A/N: Thank yous to the reviews! they make my day!.. I have to say I'm having fun with story I have no clue how I will end it but I shall keep posting until I find a natural end or maybe when it becomes entirely too ridiculous but I feel it will be many chapters away! Enjoy!

Chapter 17

"You got her pregnant" Maura said after she had pushed past Warrington's secretary and came into his office unannounced. Warrington looked up from his father's desk, his father kept immaculate records of everything. It amazed him that his father had such an eye for detail as he never appeared to ever do in any work as far as Warrington remembered.

"I'm so sorry Mr Warrington-"

"It's quite fine, you may leave us Samia" he said dismissing his secretary, his father had the foresight to make all his employees make an unbreakable vow to keep everything they knew about the Warrington's personal or business to themselves. That and all employees were paid 10% more than their counterparts in other companies. Money was a great motivator for not wanting to lose their job especially in the current economic climate. It kept Warrington Industries out of any serious scandals. The small blond woman in her late 40's nodded and left the room closing the door behind her.

"I'm sorry Mother you were shouting do continue" Warrington said as he went back to work.

"Did you not hear me?"

"Yes, Alicia is pregnant. Though I'm wondering how you came to this conclusion" Warrington said this time he looked up at his Mother expectantly. Maura pursed her lips, her cheeks went slightly pink.

"I performed a diagnostic spell while she was asleep"

"Mother" Warrington chastised with a smile as he remembered why he had wards up to keep her out of his home.

"I was concerned, she was looking pale and drawn at afternoon tea. So I told her to go to bed and rest up as she said she was going to have dinner with her friends"

"And when she dozed off you snuck in performed a spell on my girlfriend"

"You knew she was pregnant. Did you do it purpose?" Maura asked in a slightly accusatory tone.

"No, it was an accident and before you ask I'm perfectly fine with it all" he told her as he had no issue with continuing to have sex with Alicia knowing they would produce a child. So the first time was an accident everything after that was on purpose but he would never admit that to anyone. But he wanted them to be irrevocably tied together and having a child sealed their fates together. He was ready for it all, it was Alicia who had to catch up but she wasn't far behind. He knew she was just getting used to the idea of having future involving things she had never believed she would get to have.

There was also a very primitive part of him that relished knowing no one else would ever possess her or share the pleasure she gave him and had herself. He also knew in doing so would speed up the matrimony aspect of their relationship.

"That is what worries me. You shouldn't be so calm, your father passed out when I told him I was pregnant with you"

"I am not my father" Warrington said rather darkly as he tried hard not to emulate the man. Maura noted his tone and gave an sympathetic smile.

"Your father wasn't entirely evil. He was hard working, and in his youth quite an honourable and proud man. It was only in the last few years before his death that he morphed into what you remember. I raised you to be the best of us not the worst. I'm sure you will make a very good father" Maura told him.

"Thank you Mother" he said.

"So when's the wedding? And please tell me you won't give her that gawdy engagement ring your father gave me"

"It's tradition"

"It's cursed" Maura told him,

"It is?" he asked he hadn't checked the ring for dark curses and now his mother mentioned it he would have to check everything he would give Alicia. He didn't want to accidentally curse the love of life unintentionally.

"No, not with magic but by god every Warrington man to give his future wife that ring has never outlived his wife with exception of your great, great, great grandfather but apparently he murdered his wife so it doesn't count" Maura said with a wave of her hand.

"Of course not."

"You should give her my mother's ring"

"Isn't she still wearing it?"

"I'm sure if you ask her nicely she would part with it. Just leave out the part about you impregnating Alicia out of wedlock, she is incredibly strict about the courtship and standards on these things. We wouldn't want her calling Alicia a whore at the wedding. At least not to her face especially when we all know it's you who can't keep his pants zipped" Maura said with a smile.

"Thank you mother" Warrington said dryly if only his mother knew how Alicia seduced him as equally as he did her. But he would not disillusion his mother.

