The Baby Dilemma

written by: albe-chan

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction and I do NOT own Harry Potter or any of the characters mentioned, I am making no money, and any similarities with real life are purely coincidental. This work will contain MATURE THEMES, such as coarse language, mature subject matter (scenes containing graphic sex, nudity, etc.), and/or violence. Please, if you are not over the age of 18, or of majority in your country, DO NOT READ THIS! You have been warned!

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Chapter One - Hello, Goodbye

Tuesday April fourth, just three short weeks after her thirtieth birthday would forever be a day Lily Potter remembered. It would be a day she'd look back upon with equal amounts of amusement and remembered fear, and a day that would change the redheaded, hazel eyed woman's life forever.

Because Tuesday, the fourth of April, precisely three weeks after her thirtieth birthday, was the day she'd realized, feeling sick, she'd missed her never once late before period by a solid two weeks. And after buying a home pregnancy test and peeing on the stick as the directions instructed, she'd found out on that balmy April morning, she was going to be a mother. Or already was, according to the test and the two blue lines. And even though Lily had been dreaming about seeing those two blue lines on a pregnancy test someday for the last five years, and had been borderline obsessing over them for the last eighteen months or so, she couldn't help but feel a flutter of dismay.

Lily gulped and picked up her cell phone, unable to stop staring at the pregnancy test, and dialed her best friend and cousin, Rose Weasley, on autopilot. "Weasley," her blue eyed, auburn haired cousin answered airily, sounding impatient.

"Rose," she said through numb lips, still staring at the stupid pink stick.

"Lily?" her cousin said, sounding concerned. "What's wrong?"

The redhead couldn't find words for a moment. "Hold on," she breathed. "I'm sending you a picture, call me when you get it," Lily said, still on the toilet with her knickers down, feeling a horrible mixture of elation and fear and guilt and anger as she took a picture of her pregnancy test. She texted the picture to Rose and waited. Her cousin phoned back in seconds.

"Please tell me that's for you," Rose said breathlessly. The auburn haired woman had been there through Lily's entire baby fever, from the initial longing phase to actually shopping through a sperm donor book with the redhead when she'd failed to meet any good candidates on her own.

"Uh huh," Lily confirmed, still staring at the stick that screamed impending parenthood at her. Rose made a shrill sound of excitement, but Lily grimaced. "There's only one problem," she said throatily.

Rose paused. "What?" she demanded. "What could possibly be wrong with any of this? You've wanted a baby forever, honey, and you're so ready for motherhood, and you're going to be amazing at it, and probably have the cutest baby on the face of the planet. And said baby will have the coolest, most kick ass godmother there is! What the hell is the problem with this?"

Lily licked her lips, blushing, and finally stood up off the loo, pulling her pyjama pants and knickers up. "Um," she said, unsure how to phrase the uncomfortable truth. "Well, you see… It's just…"

"Spit it out, Lily!" Rose said impatiently.

"It's Malfoy's."

There was a long silence. "What?" Rose whispered.

"Yeah," Lily confirmed, feeling close to tears or laughter, or possibly both. "It's Malfoy's. Or rather he's the father." She put a hand to her belly as she said it, feeling her stomach drop unpleasantly.

"How do you know?" Rose demanded. Lily blushed.

"There hasn't been anyone else," she said miserably. "I haven't gone to the clinic yet." She hadn't, in fact, even gotten round to booking the appointment to visit the fertility clinic to get shot up with her chosen donor's sperm.

"But wait, when did-?" Rose began, then broke off. Lily sighed and another silence passed between them. "Oh God, your birthday," Rose whispered.

"Bingo," Lily mumbled. She'd gone out with Rose, gotten very drunk, and bumped into the very handsome Scorpius Malfoy, her older brother's best friend, and somehow wound up taking him home with her. And once they'd gotten back to her place, they'd partaken in hot, vigorous, drunk sex that had been intensely gratifying and utterly satisfying.

