In Curves, Not Angles

Magic lives in curves, not angles. ~ Mason Cooley

If nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternatively, there would never be more than three in a family. ~ Lawrence Housman

~

Part 1

When the phone rang at the Potters' house early that morning, James stared for a good long while, wondering what to do about it.

Lily had insisted on installing the telephone when they first moved in. James had been bemused at the request. "We're on the Floo network, Lil," he told her. "What do we need a phone for?"

"My parents can't use that," she said, sounding as though she were explaining things to a rather dim first-year boy. "Or Petunia, if she ever needs to call -- Merlin knows why she would, I suppose, but...."

James, seeing the logic in this, eventually gave in. He spent an interesting afternoon casting constant Obliviates on the worker wiring up the house, each time he began looking at something funny -- the wizarding books, or James' owl, or the teakettle contentedly whistling as it heated itself up.

The man left looking rather dazed, and forgot to send a bill. Lily pestered James until he finally did deliver his payment -- "and if weren't for me you'd have done it in Galleons," she'd groaned, on the way to the post office with their cheque.

After that James left her to deal with the phone, and never touched it. She was fun to watch, though, while chatting with her family or her Muggle friends. She kept on gesturing in midair as if they could see her -- or she'd take advantage of the invisibility to make gestures at him instead, like the elaborate pantomime of exasperation she put on during a rare call from her sister. James was laughing so loudly that Petunia heard, and she had to stop.

But right now, Lily wasn't here. She'd disappeared before he woke -- errands, most likely. She'd said something about that the night before.

And her phone was ringing like it never intended to shut up. Five rings now... six....

"You can take a message if I'm not here," Lily had explained once. "Just pick it up, say hello, and try to be polite."

James reached for the receiver. Somewhere around the eighth ring, he lifted it, awkwardly set it against his ear, and said, "Hello?"

"James Potter, you bloody idiot, I thought you were never going to pick this thing up --"

James nearly dropped the receiver in shock. He'd have recognized that voice anywhere. But why on earth was he using a phone?

"Sirius?"

"Not quite," he said tightly, sounding about ready to explode.

"What -- how do you even have this number? I'm sure I never said...."

"Listen, James, for God's sake. It's Lily."

James' heart clenched, coming to a sudden, panicked stop. "Lily? What's wrong -- did something happen to her?"

Sirius cut him off. "Something happened, all right. I mean, we're both fine, but...."

"Thank Merlin."

"Don't be so thankful. Just shut up and listen, would you?"

James sat down. He was gripping the receiver too hard; he could feel his palm begin to sweat against the plastic. He shoved his glasses up on his nose with the other forefinger, then focused, trying to imagine what was happening on the other end of the line. He wished he could just see it. Why on earth had Sirius not used the Floo? Was there something wrong with the Network, or....

"I'm Lily, James."

His train of thought jumped the tracks, crashed through three barriers and plummeted off the unfinished bridge into the ravine below.

Somewhere beneath the rising smoke, he heard that voice speak again.

"I'm not lying. I'm Lily. Sirius is in me. We got switched somehow. Probably someone at that party last night, I don't know how, but -- James, are you listening to me?"

James was simply sitting there, slack-jawed, and utterly speechless. After a moment he managed an incoherent sort of noise. Fortunately Lily accepted it as an affirmative, and plunged on -- in Sirius' voice, so familiar, but with the pacing and the inflections so obviously like Lily's that James couldn't think straight.

"I couldn't trust this voice to stay steady enough to use the Floo. I'd probably have called the Palmers by mistake and confused everyone to death. So I ran for the nearest telephone box. Thank God you picked up."

James, very slowly processing all this, finally managed a few words. "Where's Lily, then? I mean... Sirius...."

"Here," another voice said, faintly, as if it were a foot or two away from the phone. It sounded like his Lily.... "Prongs, this is completely cocked up."

"I'll say," he said shakily. "I'll... I'll come find you. Go back to the flat, okay?"

"We'll be there. It may be a few minutes. Sirius isn't walking very well. No bloody sense of balance...."