"You'll also have to ask Alicia's Grandfather for her hand" Maura reminded him.

"I know what tradition dictates" Warrington said.

"Just reminding you"

"It will all be dealt with in time. Alicia has yet to inform me she is pregnant before we discuss anything else" Warrington said, his mother looked surprised.

"I assume she told you"

"You're not the only one who can perform a diagnostic spell. We also have a few months before she shows. I'm sure you didn't tell Father until you were absolutely sure I'm allowing Alicia the same luxury" Warrington said or until he became impatient and made her tell him. He wanted to celebrate.

"How long have you known?" Maura asked him.

"Only this past week" he said. If he was going to be precise ever since Montague told him of the theory he assumed her to be pregnant three days from there Montague confirmed it and told him to at least pretend to look surprised instead of smug when Alicia told him.

"Well then I shall curb my enthusiasm" Maura said dryly though Warrington knew his mother was probably bursting at the seams to get into 'Grandmother' and 'Mother' mode and fuss over Alicia and buy a whole baby store of goods.

"Do try, I'm sure Alicia is trying to keep up with all the changes in her life. I'm sure when she is ready to tell us until then we shall support her as usual with no special treatment" Warrington said.

"You do know how to suck the fun out of becoming a grandmother. As such I think the least you can do is take me out to dinner" Maura told him.

"You're more quiet than usual and you've been nursing your butter beer all evening. What gives?" Lee asked as he and Alicia went to bar to buy another round. Alicia placed the empty jugs on the bar and ordered another two. The bartender took the jugs and moved to refill them. It was their usual group gathering where they all caught up and shared a meal before drinking until Oliver or one of the twins passed out.

"I'm …I don't know I feel out of sorts" Alicia said as she leaned her back against the bar and at the others drinking and laughing at the table as much as she loved them she felt out of touch with exception of Lee. She always thought if she was cured she would fit in again but she didn't feel it. She couldn't understand after so many years of friendship with the group she felt herself more with Maura and Warrington even Montague though she felt she spent half her time being violent toward him.

"You want me to take you home?" Lee asked he looked genuinely concerned.

"No, I just don't have much to say is all" she said, truth was she had heaps to say but no one she could share it with. That and she didn't want to cop anymore flack tonight than she already had for being arrested and Warrington being her sugar daddy. She took it all in her stride but she'd rather wait for the next dinner to be about how she was shacked up with Warrington and having his love child than tonight. Especially as most witches only announced they were pregnant 4 weeks into it not 5 days.

"You know they are just taking the piss. They don't really care about your little stint in the ministry dungeons, though I think you were wise to not mention that your regular visits to Knockturn Alley. You sure everything ok?" he asked her.

"Yes, recovery apparently takes a long time" Alicia remarked sarcastically. Lee chuckled at her comment. "So when are you going to tell these guys you are working with Flint?" Alicia asked.

"Round about half past never" Lee said with a smile before becoming serious "My work and social life are separate. I refuse to cop any flack for working with Flint. You know he's an asshole to everyone but the pay and the opportunities are get are phenomenal. So once you get past that exterior he's a good guy just like Warrington is. He's a good man Alicia and he's good for you" Lee told her.

"I know it's one of the reasons why I love him" Alicia said without thinking. Lee quirked an eyebrow as Alicia was not one to express deep emotions at least not so publically. She smiled embarrassed by what she said.

"You love a Slytherin." Lee said eyes wide in surprise.

"I-" Alicia started only for him to interrupt her.

"I heard you say it. You can't take it back. You love him and I think it's adorable" Lee said with a smile of amusement.

"Oh bugger off" she told him shoving his shoulder playfully.

Hours later, Fred and Oliver were being levitated by Lee and George out of the bar after bidding the ladies a good night.

