Songbird ; Fred Weasley

Fifty-four

Another month passed and suddenly I was standing in the nursery department of a furniture store, with Max by my side.

Fred had a business meeting about expanding to New York, so I brought Max along.

"Which room will be hers?" He asked as we walked among the many displays of cribs.

"We haven't talked about that yet." I said. "But probably the room next to ours."

Max ran his hand across the wood of one of the cribs, looking lost in thought.

"Don't tell me you're thinking about having a baby with my brother." I said. "You're eighteen."

Max cocked an eyebrow before eyeing my stomach.

"This is different." I said, protectively placing my hands on my stomach. "We didn't plan this."

Max sighed.

"I know babe. I was just thinking about the future. Flynn and I hopefully married if England ever allows it." He shot me a sad smile. "Even if we wanted a kid, we wouldn't be able to legally adopt anyway, or use a surrogate. Any way of being a married and starting a family together is illegal because why would we be allowed to? We're just two gay men, right?"

His laugh was sad and depreciating.

"Oh Max." I hurried to his side and wrapped my arms around him.

He slid his arm around my shoulders and pressed a kiss to my hair.

"It's fine. I've lived eighteen years knowing my sexuality was illegal."

I tilted my head back so I could look up at him.

"I'm sorry." I said. "I hate the stupid law."

"Yeah, so do I." He chuckled softly before shaking his head. "Enough about that. Let's look at furniture for your baby until Fred gets out of his meeting and can get here."

"Max—"

"No, c'mon. Right now is about you." He said. "Can you believe you're in your third trimester now? Three more months."

I groaned and walked towards one of the cribs, running my hands over the blue-coloured wood.

"We're moving into our new flat next week, we've having a baby in three months, and we've only been dating for six months. We literally started our relationship by getting pregnant."

Max walked up next to me.

"So what? You go about your relationship in a different order than other people. You can still have a nice and healthy relationship."

"I know." I nodded. "But sometimes it scares me, y'know? I already love my baby so much, but I'm scared that the stress of having a newborn will ruin the relationship Fred and I have."

"See, that is why you should go into couples counselling."

I frowned.

"What—"

"Healthy and happy couples do it all the time." He told me. "Flynn and I are in couples counselling. We learn techniques so when we do fight, we don't turn on each other. We use it to prevent our relationship from going south."

I hummed, thinking about it because that definitely seemed like a good idea. Especially because Fred and I would be moving in together next week, preparing for our baby.

"Alright." I breathed. "What do you think of this crib?"

He raised his eyebrows and eyed the blue coloured crib.

"That is the ugliest f'ing crib I've ever seen."

I laughed, moving along to the next one which was a black wooden crib with a white mattress.