Anna desperately. Kingsley could always be counted upon to slip into his office whenever his beloved football team were playing to watch the match on Sky Go.

"Yes, against Burnley, but not until 3."

"Well, go to the office anyway," Anna instructed. "There's a tsunami outside, it'll be dead for another few hours, and I'm sick of the sight of you."

Kingsley huffed and puffed, but Anna's grilled cheese sandwiches were too good for him to risk losing, so he dragged his huge, muscular body into the back room, leaving the girls alone. Not one person had entered the café since they'd opened an hour earlier, due to the rain, which was reaching critical mass.

"Sometimes, I really want to murder him," Anna sighed. "But he'll probably still be living with me when he's eighty."

"What about when you move back to Sweden?"

"He'll follow me there."

"He hates flying."

"On a handmade raft, if necessary." She hoisted herself up onto the counter's edge. "What's got you upset?"

"Nothing," said Lily, realising as she did that she had been wiping the exact same spot for several minutes. "I feel a bit ill from last week, that's all."

"It seems like that was a bad flu you had."

"Tell me about it. I spent all of last weekend in bed." This, technically, was not a lie, but two other people had already found out about the baby before its father, which felt unfair to James, so Lily was determined to keep it under wraps until further notice. "Caught up on Riverdale, though."

"The Black Hood is totally Betty's dad, right?"

"You reckon?"

"It has to be," she said, her hands flying animatedly into the air. "Remember when he called Betty and said that her mother was a thorn in both their sides, and how he tried to get her to break up with—"

But while Anna was discussing her theory in depth, Lily was distracted by the arrival of their first customer of the day, who sped into the café with a spider's twitch, his wet feet squelching on the tiled floor, raindrops sparkling in his greasy black hair, and headed determinedly in Lily's direction.

Her heart sank.

"Lily," said Severus, greeting her, as he always did, in a desperate, breathy voice, as if he were a war veteran returning to his wife after ten long years on a deserted island.

"No," she replied, and moved towards Anna, who had noticed Sev's presence and slid off the counter. Undaunted, Severus stepped sideways to keep Lily within reach, or as close to it as possible

"I just need five minutes of your time," he said, his dark eyes roving over her face. "Please?"

"Fuck off, Snape," said Anna coldly.

Severus bristled, the features of his pallid face twisting into a scowl. "What would your boss think if I told him that you speak to customers like this?"

"I'm so sorry," she sweetly amended, and tossed a tea towel over her shoulder. "Kindly fuck off."

Severus had been approaching Lily in various locales - work, uni and once outside her flat - on random occasions over the past six months, hoping to convince her to reverse her decision to end their friendship. Depending on her mood, she could sometimes find herself drawn into an argument, but today she was far too stressed to deal with another of Severus's heartfelt pleas. Besides which, she was starting to feel as if she might throw up for real.

She slipped behind the espresso machine and waited for Anna to handle the situation.

"Where's your manager?" Snape spat. "I want to lodge a formal complaint against you."

"Kingsley doesn't speak to racists."

"I'm not a racist!"

"So you go to anti-Muslim rallies for the free snacks?"

"If you ever listened to what Riddle has to say, and stopped subscribing to mindless, leftist propaganda—"

"Should I have him thrown out, Lily?"

"—or even read his manifesto, you'd see that we operate on a platform of protecting Britain's values—"

"Yes, from non-white immigrants and harmless religions, we know," Anna interrupted. "I think I will have you thrown out. Hang on while I fetch our manager, he can tell you all about his Tanzanian mother while he's dragging you out the door."

"I didn't come here to argue about politics with the likes of you," Severus snarled, as Anna made to turn around. "I came here to talk to Lily."

"Lily doesn't want to talk to you."

"She's right," Lily agreed, sidling out from behind the espresso machine. Severus loved nothing more than an opportunity to climb atop his soapbox and stay there for far too long, and her brain was processing too much to spare energy for a conversation leaden with passive-aggressive attempts to make her guilty. She had to get him out before he got into his stride. "I don't want to talk to you, and you should leave."