"You coming home tonight?" Katie asked Alicia as they were all pulling on their coats. Alicia was about to answer 'yes' but saw Warrington walk into the pub. She smiled and shook her head. Katie followed Alicia's eye line and saw Warrington. Katie immediately understood and smiled widely while Angelina glowered unimpressed.

"No, but I'll drop by tomorrow for afternoon tea" Alicia said to Katie.

"With triple chocolate cheesecake?" Katie asked with a tone of excitement and hope. Alicia nodded as she could definitely go for some girl talk and cheesecake.

"Of course" Alicia said before she hugged her goodbye and followed suit with the others before she walked over to Warrington. He was dressed in an immaculate suit making her decidedly underdressed in her jeans, singlet and a leather jacket. She wondered if it would rub off on her as she felt decidely scruffy even though she was looking healthy as the days went by.

"Hey what are you doing here?" she asked in greeting as she ran her hand down the front lapel of his suit jacket.

"I just finished dinner with my mother and I thought I'd drop by and see if you were still here" he said looking down at her with a smile. He cupped her face with one hand and lowered his lips to hers in a slow kiss.

"Well we called it night as Oliver and Fred passed out" Alicia informed him with a smile.

"Yes I passed them on the way in. You are decidedly sober" Warrington remarked as he didn't smell a hint of alcohol on her breath. She looked completely sober and just a little fatigued by the late hour.

"Awwh did you want me drunk and falling all over you?" Alicia asked coyly.

"I'll settle for just falling all over me. I prefer you sober butter beers make you snore" he informed her in a droll tone, Alicia made a derisive noise for which he smiled at.

"Do not" She told him.

"You snore like an ogre with a bad cold but it is ok an easy silencing spell quietens you up" He said, Alicia punched him playfully for the remark as she chuckled as she knew he was jesting.

"Ready to go home?" he asked her.

"Yes I am" she said as she tugged playfully on his tie pulling him out the door to the nearest apparation point.

The next day late afternoon,

Alicia was supposed to catch up with Katie and Angelina, she had brought a cheesecake and everything for Angelina to tell her Katie was running late. So Alicia decided to use the time to pack as Angelina was acting slightly petulant and passive aggressive instead of happy to see her. Though Alicia couldn't understand why Angelina was treating her with such disregard she knew it was getting tiresome.

"So you're moving in with Warrington" Angelina said not hiding her disapproval as Alicia had already called Hetty to minimize and take the bulk of her wardrobe to Warrington's place. She was currently packing up what little she had left in the way of trinkets and the clothes she had before Warrington came into her life. It was kind of sad that four years of her life easily fitted into one small duffel bag.

"I guess that heartfelt apology has an expiry date. How is the passive aggression working for you?" Alicia asked Angelina, last night they had been getting along better than now. Ever since Alicia walked through the door Angelina had been acting darkly toward her.

"Alicia you're my best friend but that doesn't change that this is the biggest mistake you have ever go to make" Angelina said.

"What is it about Warrington and me that you see that I don't? Because I don't get it" Alicia said throwing her hands in the air as she gave Angelina an exasperated look.

"You know how improper it is to live with a wizard who is not family" Angelina said.

"Seriously? Fred practically lives here so out with the truth now?" Alicia said in an exhausted tone.

"You are just a trophy to him." Angelina told her.

"Oh Merlin not this again" Alicia said in an exasperated tone.

"Slytherin are cunning, ambitious people who are only have relationships friendship or otherwise with people they can use and benefit from. It's all about money and power to them. You think he'll ever marry you? You have nothing to your name, your family comes from nothing. You have may have been cured of a curse but you still don't have any magic." Angelina told her, Alicia had planned to tell the girls that she was starting to feel it return with her other good news of her relationship developing with Warrington obviously Angelina was not going to celebrate with her as she continued to berate her. Alicia listened to all the hate coming out of Angelina's mouth.