"He didn't wrap it?" Rose demanded. "And you never even told me you hooked up! You just said he brought you home, and kind of forgot to mention you invited him in for sex!"

"Because it didn't matter, it was a drunk one night stand." Lily scowled. "And he did wrap it, but it must've broke," she murmured. Thinking back through fuzzy memories, she definitely recalled him putting the condom on before the best orgasm she'd ever had. Lily presumed it was sometime during the second round, because her memory got especially fuzzy there. Or perhaps when he'd woken her and they'd had a good shag sometime just before dawn. Because she couldn't imagine when he'd have been able to between when she sucked him off in the pearly half-light of impending morning and when he rolled her over for round three what seemed like moments later. "Or maybe he didn't," she mumbled, and sighed. "Either way, the proverbial bun is already in the oven no matter how it happened."

"Are you going to tell him?" Rose asked after a long moment.

Lily gulped, because that was the million dollar question. "Not today," she said at last. "I have to go to the doctor's, get everything squared away and figured out first, and think about it."

"Do you want me to come with?" her cousin offered, and Lily was tempted to give in and say yes, but shook her head, even if Rose couldn't see it.

"I'll be fine alone," she said. After all, she'd planned to have a baby alone, because she was tired of waiting for Mr. Right to appear in her life, so she could start doing shit for herself. She didn't need Rose to hold her hand.

"Call me when you're free, and we'll have tea," Rose insisted, and Lily agreed, then rang off with her, calling up her doctor to book an appointment, relieved she could get in that morning. She debated, on the bus ride both there and back, whether or not to call Scorpius, but she didn't know what she'd say to him, and she wasn't ready to tell him he'd gotten her knocked up. But he really did deserve to know, and she couldn't keep it from him forever. And at the very least, if he wanted nothing at all to do with her or a baby ever again, she could say thanks, because he'd saved her a pricey procedure. In the end, she texted him, or the number he'd left her those three weeks ago, when he'd pushed off the next morning, saying they should get together for drinks sometime. At the time, hung over and embarrassed, she'd never dreamed of calling him, and figured it was either a fake number, or he was just being nice, because he'd looked amazing even the next morning, and she'd looked pretty much like shit. She doubted, even now, he'd ever wanted to actually get together with her again in a naked kind of way. Her message was short and simple. Hey, it's Lily. Do you still want to get together?

By the time she got lunch and got home to put in a few hours of work, it was almost tea time, and Lily met up with her cousin Rose to talk everything through at their favourite cafe downtown where they'd met up almost religiously every week for a decade to have tea and gossip and share their lives. "Hey," she said, sliding into their usual booth, her regular tea before her.

"Hi," Rose said, biting her lip and staring intently at Lily. "Please tell me I'm allowed to tell people," she breathed at last. "It's eating me up inside already." The redhead grimaced, pushing her unruly mane of long, vibrant red hair over her shoulders.

"Not yet," she begged. "I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it," she admitted, feeling a little overwhelmed. She'd wanted it for so long, been working toward it diligently for the last year and a half, but now that she was actually pregnant, Lily felt jumbled and unsure. She blamed it on the circumstances.

Rose grasped her hand. "Take all the time you need, honey," she said loyally. Lily smiled. "So? Spill, because you look like you're going to burst."

Lily licked her lips. "I dunno, that's the thing. I'm kind of still in shock I guess."

"You're happy, though, yeah?" her cousin asked shrewdly.

"Of course," Lily said honestly, sitting back and sipping her tea. "I want this," she said with passion. "I just… I didn't think it would happen like this." She smiled a little, but it didn't reach her hazel eyes. "I expected it to be a lot less...surprising, I guess."

Rose nodded. "Did you call him?"

"No," she admitted. "I chickened out and texted him."

Blue eyes went huge. "You can't tell him that through texting!" her cousin hissed, and Lily laughed.

