The prompt for this one is "closed".
Glory and Ashes
Behind Closed Doors
Alice looks at the golden potion and feels the room spinning around her. She has forgotten how to breathe, how to think even. She gropes her way to a chair and sits down, her head resting on one hand, the tiny vial that means disaster in the other.
What are they going to do? How could they have been so foolish, so criminally careless? She is twenty-six, Frank is nearly thirty. They aren't children. They are old enough to know better.
What kind of a world is this to bring a child into? How can their child ever be safe with parents so deeply involved in the war against You-Know-Who? What on earth are they going to do? How can they have a baby now?
Alice is still sitting in the chair, unmoving, white-faced and tearless, when Frank comes in.
She shows him the tube wordlessly, and sees her own fear and horror reflected in his eyes. But he takes her in his arms and kisses her and whispers that it will be alright somehow.
She almost believes him.
Lily looks at the potion in the tiny tube. It is definitely golden in colour. She is sure now. This is the third time she has done the charm, and the result has been the same every time. She is going to be a mother.
She puts a hand over her stomach and smiles. A baby. A baby for her and James – and for Sirius and Peter and Remus, who Lily knows will inevitably claim their share in him (or her).
She cannot wait for James to come home.
When he does, and she tells him her – their – news, he is as happy as she is.
A baby – hope for the future in a terrifying world.
What could be better?