A/N: Thank you for the reviews! This is kinda filler, but there are some nuggets hidden amongst the crap! Enjoy the chapter.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Helena couldn't unlock the door fast enough. Lily stood there, stick in hand and mouth wide open. "Merlin's beard. Lily, are you- are you sure?"

She held up the test. "Two pluses, Helena. That's two pluses."

Sure enough, there they were—clear and pink. "Fuck."

"Oh my God. What is James going to say?"

"Do you want me to do another one? Check properly this time?"

"Please. Not here, though, we should go home first."

"Agreed."

Twenty minutes later, they were standing in Lily's poky kitchen, Helena with her wand out and pointing at the redhead's stomach. "Verficia gestatio."

Instantly, an aura of soft golden light surrounded Lily, bathing her in an ethereal glow. "That proves it. You're going to be a mother."

Lily went even paler, clutching at the table edge. Helena pushed her into a chair and made some tea, pouring them a cup each.

"So when are you going to tell him?"

"Are you mad?" Lily gasped. "I'm not going to tell him!"

Helena raised an eyebrow. "I think he's probably going to notice eventually, don't you?"

"Maybe if I just wear really baggy clothes-" Lily said, desperately.

"For nine months?"

"If I have to."

"Ok, if on the very, very off-chance that did work," Helena countered, "how exactly are you planning on hiding the baby when it comes?"

"Well…I…I'm sure I could come up with something. Maybe you could look after the baby."

"Which leads back to me not wanting a baby and panicking over it not half an hour ago," Helena pointed out.

"What if he or she's a really cute baby? You'd look after him or her then, wouldn't you?"

Helena decided it was better to say nothing, and just wait until Lily had finished her tea before anything more was said. Tea would make it better. Surely. Tea made everything better. Even if she was, bizarrely, craving a cigarette. Possibly not with a pregnant lady in the room though.

Thankfully, tea did make things better. After Lily had emptied her cup, she sighed deeply and sat back in her chair. "Okay. So I'm pregnant."

"Yes."

"Not the idea situation…"

"Not really, no. But not terrible, either. I can't think of anyone better suited to being parents than you and James." Neither of you are half-enjoying being a Death Eater, for a start…

Lily swallowed. "I'm grateful for the effort, Helena, but you don't know that. Look how bad I am with the kids who come into St Mungo's!"

"Only because you don't tell them when something's about to hurt."

"I don't want to scare them."

"Proof positive you'll be fine with this," she said. "You're going to give this baby a home crafted entirely from love. What could be better? What could go wrong?"

"James could be less than overjoyed," Lily said, now looking miserable again.

"Oh yeah, I can see how the idea of having a baby with the wife he's devoted to would be utterly horrifying to him."

"What if he feels the timing is just wrong?"

"And the right time to have a baby would be…? It's always going to be completely hectic, no matter when you do it."

"I suppose…"

"So you're going to tell him, yes?"

"Yes," Lily nodded, swinging back to determination.

"When he gets home tonight?"

"Yes."

"And then you're going to be happy, alright?"

"Yes."

Chuckling, Helena gave her a hug and went home herself, collapsing into a chair once she entered the kitchen. "Shit…"

Well, at least she wasn't pregnant. She was thankful to discover that Lily's news hadn't made her feel at all broody. Lily couldn't be very far along at all—that spell, if the pregnancy was advance enough, would reveal whether it was a boy or a girl. It hadn't, so presumably the baby wasn't that developed yet. Or maybe she'd done it wrong. Either way, Lily and James were having a baby. They were having a baby before she was ready for them to.

Her hands, she suddenly noticed, were shaking. How could they? Didn't they know that what she was doing, she was doing for them? She hadn't taken Voldemort down yet, she hadn't made the world a safe place yet. Why hadn't they waited? Taking a deep breath, she tried to force her irrational anger away. It didn't work. What was the point in her risking herself if no one was going to appreciate the effort she was going to?

Looking around the kitchen, her gaze fell of the packet of cigarettes and the lighter Sirius kept by the back door. He didn't smoke in the house because he knew she disliked it. Or at least, she normally did. Right now… She got up and went into the garden, taking the cigarettes with her. She lit one and only hesitated a second before inhaling for a long breath. The first time she'd tried this, she'd hated it. With this one, she didn't cough at all. For once she understood why Sirius did this. Her hands were stopping their shaking, and she felt almost instantly calmer. She looked at the cigarette with a rueful smile. Perhaps there was something to be said for toxic chemicals.