His expression softened into something slavish and adoring, which was uncomfortable to witness. "Lily—"

"Please, just go."

"—your hair has grown a little, it's really pretty."

"I'll tell Anna to fetch Kingsley if you don't leave."

"Twelve years, we were friends," he reminded her, somewhat pathetic looking with his dripping wet hair and waxy skin, in a thin old jacket that was too small for him because he'd had it for a decade and couldn't afford to replace it. "A real friend would respect differences in opinion, not abandon me for them."

Lily sighed, and brought her hands to her temples. Severus had been one of her best friends since she was a child, until her long-held, niggling feeling of doubt regarding some dubious political leanings grew too big to ignore, and after she cut him out she found - despite the pain, and despite her fear that she had deprived him of his only real source of emotional support - that she could breathe in a way she hadn't been able to before. Their friendship had been marked by fits of jealousy and possessiveness on his part, and towards the end she had been painfully aware that his feelings for her were rather more than platonic.

She wondered what Severus would think if he found out she was pregnant, and especially what he'd say if he could see the father for himself.

"I'm not feeling well, Severus, so I can't deal with this today," she said, massaging her head with her fingers. She was definitely going to throw up soon.

"It won't take long—"

"Besides, I got a verbal warning the last time you came here," she lied. The last time Snape had come, oozing contrition and brimming with pleas, only to turn nasty when she refused to listen, Kingsley had taken her into the back and brewed her a cup of jasmine tea to cheer her up. "Just leave, please, before Anna gets Kingsley and you get us both in trouble."

Severus looked between the two girls, silent for a moment. Lily could practically see the cogs turning in his brain.

"Fine," he said eventually. "I'll go, but only because I don't want you to lose your job. This conversation is not over—"

"Yes, Sev, it is."

"—and I'll speak to you when you're feeling better," he finished, ignoring her completely, and turned on his heel.

"Prick," said Anna darkly, as Severus slouched out the way he'd came. "You're not nearly mean enough to him, you know."

"I know."

"I've heard you tear men apart for less in pubs."

"I know," Lily repeated. "But you heard him, we were friends for twelve years. It's hard to be cruel to someone you once cared about. Still care about, really."

"I can give you lessons, if you like. Just observe me with Kings."

"But Kings is nice, really."

"Exactly." Anna shrugged. "And I'm awful to him. Snape deserves so much worse."

"I need to use the loo," she said. "Back in a second."

Perhaps Anna would think she had hurried away to cry, Lily reflected, as she bent over the toilet and spewed her guts up. Since she spent a good potion of her time crying lately, or wanting to cry when she couldn't, it wouldn't be much of a stretch.

Severus and his ceaseless mission. She'd see James in a matter of hours. This fucking, fucking baby, and everything that came with it.

It was getting to be too much.

At 3pm, she got a text from Remus, one that simply read, 'He's here,' and realised that she wasn't capable of waiting until the end of her shift.

Her boss, who was never keen on letting employees leave early despite his own penchant for sneaking off to watch football, didn't believe Lily when she claimed that she had suddenly come down with a headache, which caused a minor delay in her journey. He relented, though, when in a burst of impatience, she revealed that she had to go and tell some bloke she hardly knew that she was carrying his unborn child, but that she'd stay if he really thought that was less important than some anorak-wearing ceramic enthusiast getting his pot of Earl Grey in a timely manner.

Kingsley did not think that was less important, and sent her on her way with a nervous, yet surprisingly gentle hug for a man who wouldn't have looked out of place in a Marvel movie.

The rain was still torrential, and though Lily had made a vow to herself that she'd hold on to her pennies, she couldn't face another cold, wet walk like the one she'd taken to work that morning - only partly because she'd retouched her makeup and fixed her hair during her lunch hour, in light of the impending reunion - so she took a taxi to Remus's house, hoping for a moment of peace before the storm. Unfortunately, her driver was one of those overly chatty types - "Ernie Prang's the name, taxi driving is my game!" - who attempted to draw her into conversation by discussing the weather, how much better the weather had been at his daughter's wedding in Magaluf, his distaste for Theresa May, how much he disliked his daughter's new husband, and his toe surgery, complete with an innumerable smattering of dad jokes. It was a fair whack for a fifteen-minute drive, and Lily had to pull out the illness excuse to account for her silence. She normally liked a good natter with a left-leaning cabbie, but her head wasn't up for it.