"-I don't get how you are so blind to all this! He's used you to clean up his public image and the image of his company and obviously to slack whatever lust he has. He's just moving you in to keep the pretty façade up but when he gets what he wants or tires of you whichever comes first. He will-"

"Enough!" Alicia shouted cutting Angelina off. "Enough! I can't take it when you spew such poison about me and Cassius when none of it is true!" Alicia told her.

"Really? You asked me what it was that I see that you don't. You are just a possession to him"

"You're completely off base! I'm your best friend how can you say that to me?"

"Because you are also my responsibility! Somebody has to look out for you because you obviously have lost your head"

"Responsibility" Alicia said in disbelief.

"Yes, you are my responsibility" Angelina enunciated every word clearly like Alicia had hit her head too hard and didn't understand or something. It cut her deeply to hear Angelina say as much to her and the tone made Alicia sound like she was a heavy burden carry. "If it wasn't for me these last four years you wouldn't have had a place to live or a job!"

"Oh don't you dare take credit for that. The twins would have given me that job and Katie was the one who offered me the spare room. It wasn't all you" Alicia stated.

"Yes it is because I told them to. I knew you wouldn't accept my help as it was my fault you were captured, that you were cursed and when you survived I had to take care of you to make up for what I did! So I got the others to help" Angelina said as she moved to the dining table and sat down, upset with herself. Alicia dropped her duffel bag on the floor in her room and followed Angelina taking a seat opposite her.

"I never asked you to take care of me! All I wanted was for you to continue to be my friend not for me to become a burden to you. I knew you felt guilty but I never put that guilt there and to think all this time... Merlin" Alicia said dropping her face in her hands. She wondered how their friendship became so completely twisted out of shape. A few minutes of silence lapsed between them before Alicia lifted her head and looked at Angelina. "I forgave you for what happened years ago" she said in a serious tone, she just couldn't see any way forward for their friendship as she loved Warrington, she was having his kid.

He was not going anywhere and she didn't want him to go either because she wanted to keep her oldest friend. She shouldn't have to compromise her wants but then the other side of it was she couldn't be friends with Angelina if she felt responsible for her. Friendship wasn't about making up for past mistakes that were already forgiven or shouldering said friend as a burden. Angelina wouldn't let it go and she wouldn't give up her preconceptions of Warrington either just because he was a prick in school and while he did have his moments he was an adult now, he acted with distinction, class and manners governed by his station. He was not the same person anymore, none of them could claim they were the same person in school anymore.

"What I did was unforgiveable. I was a coward. I left you behind-" Angelina started by Alicia cut her off with a wave of the hand.

"We had orders, I was hit. If you had tried to come back for me in that moment we both would have been captured and the intelligence we had would have been completely lost. Look I really don't want to rehash history. Now that it has become apparent I am nothing but a responsibility I'd prefer to make this clean and easy. Consider yourself released of your duty and debt in my regard." Alicia said standing up she went back to her room and picked up her wand the last thing in the room that was hers. She stuffed into the bag and before she left she dropped her keys on the table. She looked to Angelina who was still sitting on the couch frozen as she didn't know what to do or say.

"We will remain civil for the sake of the others when we meet up for drinks. As for our friendship" Alicia shook her head making one of the hardest decisions "I'm done, I can't be friends with someone who thinks so low of me and my choices" Alicia said she shook her head again feeling a great sadness and pain from the end of a decade and half friendship. She walked out the apartment and closed the door behind her, she didn't look back.

"Hey, one bag I'm impressed" Warrington said as he came into the bedroom to find Alicia placing her clothes into one of the empty drawers. He had finished work early and decided to call it quits for the day, he was surprised to see her as he assumed she would still be at her old place talking with Katie and Angelina. He had expected an owl saying she'd be out for dinner but apparently not. He wasn't going to complain.

"Well Hetty took the wardrobe you bought me and this is all my stuff" She said as she moved to the small duffel bag and pulled out the last article of clothing into the drawer before closing it. He noted her demeanour was somewhat sullen as she unpacked. He undid his tie and top button as he moved towards her.

