minnow // sirius black

twenty-eight

28 : news

The rest of the night, I was stuck to Sirius' side, and the moment that we were alone (aside from Dean), I took the chance to tell him.

Lily had herded the other boys to leave for dinner with her, that she'd make sure Dumbledore would send something up for me, Sirius and Dean. So once they were gone, Dean took to pretending to look at the books on the furthest bookshelf from us, giving us as much privacy as he felt was needed.

"Who is he?"

I snorted at Sirius' opening line, and rolled my eyes.

"He's the Auror assigned to keep me safe," I said. "He lives in my attic, and he is married with a 5-year-old daughter. I forced him to be my friend so I wasn't living with a stranger. You should be glad he is my friend, because now he cares for me, and cares for what I care for, therefore caring for you and our baby. He has kept me sane throu-"

"Wait," Sirius interrupted and my face turned red. I hadn't meant to say it outright like that, but I did. "'our baby', whose?"

I didn't respond as I took his hands and placed them on either side of my stomach. I watched the emotions that ran through his face, the main one being confusion.

By the time he settled on an emotion, Dean had come just a little closer, fearing that Sirius wouldn't be as happy as Lily was.

Sirius smiled, this small and terrified smile, but a smile nonetheless.

"My baby?"

"Your baby," I whispered. I placed a hand of my own on my stomach, and smiled widely when she kicked. "Our baby."

"You didn't tell me," Sirius said, but he didn't look angry or even annoyed. He looked mystified. "Because you weren't allowed to send letters."

"I wanted to, but Dumbledore practically confiscated my owl," I said. Sirius snorted as he leaned closer to me. His hands were still planted on the sides of my stomach, but his face was pure adoration. "I haven't been sick, at all, since the week before my birthday. I think she's keeping my blood from attacking itself."

"Is she healthy?"

"I don't know if it's actually a girl, but I'm almost certain she is. But yes, she is healthy. Arlo came by the cottage to do a quick examination and found her. I hadn't known, but he did a quick examination to make sure my immune system wasn't attacking her," I said, placing a hand on Sirius' cheek. "Our girl is healthy."

After a few minutes, Sirius prompted me to lay on my back, and so I did. He basically stared at my stomach for several minutes, until Lily, James and Remus came back to the Common Room, a large floating tray following. He sat back up, one hand basically glued to my stomach.

When Lily took the lid off of the tray, I nearly groaned in excitement.

"So that's why Dean said you ate a lot of pickles," Sirius said, grinning like a fool. I gave him super wide eyes, looking from him to Remus and James. "Oh! They don't know."

I heard Dean laughing, and groaned.

"No, Sirius, they don't."

"Are you going to tell them?"

"Are you being dense on purpose, or because you genuinely have no idea what a secret is?"

"On purpose."

"You're a buffoon."

Dean laughed again, to which Sirius snickered. James narrowed his eyes.

"She told you?" Remus asked, and I chuckled.