From inside the kitchen, she heard a popping noise, then Sirius' voice. "Home."

"I'm in the garden," she called.

"I know I'm late, but we raided Oakenshaw's house today and he'd set up about a hundred booby traps for us to get through. James almost lost his head. Literally."

"Is he alright?"

"He's fine. Oakenshaw isn't. He didn't come quietly, so we had to-" he cut off as he came outside, jaw dropping at the sight of her with the cigarette in her hand. "Are you smoking?"

"Yes."

"Why are you smoking?"

"I wanted to. I got home and my hands were trembling and I felt really shaky…"

"Yeah…"

"Well, they're not now. See?" She held her hands up, and they were indeed steady. But that didn't mean he liked to see them that way. At all. "Plus," she said, "it's part of my new image."

"Your new image," he repeated.

"Yep. I'm going for bad girl. I've got the bike, I've got the leathers, I've got the really hot boyfriend…the cigarette seemed to complete it."

"Well, yeah, I'm not denying that, Hellfire. But to put poison into your body just for the sake of image is really, really stupid." He leaned forward and snatched the fag from her hand, throwing it to the ground and stamping it out.

"Maybe I feel like being really, really stupid, did you think of that?"

"No. Because you hate stupid people, and there's no way possible that you'd do something deliberately idiotic."

"No?" She giggled, a horribly sharp, broken noise that put him in mind of frayed wires. "Then I guess I'm lowering my standards."

She didn't comment when he did to the second cigarette what he'd done to the first. Then, when he opened his mouth to angrily demand what the hell she thought she was doing, she said, "Lily's pregnant."

"What?"

"Pregnant. With child. Up the duff, bun in the oven, on stork watch, eating for two now-"

"Yeah, I know what it means, Helena—how do you know?"

"We did tests. Muggle ones first and then a proper one. She's going to have a baby."

"Wait, 'we'?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm not pregnant."

"Did you think you were?"

She nodded. "I thought it might be why I've been so off lately. Hormone imbalance, you know. But it wasn't me after all."

Sirius sat down on the door step. "Bloody hell." He took her hand and pulled her down next to him. "So how did you find out about Lily, if you were taking the test?"

"We were doing muggle ones and I didn't trust it, so I asked her to do one with me. Hers came out positive."

"She told Prongs yet?"

"She promised she'd tell him when he got home. I've never seen her so panicked," Helena laughed.

Her laughter soon ran dry though, when he asked, "Did you want to be?"

"No. I mean there's no one else I'd… But we're not ready. Are we?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head. "Pair of irresponsible idiots like us? No way in hell are we mature enough to have a kid. If we did we'd just end up passing on bad habits."

She picked up the half-empty packet of cigarettes. "Like this one?"

He nodded and took them off her. "Like this one."

"You know, you're really not in a position to tell me I shouldn't smoke."

"You may have a point."

"I'll quit if you do."

He snorted. "'You'll quit'! You've only had two fags in your entire life!"

"Alright, fine; you quit or I'll start a habit."

"That's blackmail."

"So? You didn't think it was beneath me did you?"

"Funnily enough, not for one second did I think it was beneath you. I'm still disappointed you've stooped to it though."

"Well, I thought you might be getting lonely down there," she said loftily.

He kissed her. "We could get even lower, if you like."

"Really?"

"Positively common."

She grinned. "To seal the deal on us both quitting?"

"Exactly."

He took her hand and led her inside, up to the bedroom. Cigarettes were the last thing on her mind once she'd been taken to Heaven and back three times. The fourth time, Helena took Sirius there with her as well, straddling him while his hands were tied to the bedposts. With no way for him to move or do anything except have the breath screwed out of him. Once she had milked everything he had—quite literally—Helena collapsed onto his chest, her own heaving and her breath short, but beaming.

"Down and dirty enough for you?" she asked, panting.

He lifted his head up to kiss her. "Oh God yes." A pause. "Hellfire?"

"Mmm?"

"Untie me now?"

She laughed, but did grab her wand from the bedside table. She waved it toward the material, and it dissolved instantly. That done, she moved back into his arms with a happy sigh.

"You know what we were saying about quitting?"

Without opening her eyes, she opened the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a cigarette, with a lighter. "Last one?"