"All of it is yours. It was a gift remember?" he asked he stood behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze as he looked in the mirror at her that was on the dresser.

"Well I could give it back but you don't have the legs or the ass for some of the clothes" Alicia said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Warrington chuckled before placing a gentle kiss on her neck.

"I take it afternoon tea did not go well?" he said as he watched the smile fall her face and return to a somewhat pensive and sad expression in the mirror.

"It didn't happen, Katie was late and Ange and I… we just" She gave a sigh "It's over" Alicia said, Warrington turned her to face him and wrapped his arms around her waist. Her eyes were filled with tears, she didn't look up at him but he could see and hear how hurt she was and how she was trying hard not to break down into tears.

"You know she wrote how sorry she was and how she missed me, our friendship but it wasn't true" Alicia said rubbing her face with one hand. "Our friendship is over and was over years ago"

"You shouldn't be so hasty you two have been friends for years-" Warrington started in Angelina's defence as much as he loathed to defend the woman he knew how much she meant to Alicia. But Alicia to cut him off.

"She told me I was her responsibility! That being my friend these last few years was out of duty and guilt. She told me I was…" She drifted and shook her head. She hated how true it felt that she was bringing nothing to the relationship with Warrington. Angelina's words had struck deep within her.

"That you?" Warrington prompted.

"That I am nothing without magic or wealth. That I have nothing to give you and that I am just a possession to you" She said he saw the raw pain of whatever Angelina said as he knew Alicia had edited the bulk of it. But Alicia obviously believed there to be some truth to Angelina's words, something he was going to have to undo.

"Look at me" he told her "I won't stand to hear you say such things about yourself. Angelina is a conflicted woman who has to point out the flaws in others so she doesn't have to look closely at her own flaws and mistakes." Warrington said he inwardly wanted to throttle Angelina for whatever else she said to Alicia.

"but-" Alicia started this time he cut her off.

"No, I'm not finished." He said with a smile as he brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face. He tilted her face up towards his and locked eyes with her. "You have plenty to give. I know in our world everything is based on magical prowess, money and power. These are things I have in abundance and I don't need you to possess them or for you to give them to me. Your lacking in those areas does not diminish your standing in my eyes in any way. In my eyes you are my equal never let anyone make you think or believe differently" He told her as he cupped her face. Tears ran down her face but they were from happiness not the anguish Angelina had caused. But from Warrington's speech, no one had ever said such words to her before she felt her emotions well up.

"I love you" she said, the words slipped out before she had a chance to stop them. She sucked in her breath as she realised what she had said and looked at Warrington in shock. Sure they talked about serious things but saying 'I love you' was like cementing those plans. She also wasn't sure how Warrington would react. He broke out in a smile.

"About time" he said.

"About time?" she asked the early moment of romance had completely evaporated at his reply.

"I wanted to hear you say it first" he told her, her jaw dropped at the comment. She wasn't sure if she should be offended or amused by his reaction. She was kind of hoping for an 'I love you' in reply but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Oh I'm so happy I could oblige you" Alicia replied caustically as she moved out of his arms. Warrington pulled her back not letting her go and when she looked up at him she saw all amusement had fled his features. Instead she saw the seriousness of his expression, the emotions he imbued to her many times before but she had been too afraid to see in case she was mistaken.

"Hey, I think I have made myself very clear on how I feel towards you" he said as he pulled her close to his body and wrapped his arms around her so she couldn't escape.

"But I must have been neglectful in some respect so allow me to rectify it. Alicia, you are first in my heart and in my thoughts always and forever-"He didn't get to finish the sentence as Alicia pressed her lips against his in a deep and passionate kiss. When she released them from the kiss she didn't move as they caught their breath, their lips mere millimeters apart. "I love you" he breathed before kissing her so thoroughly she lost all concious thought and gave into him.