"Oh God, obviously, Rose," she laughed. "I just asked if he wanted to get together. So I can tell him in person." Her mouth pursed as a sudden, terrifying thought occurred to her. "If he wants to, of course," she added. "For all I know, it was a one time deal and he's not remotely interested in seeing me again." She shrugged, sighing, and Rose rolled her eyes. "Seriously, we were both pretty drunk."

Rose fingered the handle of her mug of coffee. "Have you thought about if he wants to, y'know, be involved?" Rose asked.

Lily gulped. She hadn't been able to contemplate that possibility, because that begged too many questions she had no answers to, the most pressing of which was how did you co-parent with someone you barely knew? "Not really," she mumbled. From the point she'd decided she wanted a baby, husband or not, and she'd have one, Lily had assumed she'd be a single parent, and all her energy had become focused on that end. Another parent figure had never been part of her plans. And a selfish part of her wanted to hoard the tiny life within her all to herself, rejecting that other half of the equation that had created it entirely.

"Do you want that?" Rose asked softly.

"No," Lily said automatically. Auburn brows lifted. "I mean, I didn't. I haven't thought about it," she said quickly, "but this is still my baby." Rose's mouth turned down a little, but then the waitress came, bearing their food, and Lily didn't see her frown, which was carefully modulated.

"You're still going to tell him, though, yeah?" Rose said after the waitress left them, and they dug in. "If he wants to see you?"

"Of course," Lily said.

To her surprise, Lily got a text just after getting back to her flat from tea with Rose, from the number Malfoy had given her. Little Lily, I was wondering if you even remembered me. My feelings were almost hurt, because you did tell me at the time I'd made your birthday 'the fucking best ever'. She blushed profusely at that, because she unfortunately did recall saying it, in the panting, delirious afterglow of sex with Scorpius Malfoy. I'm free tonight, if you are. Say eight o'clock, at Tavern Rouge?

She bit her lip, because that was a very popular, swanky bar, but shrugged, and replied with a yes. Sure. I'll meet you there. And, because she felt like it would be rude if she didn't at least mention them sleeping together, added, And to date, as far as birthdays are concerned, probably still the fucking best ever. She pressed the send button and tried not to smirk at the thought of somehow scoring a date with almost no effort. Then told herself firmly it wasn't a date, even as she went to go shave her legs, just in case.

That night, at seven fifty seven, Lily pushed through the front doors to Tavern Rouge, taking a deep breath and telling herself she was only nervous because of what she had to do, not because she was meeting Scorpius Malfoy. She went to the bar and ordered a lemon water, and just as it arrived on a napkin, a familiar voice drawled from behind her, "Trying to avoid a repeat of last time, Lily?"

She pasted on a smile, even as her anxiety peaked, and turned to face the tall blond, who looked as devastatingly handsome as ever, and utterly out of her league in his dark grey Armani suit and Italian leather shoes. "Sure," she said easily, and took a fortifying sip. "Um, thanks for meeting me," she said, and could've face palmed when he smirked.

"My pleasure," he said easily, and ordered a whiskey. "How have you been?"

She almost burst out laughing, because in the last twelve hours, she'd been just about every emotion she could imagine. "Pretty good," she said instead. "And you?"

"The same as ever," he said. She licked her lips, feeling nervous. "Do you want to sit down?" he asked politely after his drink arrived, and she nodded, feeling unbearably nervous and a tiny bit nauseous. "I get the feeling you texted me for more than just a friendly drink and chance to catch up," he said after they'd gotten a little table for two.

Lily drank her water. "Kind of," she admitted, and sighed.

He grinned, and leaned in, and Lily caught a whiff of his tempting cologne as he traced her jawline, from just below her ear to her chin, with a finger. Her breathing hitched, even as desire flooded her, and the redhead couldn't resist looking at his sensual mouth, recalling, vividly, what it had felt like all over her. "I hope the real reason is because you actually are looking for a repeat of last time, if only minus the drinking."