"Well, excuse me!" Lily's voice burst out. "I'm not used to hips and tits and four pounds' worth of baby--"

Blood roared in James' ears, in a sudden rush of panic. The baby. Lily's baby. His baby.

Lily, pregnant -- and Sirius was driving.

"Make him walk carefully," James demanded. He caught his breath -- and then some weird thread of logic made him finish, "And don't let him wear your heels!"

Without saying goodbye, he slammed down the phone and ran for the fireplace.

---

Sirius had not been having a good morning.

He hadn't exactly expected one, to be honest. James' party last night had involved consumption of at least three... no, four... or -- no matter how many, it was copious amounts of Ogden's, anyway, not to mention the butterbeers and some very rich cake, and....

Well.

Pounding headache, check. Queasy stomach, check. Difficult to move, roaring in ears, desperate need to piss -- check, check, check.

Sirius rolled halfway over in bed, groaning, and prepared to stumble into the bathroom to address at least two of those points. He stopped, however, when other problems became readily apparent.

One was the unfamiliar weight of the blankets, then the blue walls, which ought to have been white. He stared, beginning to frown. He wasn't in his own flat. This... looked like the Potters', still.

He spared a moment to wonder just how much he'd really had, if he couldn't even make it out the door last night.

But then he turned a little more, and something far, far worse became obvious: the heavy swelling at his middle, stopping him from rolling any farther.

Sirius gulped. Then, wide-eyed, he looked down.

And immediately hollered.

In soprano.

Holy shit, that's -- that's --

With a flail and a fumble, he tumbled out of the bed, still gasping -- and refusing to look again. That... no. No, he wasn't seeing that. Or hearing that. Had to be a dream. Had to be still sleeping. Had to be somewhere else -- had to wake up --

But he turned to see James on the opposite side of the bed.

His sleep-tousled hair stuck out every which way, just like Sirius had seen countless times in the dorms, and he was once more evincing his talent for sleeping through any apocalypse; he merely mumbled at the noise and rolled over, his face in the pillow. Completely oblivious to Sirius staring in dismay, James commenced snoring.

It was James. In his bed. Definitely James' bed, in James' room, in James' house. And Sirius had definitely been in the bed. There were only so many explanations for that sort of thing.

Sirius took a few unsteady steps away, inching along the wall, before teetering into the bathroom to gape at the mirror --

-- and the unmistakable reflection of James' wife.

There were a few seconds of intense denial, before all that was left to say was the obvious.

"Oh, fuck," he whispered, in Lily's voice.

He clapped a hand to his -- her? -- mouth, watching her bright green eyes go wide. The mirror wasn't lying. Couldn't be. It showed everything he was doing, from the shocked expression to every fidget he was making, and it didn't stop, even after he'd smacked the mirror with one fine-boned hand, as if to jolt it into showing what he wanted to see.

"Excuse me," the mirror said, affronted. "I'm only showing what's there."

"It's not me," he protested, listening to Lily's early-morning voice crack as he dropped his hand.

The mirror ignored him. "If you want anything else, you need a mirror enchanted to do more than I can." There was a slight sound of disappointment. "Just 'cause I'm a bathroom mirror, no one wants anything special. No, if I were in a ballroom or a bedroom or a workroom somewhere, then maybe I could do something useful, or showy, maybe some distortion and lighting effects--"

"Oh, shut up," Sirius groused, and went back to staring. He leaned closer, pulling at her hair, squinting at the shape of the jawline, even tugging back a lip to inspect the teeth. His telltale chipped bicuspid -- the mark still showed, even after the healing charm -- looked clean and perfect now....

He dropped his hands to his sides. No, her sides. Her hands. But whoever they belonged to, they were shaking. This was definitely Lily. That meant -- he hoped, anyway, as insane as the thought was -- that she was walking around as him, too.

"I'm gonna kill whoever did this," Sirius whispered, before a strange shifting feeling stopped him cold.

He frowned, shook his head a little when it stilled, and then gulped when there was another, much more distinct one -- something that felt like...

...a kick....

Sirius yanked up the nightdress and stared in horror at Lily's belly.

