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The Raven's Song	By : Quills Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 6265 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Sirius’s eyes widened, but he did not speak.

A fresh sob finally broke forth from Lyra’s mouth and she pushed him aside, convinced that all she now feared was about to come true. He did not want this child, and its defiant existence would surely tear them apart before they had even truly begun; for when he spoke the words to urge her to rid herself of it, an irreparable fracture would arise between them, breaking down the tenuous bond they had formed in the face of all that would keep them apart until all hope of a future together was lost.

Near hysterical at the thought of all she was about to lose, she buried her head in her hands and broke for the door until she hurtled blindly into the immovable weight of the body she had come to know as well as she knew her own. Sirius caught hold of her and forcibly tore her hands away from her face to search her eyes with his. Tears pooled in their depths, but the intensity of his stare was impossible to look away from; for though she barely dared to believe what she saw, for a moment she glimpsed through the veil of her tears a faint spark of disbelieving joy upon his face.

Finally, his tongue darted across his lips as he took a step back and cocked his head. “Pregnant?”

“M-Molly did the spell, Sirius. I’m sorry –“

Sirius abruptly shook his head to silence her. “My fault as much as yours, isn’t it?” He inhaled deeply as he slowly rocked back and forth on his heels, one hand running absently through his loose hair as a dozen conflicting emotions seemed to pass across his lined face. Chief amongst them was the same nervous fear she felt in such abundance. When he spoke again, though, his voice was calm and soothing as he reached out one hand to her. “It’s going to be okay, Lyra.”

“Okay? I can’t believe we’ve been so stupid!” she said tearfully. “Sirius, I didn’t even think what a risk we were taking until now.”

“Sweetheart, if you’re anything like me then it was impossible to think of anything with logic or sense when we were together.” With a rueful smile, he gathered her back into his arms, holding her tightly so that she couldn’t break away. “But Lyra, whatever else this child and its conception might be, it’s most certainly not stupid!”

Lyra’s breath caught in her throat as she choked back another violent sob, for his unexpected words had thrown her adrift once more. As she buried her face in his shoulder and allowed the scent of all he was to weave around her like a spell, she forced out the words that she was afraid to hear answered. “Then what is it, Sirius?”

Sirius delivered a gentle kiss to the side of her throat as he whispered directly into her ear. “How about all I ever wanted, Lyra?”

Convinced she must have misheard him, she pulled her head back as she tensed from head to toe, her nausea threatening to rise to the fore once more as her heart thudded painfully against her feverish chest. “What...what did you say?”

He swallowed hard as their eyes locked. “I think you heard me, sweetheart. You and this...it’s all I ever wanted, and all I never dared hope I would have. Lyra, if we’re going to have a child then how can that be anything but incredible?”

“You mean it?”

“More than anything, I swear.” The weight of the years between them seemed to lift away from his lined face as he glanced past her to where Molly was still silently watching. “Molly, would you mind –“

“Of course.” Molly backed away with a relieved smile as Sirius stroked Lyra’s hair back from her tear-streaked face. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Remember what I said though, Lyra. Dumbledore has to know.”

Lyra could not even begin to think of telling anyone else yet, not when she could barely even believe the words she had just heard Sirius speak. Awed by them and no little afraid of the powerful throb of emotion she had felt accompany them, she sought out his hand with hers and held it tightly, her anchor is a world that she sensed was forever changing around the two of them. A sudden thought struck her, and she twisted in his arms as the older woman reached out for the door handle. “Wait – Molly, how did you know it was Sirius’s baby?”

Molly’s smile widened. “It was really rather obvious, Lyra. I know you two think you’ve been secretive, but to those who know what to look for the way you look at each other has been impossible to hide.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, but it seemed he could no longer hold back the faint smile playing around the corners of his thin lips. “And here we were thinking we’d pulled the cloak over everyone’s eyes, Molly. Guess that couldn’t have lasted much longer now, though.”

