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“And here we are,” Sirius said, setting the pint glasses down on the scarred wooden table, dark beer slopping over his hand.
James, Remus and Peter all pulled a glass towards them, nodding their thanks and taking long drinks. The Order meeting that night had been strained as they’d discussed the recent attacks and Sirius found that he really needed a reminder that normal life could still go on around him.
“Rough meeting,” Peter said as he wiped the foam from his upper lip. “The whole Bones family.”
Sirius sighed and raised his glass, clunking it against the others. “The Bones family,” he said, his voice quiet in the noise of the chatter in the pub.
“It wasn’t all bad news, though, was it?” Remus said, picking through the bowl of nuts in the middle of the table. “Frank and Alice.”
Sirius snorted. “They must be mad. Who would have a baby now with all of this going on? You don’t know if you’re going to have a home to come back to or if it’ll be rubble with a Dark Mark floating above it these days.” He took another swig of his beer and glanced across the table at James. He was staring down at the wood, his mouth tight. “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
James looked up, his hazel eyes serious. “Lily’s pregnant.”
Sirius heard a strange ringing sound in his ears as he watched Remus and Peter congratulate James with forceful whacks on the back, Peter jumping up from the table and running up to the bar for a round of congratulatory whisky shots. He took the shot glass with numb fingers and threw the whisky into the back of his throat, barely aware of the taste or the burn.
James wore a wide smile and Sirius’s hands itched to hit him hard enough to wipe if off of him. Turning over his empty shot glass, James grinned at him. “Well, Sirius? What do you think?”
“Timing could have been better,” he said. “Didn’t you know there’s a war on?” Right in front of him, James seemed to deflate. Peter stared at him, his eyes wide and mouth open, making him look like a completely gormless git. Remus narrowed his eyes in that way he had that usually made Sirius feel like he was about three feet tall, but this time he stared right back at him, full of defiance.
“Right,” James said, pushing his half-drunk pint away from him. He slid out of the booth and stood up. “I’ll see you later.”
Sirius half stood, banging into the edge of the table and nearly knocking the pint glasses off. “James, I—shit.”
“You never know when to keep your mouth shut, do you?” Remus said, his face a mask of disappointment.
“Shut it. What do you know?”
“I know you’re—” Remus stopped himself and Sirius’s heart stuttered in his chest. Peter stared between the two of them as if he was watching the world’s most interesting tennis match, still looking like a gormless goon. “I know you’ll only regret what you’ve said,” Remus said, sounding more like his usual self.
Sirius slid out of the booth and went after his friend, his mind a jumble of what he would say when he caught up to him. He stepped out of the pub into the cold February night, hoping that James hadn’t just Apparated home to Godric’s Hollow. He didn’t think he could face the both of them tonight. A flicker of orange light at the smell of those horrible French cigarettes James favored caught his attention and the headed towards the corner of the pub building.
James stood there, not looking up at Sirius’s approach. Sirius looked at him, trying to gauge his current attitude and how angry he might be at him. Leaning against the brick wall, his shoulders were slumped as he as he sucked hard on the cigarette, the white ash growing at the end of it. Wordlessly, Sirius held his hand out and took one of the vile things from the pack James offered, lighting it with the tip of his wand.
“I don’t know how you stand these things,” Sirius said after a long drag and racking several coughs.
“It’s an acquired taste.” James threw the butt down on the pavement and crushed it with his shoe. Sirius considered following suit, but he still had half of it unsmoked and far be it from him to let James do him better.
They stood quietly, the sounds of evening London all around them until Sirius decided he’d given a good showing and tossed his fag end down. “You’re right, you know,” James said, surprising Sirius.
“About what?”
“The timing. The baby. Terrible idea.” He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked back and forth on his feet.
Taken aback by James’s contrition, Sirius was compelled to defend him. “Well, look at Arthur and Molly. There’s nothing stopping them. Last I saw her I thought she was ready to give birth right then and there.”
James smiled and shook his head. “Yeah, but they’re a big family, aren’t they? Loads of relatives. Me and Lil aren’t quite so lucky.”
Sirius nodded, remembering the awful time when both of James’s parents, who had nearly been like parents to him, had been carried off by dragon pox within days of each other. “What about Lily’s family?” he asked, well aware that he’d resisted learning virtually anything about the woman his best friend had chosen to love and marry.
“Her parents passed not too long after we left Hogwarts. Car wreck,” he said in answer to Sirius’s unspoken question. “And that sister and her husband. I can’t imagine.” He pulled out the pack of cigarettes again, stared at them and then reconsidered, putting them back into his jacket pocket. “So, if something happens to us, he or she will have nowhere to go.”
It disturbed Sirius to see his best friend, the person he loved best in the whole world, so fatalistic. Normally optimistic and sunny and absurdly convinced that he could do anything in the world, this version of James was very alarming and Sirius found himself searching for something he could do or say that would bring his friend back to his normal self. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, all right?”
James raised an eyebrow. “Edgar Bones thought he was safe, yeah?”
The invocation of the doomed Bones family sent a shiver down Sirius’s spine. “Yeah, but,” he blustered, “they knew where to find them, didn’t they?” He snapped his fingers. “I’ll be your secret keeper.”
“The Fidelius charm?” James asked, his voice hopeful. “You’d do that?”
“Yeah, of course I would. We’re best mates, right?”
“It’s a big responsibility.”
Sirius spread his arms wide and grinned. “Am I not Mr Responsible in the flesh?” His heart rose in his chest when James laughed out loud.
“I’ll talk to Lily and see what she thinks. I don’t know that we need to go into hiding, but …” He shrugged and shook his head, looking like he was trying to shake any bad thoughts out of it. “There is one thing I was going to ask you, though. Lily and I wanted to know if you’d be godfather.”
Sirius blinked, not sure he’d heard James correctly. “Sorry?”
“Godfather. Lily wants to ask you, so don’t let on that I already have, yeah?”
Flustered, Sirius ran his fingers through his long hair, pushing it back from his forehead. “Erm, I … don’t know what to say. I’m not really sure what a godfather does, to be honest.”
“You get to buy the expensive presents that the parents say they don’t approve of but were really hoping you’d buy.” James grinned at him and then turned serious. “Just, be around. Be the fun uncle. And … you know. If something happens …”
Sirius looked at James in the street lights. The dark mop of unruly dark hair and the lines of his face that he knew better than his own. His throat tight, he simply nodded, wheezing as James crushed him in a hug. “Nothing’s going to happen, mate. I won’t let it,” he whispered into his friend’s ear.