The baby. Six months along, now, and he'd been hearing no end of it the entire time. But all that talk had just been... theoretical. The closest he'd ever come to this was putting his hand to Lily's stomach, once, to see if he could feel the baby kick. He hadn't. He'd been vaguely put out.

But now it had moved in there, and he'd actually felt it, from the inside....

He stared down, feeling more than a little queasy.

If he actually saw anything move, he knew he'd be in for it.

"Are you feeling all right, Miss Lily?" the mirror asked.

Sirius slowly let the nightdress fall from his grip. The fabric slipped over his stomach -- no, her stomach; there was no way he could call that his. The gown covered but in no way hid the evidence.

"Not really," he muttered, swallowing hard.

The mirror actually sounded a little sympathetic. "Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"

Sirius wanted to make a sarcastic retort, and there were at least thirty-seven that immediately sprang to mind, but all it took was one step backwards before the previous queasiness roared into full force. Instead of saying anything, Sirius found himself kneeling before the toilet and retching hopelessly. And I thought I'd be doing this... because of the alcohol, he thought weakly, trying to hold her hair out of the way.

"Poor dear," the mirror said. "I thought the morning sickness would be over by now."

Sirius made a rather unladylike spit and flushed, finding it utterly impossible to reply. He wanted to get the hell out of here before James noticed, and to go find Lily, but he'd just been reminded by the sound of the rushing water that he really had to use the toilet. And that wasn't going to work like it usually did, either....

"On second thought," Sirius muttered, as he struggled back up to his feet and tried to turn around, "death's too good for whoever did this."

---

Lily woke late, to the sound of banging on the door.

She blinked blearily, groaning low as she struggled out of sleep. Her face was half-turned into the pillow, her legs tangled in the blankets, one foot dangling off the side of the bed. It took a moment to prop herself up on her elbows -- and halfway through the motion, she realized just what she'd been doing.

She'd been sleeping on her stomach.

Lily cried out in sudden horror, one hand flying to her stomach, before a cavalcade of details crashed in. The bed. The room. The wrong bed and room.

The wrong body.

She scrambled up the rest of the way, pressing too-large hands to her skin and hair and face -- but they weren't hers, not at all... a tumble of fine black hair, a chin dusted with stubble, a broad, muscular chest and flat stomach --

"This can't --" she gasped, and stopped dead when she heard Sirius' voice.

For a moment all she did was try to breathe, until the sharp barrage of knocks started again.

Awkwardly, she fumbled her way off the bed and tried to shove down the queasy feeling in her stomach. Everything felt wrong, every little motion -- arms the wrong weight, joints angled a touch differently, muscles shifting oddly. She swallowed hard and stared down at the mostly-naked body, plucking at the worn boxer shorts he'd been sleeping in. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to look under there or not.

And she definitely wasn't ready to face another human being, not like this. She backed up two steps, away from the loud and disconcerting thumps, and stared at the door as if she were waiting for it to attack her.

Should I just pretend I'm not here? she wondered. At the sound of another, louder knock, she finally caved in and called back, hearing his voice shake. "Who's there?"

Even that small sound made her head pound. She resisted the urge to vomit only through the sheer, well-trained force of willpower. As it was, she squeezed her eyes shut and swayed a little, feeling the world tilt entirely the opposite direction. Oh, hell....

Through the haze, though, she heard a voice yell back. "Open up!" it shouted. "Lily!"

With that, the ground dropped out entirely from beneath her.

That was her own voice.

Lily stumbled forward. "Hurry it up," Sirius pleaded, the words muted through the door, but so unmistakably hers.... "I've got to sit down."

Lily fought with the doorhandle and eventually wrenched it open, to see herself in James' old shirt and sweatpants, with her hair hastily brushed back, no hint of makeup, and an expression and stance so like Sirius' that she nearly choked. She wasn't sure if it was a weak laugh under there, but it might have been.

"Sirius?" she asked.

"Who bloody else? Let me in, Lil. My feet are killing me."

She stepped back, then reached out a hand to steady him as he maneuvered into the flat. He waved a hand to shove her off, and sat rather ungracefully in the nearest chair, leaning back and putting a hand over... well... her face.

Lily stared, nearly overwhelmed at the strangeness of watching herself. "How did you get here?" she asked.