She felt her nipples go hard and gulped, heart pounding and feeling a little dizzy. It hadn't been, at all, but… "It is now," she said without thinking. He chuckled huskily.

"Fantastic," he rumbled, and then kissed her gently.

Lily tried to make sure she was still breathing, but every fibre of her being was concentrated on her lips, and searing every perfect, sober second of Scorpius Malfoy's tongue tracing along the inside of them into her memory. And when she parted her lips for him, his tongue pushing into her mouth and stroking the roof of it erotically, she completely forgot why she'd originally come to meet him. Because now, the only important thing in her mind, was getting somewhere private and getting naked with him.

He broke away and she was breathing unevenly, mouth parted, eyes wide. "My place this time, or yours?" he murmured.

Lily licked her lips. "Yours," she whispered, and got up from the table with him, even as he left his drink completely untouched on the polished wood, and focused her entire being on the warm hand he grasped one of hers with. When they got to his car, her common sense, having been blown back into her by the chilly breeze, started clamouring at her to tell him the truth. She hadn't texted him for a booty call, but because she had to tell him something important, and here he was, being a sexy sex-god, distracting her! Damn him, and his bloody brilliant mouth, and good looks, and his fucking delicious body! "Um," she said as he beeped a sexy, dark blue sportscar unlocked, then opened the passenger door for her.

She paused and hesitated, not climbing into the low slung car. "It's almost disconcerting how very different you are under the influence, Lily," he murmured, and she bit her lower lip as he moved into her personal bubble. "Do you really want to do this?" he asked very softly.

The redhead knew the answer to that, because it was a resounding hell yes, she wanted really fucking bad, but Lily didn't know if that was a good idea. And she really had come to tell him serious news. "I…" Words failed her. So Lily sucked in a deep breath, and turned to tell him, no, and then that she was pregnant, and it was by him. Instead, when she looked up at his handsome, slightly smiling face, blond hair falling with careless elegance over his forehead and grey eyes questioning, Lily felt, just as she had on her birthday, a thrum of deep, primal attraction. So instead of telling him what the doctor had all but confirmed that morning, she pressed herself lightly against him, lifted onto her toes as her head tilted up, and kissed him. "Does that answer your question?" she purred, pulling back. Scorpius merely moved with her, pinning her lightly against his car with his pelvis.

"Not quite," he rumbled.

Lily smirked. "Let me try again," she said, and pulled him down roughly to kiss, drunk with lust again, only sober enough to appreciate every nuance of the tall blond touching her, snogging her furiously, and the hot ache of desire he wrought in her.

He grunted and broke away. "That I'm going to take as a yes," he said in a rough voice. "And unless you want me to strip you right here, I'm going to advise getting in the goddamn car, Lily." He smirked as her brows lifted at the commanding tone that automatically rubbed her the wrong way and flattened her arousal. "Please," he added as an afterthought.

She was tempted to tell him to sod off and forget it, because he was a pushy jerk, but then his mouth ghosted up her neck, and Lily's breath huffed out, arousal cranking right back up, when he bit her earlobe teasingly. "You're lucky you're handsome, 'cause you're a right prick sometimes, Malfoy," she said, raggedly, but when he pulled back, grinning and looking painfully attractive, she slid into the car.

Once they got to his underground parking, Lily was second, or rather third, guessing herself. She really, really shouldn't walk sedately from his car to an elevator, or exchange shifty smiles with him as they ascended in an only slightly awkward silence, and Lily knew for certain she should stop herself as he unlocked his door and waved her in. But just as she opened her mouth to tell him the truth, why she'd texted him, and met up with him, and the irreversible news, he'd turned her, pressed her up against the door to his condominium, and was kissing her again. Only this time he was insistent and greedy, urging her to submit to him, and Lily couldn't think to resist. And when his hands pushed into her hair, it felt too natural to grip his shoulders and pull him closer with her legs.