"I love you."

She smiled smugly. "I know."

They lay quietly for a while, Helena dozing and Sirius contemplating that if this did have to be his last cigarette, he was glad it was at least a post-coital one. One hand held it while the other stroked slowly up and down Helena's back.

"Di you have to go out tonight?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Not as far as I know. Why?"

"It's our anniversary."

She blinked, then propped herself up and her elbow. "We have an anniversary?"

"Yeah. It's been a year."

"No it hasn't. Lily and James' wedding was only a few weeks ago, how can it have been a year-"

"True, but that's not what I'm using as the starting point."

"Well what are you using?"

"First time we slept together."

"So to you, the beginning of our relationship is when we first embarked on empty, meaningless sex?"

"Come on, Hellfire, it's not like it stayed meaningless for long."

"Didn't it? I've got six months of us missing, Padfoot, I don't know when it changed."

"Pretty early," he told her. "Maybe around your birthday actually."

"Really?"

'Yeah. The expression on your face when I gave you that," he said, pointing to the map of Atlantis which now hung on the wall, "was… Well, it…"

"Made you feel warm and fuzzy?" she asked.

"I was going to say the first time I'd ever appreciated how beautiful you are. I'd noticed before, but never really noticed, I don't think. But yeah, we'll go with warm and fuzzy too. And if you ever repeat that, I will have to kill you. Auntie-to-be or not."

"Alright, message received and understood. Uncle Padfoot."

"Girl or boy, d'you reckon?"

Helena considered. "Girl. What do you think?"

"Same. Little redhead. She'll look just like her mum."

"But with her daddy's eyes."

"Naturally. Perfect for making James give in to whatever she wants."

"Yep." Another short silence, then she said, "I still think we should celebrate our anniversary when we said 'I love you' to each other."

"That leaves us with one problem."

"Which is?"

"Our anniversary would be the same date as Lily and James's."

"Oh. Damn."

"Sex it is then."

"Sex it'll have to be."

"You don't have to look so miserable about it, Hellfire. I'm willing to take you out to dinner and ply you with expensive champagne. Is there something essentially wrong with that?"

She shook her head, looking as though she were fighting a laugh.

"Good. Get dressed."

"One thing I don't understand," Helena said over the aforementioned champagne, "is how Lily got pregnant to begin with. She told me herself they weren't planning on a family yet. I assumed she'd placed herself under a Contraceptive Charm, so why would that suddenly have worn off?"

"It probably didn't," Sirius pointed out. "They're invalidated by marriage, aren't they?"

She blinked. "Of course, I forgot about that."

Contraceptive Charms had been invented more than five hundred years ago, in an age when Britain had been purely Catholic. Naturally, marriage was for procreation and the production of children as well as the sacred union under that dogma. Contraceptive Charms dissipated the moment the woman they had been placed on wed. Lily had probably been unaware of that fact, therefore hadn't reapplied the Charm after her marriage to James.

"So Lily Junior is a complete accident."

"That won't matter to them," Helena smiled. "Lily was shocked, but I think she'll be fine."

"So will Prongs. Eventually."

She smiled. "You know, I don't think-" she cut off suddenly, grimacing.

"What's wrong?"

"Ankle," she answered briefly.

"Dumbledore?"

She nodded, giving him an apologetic look. "Seems I'm going out tonight anyway. Guess we're not eating out tonight."

"I'll pick up a Chinese on the way home then. Try not to be too long."

"I won't." She stood and kissed him. "And get wine. Get lots and lots of wine."

Stepping out of the restaurant, she buttoned her coat against the autumnal chill and went looking for a secluded place to disapparate. Not far from the restaurant, she found a damp, rather foul-smelling alley. Wrinkling her nose, she went inside the mouth of it, reasoning that she didn't have to spend more than half a second it in after all.

Sure enough, five seconds later, she arrived at Westmoreland Castle. She was almost delighted to find Dumbledore actually asleep, in his chair in front of the fire. He looked utterly harmless, like any other old man in the world. It seemed a shame to wake him up, but he had obviously summoned her for a reason.

She took his shoulder and shook it lightly. "Professor? Professor, wake up."

He snapped to consciousness instantly, banishing all notions of him being a harmless old man. He took half a second to recognise her, but frowned once he had. "Helena?"