"Walked," he said mournfully. "Didn't dare the Floo like this and I couldn't fly, and Merlin only knows how public transportation works around here...."

Lily sat down, finding her normal prim pose difficult to hold, suddenly. She felt herself slouch a little instead, leaning forward with her forearms braced against her knees, and her hands dangling between. She still felt nauseous -- this was as close to upright as she felt she could manage. "Walked. That's got to be...."

"A good half-mile. Give or take a walk around the Earth or two." Sirius wouldn't look at her yet. "I am never doing that again, not like this. Maybe going to bed would help. For the next three years."

"You walked? Alone?" Lily stared in disbelief. "James just--"

Sirius shook his head. "Didn't tell James." Lily gaped at him. "What was I supposed to say? 'Sorry, darling, I'm not feeling like myself today?'"

"I don't call him 'darling'," she snapped. "And that was irresponsible, Sirius -- you've got my --- my--"

She waved, suddenly speechless, as the implications sank in. Sirius, carrying her child?

Sirius?

"I thought if I found you we could... figure this out," Sirius said, looking at her this time, but speaking a little weakly. "Get swapped back before--"

"Anyone finds out?" she said, her voice gone flat. "What, you couldn't stand it being known you had to be me for a few minutes?"

"It's not that, Ev -- Lily... oh, fucking hell." He shut his eyes again. "Didn't we do enough fighting last night?"

She stiffened, remembering the argument all too clearly. "If that had anything to do with this--"

He shook his head violently. She watched her tangled hair fly, and irrationally wished for a comb. "I did not do this. I didn't do anything like this. What would I get out of it? It would make more sense for it to be you!"

She felt briefly insulted, but then looked closer, and her lip twitched. Sirius, not only stuck as a woman, but as a pregnant woman.... If this were anyone but her -- and her baby under his care -- she'd have been laughing herself sick.

"I was not responsible for this," she said, then sat back, frowning. "Maybe someone else heard us."

Suddenly-intent green eyes sought hers out. "Decided to pull a prank on us?"

"You people and your pranks," she whispered. "You'd think you never got out of second year."

Sirius looked like he was trying hard not to snap back over that one.

"We've got to tell James," Lily said into the silence, standing up. "This is ridiculous. We're going to need help reversing this."

Sirius looked up, desperate. "I thought we might be able to do it." He swallowed. "I came all this way--"

"And we'll need to be together for it to work, I'm sure, but I'm not going to do it myself and find out that my power's all tangled up in yours, or the wand won't work, or something." Lily held out a hand. "Come on."

Sirius, looking pained, allowed himself to be hauled up. "Obviously physical contact isn't enough to do it...."

She shot him a look. "What, were you expecting that to be it? And then I'd get to walk home like you did?"

"Turnabout," he muttered.

She shook her head and turned around, teetering again. She swore under her breath. "How much did you have last night?" she said.

"You don't want to know," he said wearily.

Silently agreeing that he was probably right, she went to his clothes cabinet. "I need some clothes. And we're going to find a telephone."

"Second drawer, shirts; third, trousers," he said. She rooted out a dark blue shirt, pulling it hastily over her head. "There's actually a pair of trousers I usually wear with that--"

Lily rolled her eyes. "As if you were so careful about fashion this morning."

Sirius looked at himself. "I..." He flushed, suddenly. "Your clothes scare me."

Lily shook her head at the idea of Sirius trying to negotiate a bra, and then decided it would be better not to think about it. She pulled on the trousers and went fumbling for shoes, finding a set halfway under the bed. "Come on," she said, as she tugged the left one on. "Let's go."

"Just a second," Sirius said, looking sheepish. "Need to... use the toilet again."

She gave him an exasperated look, then very, very nearly laughed. "Be my guest." She paused, and twitched a little. "Then me, too."

He looked a little pained, but as if he understood, hurried to the bathroom. He didn't bother to shut the door. She shut her eyes and looked away, shaking her head. It figured.

She thought then of calling James, and did laugh once, in a tone more wry than she'd ever heard Sirius use.

This, she thought, is going to be a conversation to remember....