She moaned into the kiss, and then out loud as his mouth slanted down, over her jaw, and he nibbled erotically at the sensitive flesh of her neck. "Scorpius," she groaned, and he grunted, nipping her, and dragged his hands down to heft her up more securely. Lily gasped and clutched him as he turned away from the door, but he carried her easily to his bedroom, laying her out in a massive bed.

Lily could only stare at him as he undressed for her perusal, and she licked her lips, breathing shallow in anticipation as he slowly revealed himself. "You're not getting naked," he murmured, and Lily blinked, tearing her eyes away from the mouth watering lines of his hips and pelvis.

"What?" she breathed, and he chuckled, undoing his belt.

"Last time you were in your birthday suit faster than it took me to unbutton my shirt," he teased, and she blushed, sitting up on her elbows, glaring at him as he kneeled between her calves.

"Last time you weren't being such a douche," she snapped. He laughed, and her gaze dropped down as he unbuttoned his trousers. She gasped, surprised, as he laid her back with a searing kiss, then pulled away.

"I don't think you mind either way, Potter," he rumbled, and kissed her again, before she could retort. "And I certainly do not." He shifted and she moaned, heart thundering loud in her ears, as his hand stroked up her thigh, under her little dress, and paused possessively on her hip. "It leaves me the delightful task of doing it myself," he murmured, and shifted lower, even as his hand moved inward, thumb brushing her damp panties while his mouth kissed along the neckline of her frock.

And by the time he had, finally, accomplished said task, Lily was embarrassingly close to coming, and couldn't even think to hold back her guttural moans and hoarse cries of pleasure as Scorpius licked up the inside of one thigh. "Please," she groaned desperately, pride gone. He merely licked up the other thigh now. "Please, Scorpius," she moaned, wriggling.

He grunted and she cried out in anticipation as he bent his head, then his eyes flicked up to hers. "Just one more, darling," he growled, and she wanted to scream in agony.

"Jesus fucking Christ, you fucking bastard, please!" she shouted, and did scream a little as he obliged her, tonguing her to a swift, hard release, and then through to a second, less intense orgasm. "Yes," she chanted, "yes, yes, yes!"

She slowly became aware she was tugging rather hard on his hair and gentled her grip, but then Scorpius was moving back over her, and she watched him fitting a condom onto his very impressive erection. Lily bit her lip to stay the insane urge to laugh, because it was a bit like locking the barn after the horse had been stolen, she reckoned. But she didn't comment, and when he pushed into her, groaning raggedly against her ear and holding her perfectly tight, thinking became impossible.

Much later, when she'd been thoroughly satisfied, Lily tried to resist the urge to fall asleep on Malfoy's shoulder, and tried to tell herself sleeping over was so not an option. "Lily?" he murmured after a long moment of comfortable silence.

"Mmm?" she hummed, starting to nod off, and sat up, looking down at the very handsome, sleepy looking blond.

"I was afraid you fell asleep," he murmured, absently teasing a strand of her hair around his finger.

"Me too," she teased, and stifled a yawn, looking around for a clock. "What time is it?"

"Almost midnight," he murmured. Her brows shot up. Had they really been here, shagging, all that time? Damn…

"I should go," she said, and felt a shiver of embarrassment and mingled humiliation, because she was pretty sure she'd just had another one night stand with her brother's best friend, and it was probably never going to amount to more than that.

"Probably," he sighed, and Lily's mouth dropped open. She glared at the bastard over her shoulder and he chuckled. "That came out wrong," he murmured. Lily didn't care. It was rude, and she was leaving. She made a noise of disdain in her throat, then got up, stepping hurriedly into her panties. "I meant it would undoubtedly be awkward if you stayed." Her brows shot up in silent awe of how incredibly stupid he was.

"You should probably stop talking," she said, voice arctic, and he sighed again.

"Sorry, but you're very distracting, standing there in your sexy little knickers, all outraged and offended. What I'm trying to say, is I don't want you to go, but as your brother is due to arrive in a half hour to drive me to the airport, it would probably be more than awkward if you were still here."

