"Harry James Potter!"
"What? We're putting my name?"
Lily Potter was exhausted. She had just given birth to her first child a couple of hours ago. Her long auburn hair was sticking at the back of her hospital bed pillow. Her green eyes met her husband's hazel ones.
"Well, yes, it's tradition in your family, isn't it?" Lily said to him.
"Right." James replied thinking about his own middle name and running his fingers through his messy black hair. "Right, it is. How is it you know more about my family than me?"
"Your mother had told me." Lily said very gently. James's mother has passed away a couple months before. It was still quite fresh and a subject James did not want to discuss often.
Harry, the new born baby, was sleeping away quietly in a hospital bassinet beside Lily's bed. James was moving from Lily's bed to the chair beside Lily's bed to the bassinet where Harry was fast asleep not really knowing what to do with himself.
"I'm starving." Lily told her husband. She had after all just went through labour. "Do you think the nurse can get me food?"
Before James could reply, the nurse itself popped her head in. "Are you wanting visitors?"
Before they could answer, however, Sirius Black made his way passed the nurse followed by Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.
"'Course they do!" Sirius said his handsome feature letting out a laugh.
As exhausted as Lily was, she knew there was no separating the Marauders. "It's fine." She murmured as Remus kissed her cheek and said, "congratulations!"
Sirius clapped James on the shoulder. "Congrats, Mate!"
James and Lily beamed at them as Peter Pettigrew sat on the empty chair his feet barely touching the floor. Lily thought he looked a bit strange today. Was he whiter than usual?
"What a tiny thing!" Sirius said before Lily could ask Peter if he was alright.
Lily looked at her baby. "Isn't he adorable? We named him Harry."
Sirius and Remus admire the baby for a few minutes. When they were satisfied, they all found a chair or an end bed to sit on.
"Been to the Order's meeting today?" James asked his best friends.
Sirius and Remus exchanged a looked and both of them grinned.
"What?" James asked.
"We have news." Remus announced. "Good ones at that."
"Go on," James nodded at him, "did we find out something or… or what?"
Sirius laughed. "Dumbledore's just announced. It will be in the paper tomorrow; He's gone, Voldemort!"
Lily's heart skipped a beat. "He's what now?"
"Gone." Remus repeated. "He's vanished."
James frowned. "What do you…. What do you mean?"
"Dumbledore said he's vanished because he's been hit by a powerful curse. Not a curse with a wand…" Remus explained. "More like a curse set long ago to stop dark wizards."
"I don't understands." Lily said.
"Someone decided some time ago that we should be protected from such wizards and set up a curse." Remus explained further.
"Okay…" James said slowly. "What about Grindelwald and them? There has been other dark wizards. Why did it only hit Voldemort?"
Remus shrugged, "he's must of done something horrible… not that it's surprising."
"So, he's dead?" James asked.
"No." Sirius said grimly. "Dumbledore reckons he's just powerless. He'll come back someday… could be years."
"That means…" Lily started not daring to believe it. "That means we can-"
"We can go back to normal," Remus smiled, "whatever that is."
"Dumbledore's doing a feast with the Order tomorrow night" Sirius informed them. "Umderstandable if you can't make it."
"We'll see when we get off." Lily told him. "I can't believe He's gone!"
"It hasn't really hit me yet." Remus nodded.
"Are you coming tomorrow, Wormtail?" Sirius asked Peter. "Only I could pick you up with my motorcycle seeing as your chimney is still a wreck."
Peter seemed to be waking up from a reverie. "Oh right, no thank you, I'll apparate."
When the Marauders left half an hour later, James came over in Lily's bed and she rested her head against his shoulder looking at her newborn baby.
Everything was ok in the world today.
"Can we have another?" James teased her.
Lily laughed. "Oh, could you relax!"
A year later, however, Lily gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.