When did dad jokes start? After the baby was born? Before? Once they reached a certain age? Was she dooming James Potter to lifetime spent cracking wise about how he'd been an iWitness to a robbery at the Apple store?

She'd never been to visit Remus at his house before, but the maisonette was recognisable by the plague mask Sirius had mounted at his bedroom window, facing outwards for everyone to see. According to Mary, he'd had a few complaints about it from the jumpy Norwegians across the road who were unnerved to see it watching them when they tried to shut their curtains at night.

She was feeling fairly jumpy herself, when she knocked on Remus's door, though the last thing she expected was for James himself to come bouncing up, his frame distorted by the rippled glass pane, and open it himself.

He did, though, and his mouth fell open when he saw her.

"Lily," he said immediately, his hand jumping to tangle in his messy hair.

He was wearing a t-shirt with the silhouette of a stag printed on the front, staring at her in shock, and she had forgotten - or underestimated, or ignored - just how gorgeous he was, and how powerful she had allowed her newly-minted feelings to grow, but her heart gladly reminded her.

And that was bad. Terrible. She was having his baby, and the poor sod didn't know it yet. Now wasn't the time for unbidden thoughts of kissing him, as if that would make everything else melt away, as if kissing him hadn't been pebble that started this landslide in the first place.

"James," she said, her tongue as dry as sandpaper. "Hi."

"Hi," he repeated.

A door slammed shut in the hall behind him, and Remus's head appeared over James's shoulder.

"Ah, Lily!" he cried, with a brightness that seemed terribly forced in comparison to the mute, dumbstruck staring that Lily and James were both currently embroiled in. "Sorry, I was in the loo, wasn't expecting you until later. Please, come in."

James stood back to let her pass him by, his lips pressed together, and she slid into the hall without another word, her eyes fixed determinedly on Remus now. He obviously hadn't been forewarned of her arrival, which was fair enough. Remus's job was to facilitate a meeting, not prepare James for the life-changing news he was about to hear. She wondered if it had been difficult for him to act as if everything was normal, knowing what he knew. She owed him rather a lot, she supposed. Certainly more than half a cake.

"Come through to the living room," Remus instructed, urging them both to follow him. Through the door at the end of the hall, she found herself in a good-sized lounge - at least a third of which was taken up by the largest flat-screen television she had ever seen - with two squishy red sofas, an old bookshelf creaking with the weight of so many hardbacks, a desk piled with psychology textbooks and an exceptionally well-stocked bar. Half modest, half ostentatious wealth. Half Remus, half Sirius.

Nobody sat, when they were all in and Lily had taken off her coat, but Remus clapped his hands together once.

"So," he said. "Now that you're both here—"

"What's going on?" said James.

"—I'm going out," Remus finished, with an apologetic smile. "Look, mate, Lily will explain everything, but I think I should make myself scarce. Would either of you like something from Tesco? No?"

James frowned at him in bewilderment. Lily squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed at her temples.

"Brilliant, I'm broke anyway," said Remus. "So I'll just go, and, er - good luck, both of you."

He practically ran from the house, once he'd put his coat on, and Lily couldn't blame him for his haste to get away. She barely wanted to be around for this conversation, but unless she could put Mary in a ginger wig and pass her off as another person - and something told her James would notice - her presence was required.

James watched him leave, but turned to Lily as soon as the front door clicked shut, essentially locking them both in together.

"Why," he began, regarding her curiously. "Do I get the feeling that I've been set up somehow?"

"Probably because you have been," she admitted. "How are you?"

"I'm okay?" he said. "I think. Mostly confused. How are you?"

Fine. Fine. Say you're fine. It's just one word. One syllable. It means nothing. It's a safe way to start, then ease him into it. Tell him that you're fine, and don't just blurt out— "Pregnant."

James blinked at her. "What?"

Well.

That was one way to go about it.