“Oh no you don’t.” Harry replied “What does asking mum to marry you have to do with livestock?”

“Absolutely nothing, so lets drop the subject, shall we?” Sirius replied quickly.

Harry smiled from ear to ear, he was enjoying this, it was so rare to see his godfather so obviously embarrassed over something. “Not a chance. Sirius, you might as well tell me, because you know mum will.”

Sirius’s face went pale “You wouldn’t dare.” he said “Harry, don’t do it. Don’t ask her a thing about it,… It was stupid and I was apologizing to her for weeks.”

Harry sat on Sirius’s bed, his curiosity more peaked than ever. “So…… What happened? What did you do?”

Sirius sighed as he sat down next to Harry. “Swear to me that if I tell you, you Harry James Potter, will never breath a word of it to anyone ever. Most especially Cat.”

Harry nodded, completely intrigued and slightly concerned by his godfathers response. “I swear Sirius. Honest.”

Sirius nodded as he took a deep breath, “It was back in our sixth year, it was Spring, Cat and I were deeply in love. We had only just begun a…uhm…physical relationship a few weeks before. One day I caught her crying in one of the greenhouses, she was terribly upset over something but she refused to tell me what it was. Later that night Lily burst into my dorm room and practically drug me out of my bed and across the room. James had to pull her off of me, she was absolutely wild about something. I’m sitting on the floor, completely confused, your dad has Lily by her wrists and then Cat comes running into the room yelling at Lily. She kept saying “Lily Evans, you promised me you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Well of course at this point, I rush to Cat’s side and try to find out what was going on. She’s crying her eyes out again, I’m holding her, trying to find out what she’s so upset about, and Lily is yelling at me to get my hands off of her I’ve done enough already.”

Harry’s eyes suddenly grew large as a horrible realization slowly dawned on him “You mean, she wasn’t….was she?”

Sirius nodded “As it turned out she didn’t know for certain, only that she was late and she wasn’t feeling very well. That’s why she didn’t want Lily saying anything to anyone else. She wanted to be sure before she told me.” Sirius sighed deeply as he thought of that night so many years ago. “I ended up carrying her to the observation tower while your dad and Remus kept Lily at bay. Cat kept apologizing to me, she didn’t want me to find out until she was sure, and she didn’t want me to find out like that period. It took me forever to calm her down enough to have a sensible conversation with her. That’s when she told me everything, I could tell she was afraid I’ll leave her. As if I would ever……” Sirius shook his head as if emphasizing the point. “Harry I loved her even more than I can put into words, and then to think that she might be carrying my child.” Sirius clenched his hands as he spoke “Harry, it was more than I could have hoped for. I knew we were too young, but I didn’t care, I wanted to spend my life with her, to raise a family together. I knew my mother wouldn’t be upset for very long, she and my da had both adored her. And my father was forever teasing us about giving him grandchildren.”

Sirius wiped a silent tear away as he continued “Well, after a very long discussion, I finally asked her; if she was pregnant, would she keep the baby. I had heard that there were all sorts of ways to, well, terminate a pregnancy, and as much as I wanted her to have my child, I knew it couldn’t be my decision. It was her body, her life, her reputation. ….Harry, it was the longest pause I had ever lived through in my entire life. I couldn’t even breath I was so frightened, so terrified that she wouldn’t carry my baby. And the fact that she kept avoiding my eyes didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.”

“So” Harry gulped, “did she… .you know..” he asked softly, finding it impossible to think Cat would ever do such a thing to Sirius’s baby.

Sirius grinned sadly at Harry “She finally got the courage to tell me that if, if she was, she wanted to keep the baby. Harry, I practically hugged her to death, I was so overjoyed, so relieved to know she felt the same way I did. I should have asked her to marry me on the spot, but I was so overwhelmed by everything, it never even crossed my mind. And besides, knowing Cat, she probably would have thought it was only because of her possible condition.”

“So what happened to the baby, and where does the livestock Professor Dumbledore was talking about come in?” Harry questioned.

Sirius rubbed the back of his head as a sheepish grin crossed his face. “Well Harry, that was nothing more than a very, very bad joke on my behalf. Put it down to a nervous mind and too little sleep while waiting to find out if I was going to be a father.” Sirius explained. “You have to understand Harry, I had only just turned seventeen, Cat was still sixteen, it was a lot of responsibility. And I have to admit, I became a tad more protective of her than I usually was.”

“Protective? Why did you need to be protective?”

“The Slytherins, most particularly Lucius Malfoy” Sirius growled “He was always doing something to her, trying to hurt or embarrass her. He made the mistake of trying to hex her in my presence, I guess that’s where the rumours of my bad temper began.” Sirius winked “All I could think of was he was going to hurt her and the baby. I lost my mind Harry, and I very nearly killed him, if it weren’t for Professor McGonagall passing by at just that moment, I well may have. As it was, she realized very quickly that I had only been defending Cat, a fellow Gryffindor, as she phrased it, and let me off with a stern warning, right after she directed some Slytherins to take Lucius to the hospital wing.”

Harry laughed as the thought of a Malfoy being man-handled like that stuck in his mind. “it’s a wonder mum didn’t do something herself. She really hates him, she calls him Lucy you know.”

“Oh yes, I know. That’s because your father and I managed to sneak inside the Slytherin dorms one night with his cloak and superglued woman’s clothes to him and Snape. It was priceless, Remus was ready bright and early with his camera to record the prank for the annals of history. I wonder where he has those pictures?”

“I wonder if you’re ever going to get to the livestock?” Harry reminded him.

“Oh alright, you just aren’t going to let me off the hook on this one, are you?” Sirius asked, already knowing the answer.