Remus came up and hugged James, and I knew why; they were relieved that they were both strong enough to stand in Nivy’s house once more. I hugged Remus also, and then smiled as Sirius, Peter, and Marie.

“Wow, when did you guys join the Order?” I asked casually, as if seeing your friends recruited to risk their lives were a normal situation.

“Dumbledore’s been training us during the first few months of the summer,” Marie said, her voice monotone. “Why didn’t you guys tell us?”

“Don’t take it personally,” James answered. “It’s not like we don’t trust you. Or anything… but we couldn’t risk getting you all in harm’s way. If we told you and you were captured and had your life threatened because they thought you had information… I don’t know. We just couldn’t put any of you in that situation.”

“Is this where you all were during those months?” Marie asked.
Sirius shot me a warning look, which told me that Marie still didn’t know that Remus was a werewolf.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, breaking my eyes away from Sirius’ alerting gaze. “Dumbledore had us working on things, too.”

It wasn’t a complete lie, but as we headed towards the living room, I saw Dumbledore pull aside Remus.

When he came to sit down, I turned to him and asked quietly, “What was that all about?”

“He has an assignment for me,” he replied. “I… I have to go and live with the werewolves for a while. Dumbledore thinks that some of them are in league with Voldemort.”

“You know this means that the rest of the Order members need to know, right?”

“Yeah… Listen, I'm going to go tell Marie by myself, before I have to announce it to everyone.”

I watched as he walked with her to the other side of the room. Before I could see her reaction, James took his hand in mine and smiled. “Come on… I think now would be the perfect time to ask Sirius.”

I nodded, understanding perfectly what he meant. We faced Sirius and smiled.
“Uh oh,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I know that look. You two want something from me.”

“Actually, yes,” I laughed, surprised at how well he knew the two of us. “You see… Sirius… I'm two months pregnant… And we were wondering…”

“Well, we were wondering if… If you’d be the Godfather,” James finished. He was clasping my hand so tight that I thought it might fall off.

“Of course!” he cried, standing up to hug his best friend. “Congratulations! Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?”

“It’s too early to tell,” I responded. “But did you hear about Alice? She’s pregnant, too!”

“No way!” Sirius laughed. “There must be something in the water.”

“Well, they got married a couple of days after us… Frank and Alice have always known that they’re soul mates. They’re supposed to be here tonight, too.”

“Oh, they’re in the Order also?”

“Yeah, they joined around the time of our last meeting.”

“Hmm,” Sirius sighed. “I'm really excited about all of this.”

“Me, too,” I said, thinking about our future. “Hey, after the meeting, would you like to come over for some coffee?”

“Sure,” he grinned. “Then we can discuss baby names.”