“No, not when I noticed Lyra’s symptoms already. The others might be pre-occupied, but they won’t be far behind; especially Dumbledore. That man doesn’t miss a trick, does he?”

Lyra leaned back against Sirius as she slowly nodded. “Don’t worry, Molly, we’ll tell him tonight. Just let us have a few minutes first; I don’t think I’ve anywhere near got my head around this yet.”

She did not even notice the other woman leave the bedroom, for as Sirius moved their entwined hands to rest against her stomach, a wave of powerful dizziness washed over her afresh. “Can we sit down?” she said faintly. “I lost my dinner just after you left the table, Sirius, and I don’t think I can stay standing much longer.”

His smile slipped away as he instantly guided her over to sit on the edge of the waiting bed, settling himself next to her and pulling her back to rest against him before he spoke again. “This is real, isn’t it?”

Lyra laughed quietly, for the dazed awe in his voice was the perfect mirror for all she felt. “Looks like it, Sirius; and for someone still so tiny, your child seems determined to make their presence known. I feel like shit, and I probably look like it too.”

Sirius ran his hand through his hair and exhaled as he caressed her pale face with the back of his other hand. “You look a little shell-shocked, maybe, but I bet I look just the same. Circe’s beard, Lyra. I’m going to be a father!”

She closed her eyes as his words rippled through her. He was right; he was going to be a father, and she was going to be a mother. Together they would be responsible for a tiny, helpless little being, and Lyra did not even have the first clue of where to start. Even without the war building momentum around them she would have no idea how to look after a child, but with everything that was happening around them, what hope did they have?

Even with her eyes closed, her spiralling unease must have shown upon her face, for she felt him tense behind her. “Lyra?”

Unwillingly, she looked up at him as her stomach lurched painfully. “What?”

“You are happy about this, aren’t you?”

“I...I think so, Sirius,” she said slowly, unable to hold back the fears that jumbled for prominence any longer. “But I don’t know...this is so selfish, isn’t it?”

A tiny frown creased his brow. “Selfish? Lyra, giving life is anything but selfish!”

“But what kind of life can we give a child with all this hanging over our heads, Sirius? Merlin’s beard, we might not even make it out of this alive!” she said with a broken sob. “What right have we got to drag an innocent baby into this madness?”

To her amazement, Sirius snorted softly as a tiny spark of amusement danced in the depths of his green eyes. “Sometimes, Lyra, you really remind me of myself. Listening to you now is like hearing myself fifteen years ago.”

A terrible, gnawing jealousy took root deep inside her as his unexpected words forced her to think of all the women in his past. Though she knew that he could have been no saint before Azkaban, Lyra had never really consciously thought before now of who he had been with before her; and for the first time, she truly understood the fury and pain he felt at the idea of her in Lucius’s arms. Overcome by that added painful emotion on top of all that was already churning inside her head, she could do nothing to stop her fresh tears from falling as she twisted to the side and pulled back from him. “Have you got another kid, Sirius?”

“No!” With a startled burst of laughter, he seized hold of her hand again and leaned forward. “Circe, Lyra, don’t you think I would have told you that?”

She shrugged helplessly, all too aware that there was still so much they did not know about each other. “Then what are you talking about?”

“I...I haven’t really spoken to you about him before, but James was my best friend in the entire world,” Sirius said quietly, staring off into the distance as his laughter faded and his voice grew hoarse. “He was a brother to me, and I loved him; and his wife, too. Lily was amazing, Lyra. You and she would have got on so well, I’m sure of it. But I had a massive falling-out with them a couple of years before they died.”

“What about?”

“Harry.”

Despite herself, Lyra rested her head on his shoulder again and reached up one hand to nervously touch his face. “Harry? Why, Sirius?”

For a moment, he seemed to lose himself in the ghosts of the past. It wasn’t until she shifted against him that he groaned softly and gave her his attention again. “Because like you just said to me, Lyra, I told them that it was crazy to even think about bringing a child into the world with Voldemort so intent on hunting us down. The three of us had barely escaped him the month before, and now they were turning around and telling me Lily was pregnant!”