Lily's brow furrowed. "Why is Al driving you to the airport?" she asked, brain chugging along slowly, trying to understand what he was talking about.

"I'm going away on business, and I don't want to leave my car in long term parking." Lily could understand that. It was a nice car. What if someone stole it or something? "But I really want you to stay because that was even better than your birthday, for me anyway, and now I'm probably going to miss you while I'm away."

Lily blushed, sliding into her dress again. "For me too," she murmured, because it had been. Loads better. All crisp and clear and branded into memory, ready to call up should she ever need it in the black of night, alone in her bed. She licked her lips, suddenly remembering why she'd agreed to meet him in the first place that evening. "Um," she said softly, but when she peeked at him, still naked in bed, her courage deserted her. "Where are you going?" she asked softly. Surely it would be easier to broach the subject once she herself had come to terms with it, right? After some time to get herself together, she'd undoubtedly find it way easier to inform Malfoy he was the sperm donor to her bundle. She could totally just tell him whenever he got back, because she'd have enough time to figure out what to say.

"The States," he said, looking decidedly bored by the notion. She knew he was frequently out of the country, at least from the tidbits Albus dropped every now and then at Sunday dinner over the years, and automatically, Lily wondered what sort of impact that might have on her baby. She didn't like the thought of a part time parent, should he want to participate in her baby's life. Then she chastised herself for thinking he'd want her and a screaming, pooping bundle of spit up. She might want that more than anything, but she was pretty positive he didn't.

"For how long?" she asked conversationally.

"Four months," Scorpius replied in the same bored, impeccably polite tone. Lily's brows shot up.

"Wow, that's a long time," she said, surprised.

Scorpius shrugged, then frowned. "Why are we talking about me leaving?" he asked.

Lily shrugged also, but smiled a tiny bit. Because it had just occurred to her, that Scorpius had unintentionally just made it so she could have her cake and eat it too. Or rather, have her baby and avoid messy entanglements and awkward conversations. No one even knew she was expecting yet, save Rose and her doctor. Lily could just play it off like she'd gotten knocked up after Scorpius went away. Albus would never know they'd slept together, Scorpius would never know he'd donated his genetics to make her goal in life achievable, and Lily would be utterly free to grow and raise her baby as she herself saw fit, like she'd been planning from the start. "Dunno," she said brightly, and picked up her handbag from the floor where it had been tossed aside, pulling out her cell. "Have a good trip," she said, and made to walk out.

Scorpius smirked. "You're forgetting something," he said, and Lily looked over her shoulder at him, hair rumpled, makeup a mess, and looking utterly debauched and, to Scorpius, deliciously enticing still. He held out her shoes, the strappy black stilettos hooked over two fingers, and he grinned as she blushed.

"Thank you," she said primly, and reached for them.

He surrendered the shoes, but grasped her wrist lightly, pulling her down to kiss her plump, pink mouth again. "Don't wait three weeks to text me again," he said, and her expression softened, eyes darting away guiltily for a moment.

"I wasn't waiting," she murmured, "I was…"

"Busy?" he supplied. She shrugged.

"Yeah, I guess," she said. "Let me know when you get back," she said, and, gulping, slipped her shoes on and hurried out of his condo, calling a cab when she got to the lobby. And as she stared up at grimy storefronts and building and apartments as she rode home in the back of a cab, Lily sighed, feeling a heavy weight on her heart. She put a hand to her belly, sending out good, positive vibes for her fetus, and pushed thoughts of Scorpius Malfoy, and how he'd looked, for that brief moment, so utterly human, and hesitant, and brimful of emotion as she'd never ever seen him before. Because that expression in his eyes had almost crumbled her decision to purposely keep Scorpius, and everyone else, in the dark as to her baby's father's identity. Except, obviously, Rose, but she knew her cousin wouldn't ever rat her out. It's just you and me, Baby. I got you and you always got me, and we don't need anything else.

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