The Werewolf's Cub

Chapter 3 - Depression

*So, quick note this chapter has NO dialog. It is kinda a filler but is gives the important details needed about the first few months of Lilly's pregnancy and helps me move the story where I want it.*

The men of potter manor were slowly losing hope. They had assumed that Lilly would start feeling better after her blow up at James over the contraceptive potion. Especially when she found out that his reason was that he stupidly thought it would make him less sexually active, and he didn't want to tempt fate. They did not expect her to almost go back to how she was before that day, just a few weeks later. The only real difference is that she now seemed to switch back and forth between anger at James, overly apologetic to Jamie and severe sadness regarding the baby she was now carrying. Due to how unpredictable her behavior was they decided not to burden Peter with the news of the second child for a bit longer, all four of them knew he was currently trying to care for his elderly mother and find a job despite his low test scores.

Lilly had yet to see a healer about her second pregnancy nor had she even started taking prenatal potions. She was not careful about what foods she ate.  She wasn't even making sure she ate enough to support her own needs let alone the extra two hundred calories she needed a day to support the developing fetus. She spent all day, every day with Jamie and acted like she wasn't pregnant. It was as if she was in complete denial, talking about how she still hadn't lost the baby weight from carrying Jamie and how she should do more exercise. She also started discussing painting some of the older styled rooms in the manor.

James had asked his friends not to try to talk to her about it, as he was afraid she would start crying constantly again. He did not like that she wasn't taking care of herself better considering her condition, but with a war going on he just wanted her to remain as calm as possible. He knew pregnancy could affect her magical core's stability and lead to hormone induced accidental magic outbursts. He had looked up his options but found out he couldn't use to many cheering charms on her with out side effects to both her and the new baby, and too many potions would just make her an addict or abort the baby. Neither of which was an option. The only real choices were for her to seek out muggle therapy or just deal with it until after she had the child. Once her hormone levels balanced out they could give her a chance to vent everything with out her magic acting out, followed by a mix of cheering charms and potions and she should be on her way to being back to normal. He hoped.

Sirius was confused. He just could not understand what either Potter was thinking. As far as he was concerned the second baby was just as much a gift from Lady Magic as Jamie was. All magical children were sacred even to dark families like the one he grew up with. Oh, don't get him wrong his mother was a prejudiced old biddy but she was actually an exception to that particular rule. He did however think that this not being the best time for James and Lilly to start working on a Weasley brood of their own, but mistakes happened. He was tempted to check Lilly into St. Mungo's but thought it might make her an easy target for the Deatheaters, and even he knew their worlds views on mental health we backwards beyond belief.

Remus however was becoming increasingly worried for the whole household. He had started doing everything he could to keep the home running as smoothly as possible. It was all an attempt to keep Lilly healthy and less likely to have another severe breakdown. His inner wolf was very angry about how she was treating their cub. He didn't know why the wolf insisted the child she carried was their cub but he did agree that she was not taking care of herself and therefore not properly caring for the child. He had even conspired with James to bring the Potter house elves back into the manor. James had sent them to the other homes and magical buildings the Potters owned when he and Lilly got married as she said it made her uncomfortable to be waited on by the excitable little creatures. They had told the elves to clean and take care of everything as they pleased but to make sure that Lilly never saw them. Remus had begun asking the elves to cook some of the meals in the house when the poor woman was too tired to think about it.

~~~Time Skip~~~

Lilly's child was due in late October and the strange family group had finally gotten around to telling their friends and comrades about the new baby. As expected there were mixed reviews from most of the members of The Order. Molly was very excited going on about how her youngest two would be great friends to James and Lilly's children. Dumbledore and much of the older crowd thought the young couple were being very irresponsible and gave reprimanding looks to the pair that led to Lilly crying, Remus growling and James fessing up to his idiocy. The Prewett twins went to town making fun of him for that for the next few meetings. Poppy seemed to be the least surprised and offered a few recipes for nutrition potions after noticing how underweight Lilly was. Peter looked disgusted at the news but everyone thought the expression on his face was due to how Sirius had followed the announcement with a reminder of when Jamie had spit up in Peters face.

As her due date got closer Lilly became more and more irritable. She was not happy that the three men had been making plans for the small family to go into hiding without consulting her. She threw an absolute fit until they promised not to put the plans into place until after Jamie's first birthday. She was constantly going on about how they should not run away from the war, how she was not a coward. Remus had gotten tired of correcting the woman about everything, he was much to busy keeping her house running smoothly and  doing his best to keep her from having a miscarriage.

Sirius had gone back to work as an auror so he could have front line information on the attacks that were happening less often but becoming more destructive. The Black scion was also trying to repair his relationship with his younger brother. All the stress with Lilly and James had made him realized that his little Regulus had never really done anything wrong. The boy had just done as his mother had told him with out question. Sirius was determined to give the boy an out before he was killed for having a kind heart. Sirius knew that he did not really care about the blood purity of others. As long as his own blood was pure, Regulus did not see the problem. The animagus also knew his shy little brother would never be able to kill, torture or rape someone. He wanted Regulus to know that he understood that their mother had not given him a choice about following Voldemort.

James was on his last leg with trying to calm his wife down, she was now around four months along and had begun crying at the drop of a hat again. She was constantly apologizing to their ten month old son about not giving him enough attention and how sorry she was that he wasn't going to have a chance of being an only child for very long; because James was stupid and she was naive. Jamie didn't even understand what she was talking about why was she apologizing like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar?! The elder Potter male was at his wits end between is now overly emotional wife and his extreme curiosity over Remus' reaction to Lilly's second pregnancy. The werewolf had began behaving oddly shortly after the friends all found out Lilly was expecting again.

The way the wolf was acting reminded James of how Lilly had behaved during her first pregnancy, he cleaned the house a lot and generally seemed to be nesting as the term was called. Remus also went out of his way to be near Lilly as much as possible, but he never really paid any attention to her, just to her stomach. He wold comment on how she was much to slender for how far along she was and bring up the various other symptoms of her pregnancy, then go on to ponder ways to fix all of the problems he saw.

Sirius had made a comment on how you would think that Remus was the one who was pregnant and not the traditionally fiery young witch. This comment led to a rather destructive wrestling match between the two friends followed by Remus saying he was already very attached to the cub Lilly was carrying and was hoping that since Sirius was Jamie's godfather he would get to be the new child's. After all Moony already claimed the child as his own.