She sucked in a sharp breath and pulled her hand away. “That didn’t go down well, I take it.”

“Far from it,” Sirius said grimly. “They were over the moon, and they must have expected I would be too. I thought I was just being the voice of reason, but the truth was that selfishly, I couldn’t understand why they’d want to make themselves responsible for a helpless, mewling little shit that couldn’t do a thing for themselves.”

With a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a cry, she unconsciously laid her hand across her stomach again. “And now here we are, doing just that.”

A swift smile illuminated his face again. “Yes. Let me finish though, sweetheart; I didn’t feel like that forever, you know.”

“I figured as much, seeing as you’re Harry’s godfather. They must have forgiven you in the end.”

“Thank Merlin they did. I didn’t come around until Harry was born – oh, I gave them my support and looked out for them, for they were the family I never truly had. But it wasn’t until that late summer night when James Flooed me to tell me that Lily had given birth that I understood why they’d taken the gamble they had.”

Lyra tilted her head to the side. “What gamble?”

“Having a baby in the middle of the madness you talked about, sweetheart. In the end they had little more than a year with him, but he made them so very happy that giving their lives for him was more than worth it, I know they’d agree in an instant. And the first time I held Harry, I felt the same way. I would die for him a thousand times over, Lyra, just as I would for our child, because that’s what it’s all about.”

Her hand shook wildly as she wound her fingers through his hair. She knew what he was talking about, even if she dared not name the emotion they were skirting around. “It’s such a gamble though, Sirius!” she finally whispered, and he seemed to understand precisely what she meant.

“Course it is, Lyra. Any time you put yourself out there you know you could get hurt. But what’s the point in fighting if you don’t bother to live? All we have is here and now; nobody can take that from us, nobody except ourselves.”

Lyra held her breath as she turned his words over in her head. Sirius was right. She had tried to hold herself back from giving into the desperate desire that had drawn her to him. That had failed spectacularly, and she couldn’t be more grateful that it had. Putting herself on the line one more time to put everything they were into their baby would surely be worth it too; now that she knew Sirius wanted this child, she could allow herself to admit that she wanted it just as much, even before he spoke again, clearly mistaking her silence for continued unease.

“This baby is one more thing to fight for, Lyra. You’ll see, trust me; the moment you hold our son or daughter in your arms, you’ll see that I was right. This might be an accident, but it’s far from being a mistake!”

Finally convinced by his impassioned declaration, she turned to face Sirius again and clung to him tightly as his arms wrapped around her. A slow-burning, forceful conviction now blazed like a beacon inside her, given fuel by every word he had spoken to demonstrate how very much he wanted this child. No matter what, she wanted this baby, and she would do whatever she had to in order to keep it safe.

It seemed she didn’t need to voice her thoughts, for his face broke out into a wide grin as he took her head between her hands and delivered a tender kiss to the top of her head. “Shall I ask you again, sweetheart?”

As the tension slowly drained from her body, Lyra smiled back at him. “Go on, then.”

“Are you happy?”

“Over the moon, Sirius. Are you happy?”

“More than I’ve ever been. This is what we need, isn’t it? Something to hold onto, and something to look forward to however dark the world gets. We’ll be okay, the three of us, I promise you that – and you trust me, don’t you?”

She held his gaze with hers as her nausea began to recede. “More than I’ve ever trusted anyone, Sirius. The three of us, then.”

The promise of those simple words was enough to bring tears back to her eyes, but this time they were ones of joy. This was everything she had never known she needed until now, and despite how little time they had been together, she knew she could rely on Sirius. Her future was in his hands.

“The three of us,” Sirius echoed. “Come on, then. It’s time to tell Dumbledore; as much as I wish we could keep this our secret forever, it’s so much bigger than just us. Are you ready?”

Lyra was far from ready, but like he said this was not a secret they could keep to themselves.
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The Raven's Song