"Yes, it's me, Dumbledore," she smiled, sitting down. "I can always come back in the morning though, if it's not urgent. You obviously need more rest than you're allowing yourself."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you can't have sent the message more than three minutes ago, but you managed to fall asleep in the intervening time."

He shook his head. "I didn't send you any message."

"But the phoenix tear—it started vibrating and I- I had a summons, I suppose, telling me to come to you. It wasn't exactly telepathy, but I heard it in my mind all the same."

He blinked. "It must have been reacting to a subconscious thought I issued in my sleep. How remarkable."

She sighed, feeling annoyed. It had been shaping up to be a wonderful evening, too. Champagne and Sirius and there might've been chocolate, or maybe all three at once… "Well, can you remember what the subconscious reason way? You obviously wanted to see me about something."

"I cannot, at the moment. However, there is something I would like to discuss with you."

"What?" she asked bluntly.

"Minerva told me you were feeling ill."

"Oh. I was. Am. What of it?"

"Do you have any reason you suspect might be the cause? Or when your illness grows worse?"

She frowned. "Obviously you know the answer to your question already, Dumbledore. Professor McGonagall will have told you. I feel that way after I've left Voldemort."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I- I'm not afraid when I'm with him, but when I leave I'm scared of everything, for everything. I have this immense weight of dread waiting for the next summons, and then when it comes, and I go, it's…exhilarating. Sometimes the contrast just makes me…burst." She looked at him very directly. "Why do you think it's happening?"

"Many possibilities. One is that this dichotomy you're experiencing may be so severe that it affects you physically as well. With no way to resolve the mental conflict—i.e. you cannot leave, it spreads and is expelled in the only way it can be."

"With copious vomiting?"

"Exactly."

"Brilliant. Can't wait for that to get worse. Am I going to start bleeding from my eyeballs next?"

He smiled kindly. "I do hope not." He clapped his hands together suddenly. "Ah! I have remembered."

"Good. What was it? No offence but I have an anniversary to get back to, and much as I enjoy your company…"

"I am not Mr Black?"

"Exactly."

"It is only a short piece of business: the Prime Minister."

Helena's attention sharpened. "She is the target then?"

"Almost certainly. The Ministry has now increased her security and put an auror on her personal staff as well."

"Alright."

"I also believe that what Voldemort meant by 'suppression' is not killing her. It seems likely he intends to place her under the Imperius Curse. It would be too early in his plans to kill her now."

"Dumbledore, if you know more about Voldemort's plans than I do—which you bloody seem to—then what is the point of me doing this at all?"

"Because I have no timeline for his plans, no details! We cannot stop any of it if we don't have the details; the whens, the wheres, the hows, and most importantly, Helena, the whys."

"Alright, I understand. I'll get the details. What questions do you need me to find answers to?"

By the time she left Dumbledore, more than an hour later, her head was buzzing and her hands were shaking again. Maybe imposing the no-more-cigarette rule hadn't been the best idea, at least not while she was still a spy. All those questions would have to wait to be answered though—Voldemort had not summoned her yet, and he shifted about. There would be little point in returning to Coughton Court, and she'd no chance in finding him by herself. Dumbledore had warned her to be subtle when gathering the intelligence the Order required. Helena knew she needed to be the opposite, and be as direct and blatant as possible. Once she started behaving like a perfect spy, Voldemort would lose all interest in her and she would never mind anything out. If she was subtle about everything, she'd just disappoint him.

She went home, accepting a large glass of wine from Sirius and gulping down at least half of it before saying anything. Then she did. "You know what's absolute shit?" she asked. "War. War is just a big, steaming pile of…wank."

"What did Dumbledore say?"

She drank the rest of her wine and held her glass out for more before answering. "Apparently they think out of the Healers at St Mungo's is working for Voldemort. He wants me to see if I can work out who it is."

He nodded and dished out the Chinese takeaway while Helena silently congratulated herself. She was getting very good at lying without lying.. No guilt, no awkward questions…it seemed like the perfect scenario. It wasn't till later, when she'd overdosed on red wine and spring rolls, and Sirius was passed out on the sofa with his arm around her, that she started to get worried again. It was only one thing, and it only worried her slightly, was what Dumbledore had said about her physical symptoms being an outlet for a mental fear. Or not fear, precisely. What was the term he had used? Dichotomy? Yes, that was how she felt.

Like something was fighting to get out of her.

A/N: Well? Did you find the nuggets? Review please!