Chapter 7: Surprise

James Potter, Lily Potter, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Severus Snape were all gathered in Snapes privet chambers. James' eyes grew wide, Sirius' mouth dropped open, and the Malfoy's looked like had been dumped in frigid water. Lily was barely restraining the urge to bounce in her seat. Snape gave her an amused smile, he remembered clearly many a times when she got excited over something and acted much the same way, she was much better at not jumping off the walls and wasn't squealing this time. Remus looked nervous, excited, amused, and worried at the same time.

"I'm sorry, what?" James and Sirius looked between Snape, Lily and Remus with bemused expressions. The Malfoys had regained their composer and looked as cool, calm and collected as ever.

"About a week ago we were together," a blush colored both Snape's and Remus' faces. "It was around ten or eleven at night, he was out of bed and somehow wound outside my door. He sang.

"You all know, the Malfoy's especially, what a kuroyokubo's song is still capable of."

Remus looked briefly at Snape before taking over. "Though a young k-bo song isn't as powerful as an adult's, it turns out that young Draco's song was just powerful enough to accomplish its intended task."

It was silent for a few moments, then James spoke up. "So come…what…July, we'll have a mini Moony running around then?"

"Yes, though I highly doubt he or she will be running," Remus answered.

"Well, that will be fun," Sirius spoke up a cheery smile on his face.

Snape watched the two of them closely, waiting for the hammer to fall.

"Of course you will take care of them, right?" Sirius asked lightly, a hard glint betraying his true feelings. "Being a fellow Marauder, we think of Remus as a little brother. If you hurt him or the baby in any way, those pranks James and I played on you, will be tame compared to what we will do to you." Sirius' voice had gone seriously quiet near the end.

Snape suppressed a shudder, knowing the threat was more a promise both of them planned on keeping. He gave a curt nod to show his understanding.

"Good."

"Well, now that that is settled," Lily spoke up, "we can get down to the business of actually planning for the baby's arrival."

The men (minus Remus) looked at her in confusion, Remus looked at her in curiosity, while Narcissa gave a slight smile of agreement.

"First of all, where are you planning on staying for the most part?" She directed at Remus.

"Staying?"

"Yes, staying. I'm sure Severus would like to see his own son or daughter, but Hogwarts isn't exactly a place for new borns. If that's the case then we'll need three minimum, nurseries."

"Three," James jumped in.

"Yes, three. One for his house, one for Severus' house if they don't marry yet or decide not to marry at all, and one here at Hogwarts for visits."

Remus had gone pale, Narcissa was nodding, an excited gleam in her eyes, and the rest of the party looked shocked and horrified. Severus got up, moved to the liquor cabinet, pulled out a flask of fire whiskey and some glasses, and brought the tray back to the coffee table in the middle of the group. The others (minus the women and Remus) nodded their thanks.

"Lily, I'm grateful for your eagerness to help and your expertise is much welcome," Remus said. "But that's too expensive. Three nurseries. I could never ask you to spend so much me or go to that much trouble."

"Don't worry about the money. I've had my own vaults at Gringotts since I found out I was a witch and was old enough to work. I'll use that as my primary found source, dipping marginally into the Potter vaults.

"As for it being trouble, it's not. It's like Sirius had said, I may not be an official Marauder, but I do consider you to be my little brother as well. That means that you are carrying my nice or nephew."

"Wait hold on," James intervened. "Why do think you have to drain your Evans vaults in order to pay for even one nursery?" He turned to Remus, "I'll be more ten happy to get you anything you need, as much as you need. Lily is right, it's absolutely no trouble in slightest."

Sirius gave him a forceful, no-room-for-arguing, decisive nod.

"The Potters and Black won't be the only ones involved her," Narcissa old him. "Like it or not, that child is as much a part of the Malfoy family as well. After its 'father' is an old, close friend of ours, I wouldn't dream allowing dear Lily here to have all the fun."

So with that, the rest of the night was spent with talks of clothing, dippers, and other needed an more inane baby related subjects. Snape agreed to move into Prince Manor with Remus after the school year, cutting down the number of baby rooms that would need to be decorated. It was decided that unless something happened, they would only need room with a bassinet, changing table and a small dresser for visits.

Piece of parchment and quill in hand, Lily and Narcissa made a list of everything they could remember needing from their own pregnancies. James and Lucius had to drag their wives out of Severus' chambers while Sirius steered an emotionally overwhelmed and drained Remus to his own guest suite near Severus'. Severus sighed and rubbed his face, more tired then he thought he would be.

All in all, that had gone much better then he had imagined it would have.

Draining his latest glass of whiskey, Severus headed off to bed.

A/N: Sorry this a short chapter as well, but I wanted to focus more on everyone's reaction to the news of Remus' impending pregnancy.