Reassurance

Lily woke up early the next morning and slipped quietly out of bed. James was still sleeping, curled up in a ball on the mattress like a baby. He always looked so much younger when he was asleep, so much less like the James she knew, less sure of himself, less strong.

She dresses quickly, wriggling into an old pair of jeans and pulling on a faded purple hoody over her tee-shirt, before walking down the stairs and scribbling a quick note to tell James where she would be. It was quarter past nine by the time she left the house, almost slipping on the thin coating of ice that covered the top step. She looked carefully down both sides of the street, checking for any muggles and seeing that there were none, disapparated.

She let herself into the tiny north London flat with the tiny key that was, as always, resting on top of the door frame in an undeniable gesture of recklessness and arrogance. In other words Sirius and Hestia through and through. She made her way along the dusty hallway, "Hest?" She called, "Hest are you in here?"

"Ummph," Came the response, "Lily? What are you doing here? It's half past bloody seven!"

"I know… it's just…" Lily was close to tears, "I… I could really use a friend right now."

"Sirius!" Hestia yelled, "Go for a walk."

"Why?" he asked indignantly, sticking his head round the bedroom door, "Oh." He said catching sight of Lily, "That explains it then, Lily's here so I'm sent out to die on the streets like some stray dog." He held his hand to his heart, "How will I go on?"

Hestia smirked, "First of all, that's no way to greet guests and second, you are a dog.

He pouted.

"A very cute dog." She amended.

"Fine, fine." He muttered, "If you insist. I'll go wake James up." He caught Lily's warning glare. "Or not… Maybe I'll just go buy some coffee, coffee's good right? We need some coffee." And with that he ran out the door still wearing his pyjamas and slippers.

Hestia rounded on Lily, "Right." She said, "Explain, what's wrong? Aside from the fact that you woke me up at this god-awful hour and scared my boyfriend out of my house of course."

"I…" Lily looked blankly up at her, now that she was here it all felt so stupid. What was she supposed to say? How do you tell your best friend you're pregnant? In the muggle movies she watched with her mum in the holidays the girls had been woman – older, sophisticated- and the best friends had been joylessly happy for them, giving great advice and hand-me-down clothes from their own children. "I… I don't know…I…Oh fuck this, I'm pregnant."

Hestia stared at her like she was an alien, "Really?" she gasped.

"Really." Lily confirmed with a small nod of her head, suddenly feeling much lighter.

"But that's," Hestia began, "That's great news Lily."

What?

"I mean your completely screwed of course," Her best friend continued conversationally, "A mini-marauder- Wait. It is James' right?"

Lily swatted at her, "of course its bloody well James'.

"Just checking." Hestia defended, "He's going to be ecstatic!"

Lily felt herself tearing up for the second time that morning.

Hestia looked at her appraisingly, "You're really worried about this, aren't you Lils?" she sighed, reaching out and pulling her best friend into a hug, "I guess I can see where you're coming from," She continued, "But Lily, you're the kindest, most loving person I've ever met and you've got James who I can promise you is going to love this kid so, so much. You're going to be fine, actually, you're going to be more than fine, you're going to be great."

Lily gave her a small smile, wiping the tears away from her eyes with the back of her hand, "You're a pretty fantastic friend, you know." She said

"I try." Hestia smirked, "Now get out of here and spread the news."

Five minutes later and Lily bangs open the door of her house and practically runs into the kitchen. James is sitting at the table, a spoon loaded with crispy quaffles cereal travelling towards his mouth and an open newspaper across his lap. "You're back." He shoots her one of those oh-so charming smiles that could get him out of pretty much anything back at Hogwarts.

"Yeah," she smiles back uneasily, "About that. There's something I need to tell you."

James smirks, looking infuriatingly at ease with the whole situation. Admittedly he's not actually aware there is a situation, but that's beside the point, "You're not running away with Sirius are you?" he asks grinning.

"Yep," She replies easily slipping into their familiar routine of teasing, "We're moving to Tibet a week on Thursday."

"Right," James chuckles quietly, "So what was it you really wanted to tell me."

Lily squared her shoulders, "I'mpregnantyourgoingtobeadad." Shit. She hadn't meant for it to all slip out like that. Luckily, however, James didn't appear to have understood a word of what she had just said.

"Sorry Lils," He said looking a tiny bit baffled, "Could you repeat that?"

"Sure" She said, taking a deep, steadying breath, "James, you're going to be a dad."

Hours later she's lying in bed with James and there discussing baby names, (she refuses to even entertain the idea of James Jr, Sirius or any of James' ridiculous suggestions while he's being equally snobbish about her ideas). One of his hands is propping up his head as he looks down at her curled up next to him and his other hand on her stomach, stroking the place where their baby is sleeping.

And in that one moment it doesn't matter that her life's a mess or that she's fighting a war or that she's only nineteen and scared out of her mind, because this is their baby and nothing, no-one, not even Voldemort himself, can take that away from them.

Okay. That's it folks. I can only apologise for the ridiculous amount of time it took to put up, but that's all in the past now. I can confirm that this is the last chapter, but that there will be a companion fic/sequel about the day baby Harry is born posted sometime next week. I'll post here when it is.