She knows that she should be trying harder to find him boys and girls his age to play with – she knows – but he's covered in cake batter and holding the wooden spoon that's too big for his chubby four year old hands and she wants to keep him for herself for a bit longer. It's nice, being retired and in this big house where they can run around and play all day. He's hard to keep up with, because he's so full of energy and she's getting older than she'd like to admit, but he keeps her happy and busy. Especially when they bake. She's terrible at Muggle cooking and she never thought that a rowdy little boy would like baking so much, but being the official taste tester must have something to do with it. So they bake together, every Thursday afternoon, and something always goes terribly wrong but they laugh and laugh about it because she has to stifle a fire or fix a burnt tart with magic and it gives him a fit of giggles that's so contagious that she can't help but join in.
And she doesn't have to give this up – she doesn't want to – because she's enough, right? She doesn't have to share him, because he's a happy and charming little boy and he loves spending time with his mum. Because she's his best friend in the whole wide world and she likes it that way.
And she tells herself this everyday – especially on Thursdays when they're baking and he's watching her measure and re-measure ingredients from his place on the counter with wide hazel eyes, her husband's eyes. Her husband who tells her that she's holding him too close and she needs to let him go and play more with other children because she's going to make him socially stunted or spoil him too much or heaven forbid, turn him into a complete Mummy's Boy. But it's on these Thursday afternoons that she allows herself to completely silence her husband's warnings and not worry about what she could possibly doing to her poor boy. And she does worry about it quite a bit; she just can't help herself.
It's just that she had wanted a baby for so long and they tried and tried and tried and for thirty years she had accepted that she'd never be a mother. And then out of the blue she was pregnant and after twenty-nine weeks the midwife was handing her a baby boy that came into the world far too soon with underdeveloped lungs. And there was that horrible moment where she was so close to having what she had always wanted and so close to having it ripped out of her hands. But her little lion was a fighter and while he was a bit small for his age, he was happy and healthy and it made her heart swell that after those awful few weeks where they didn't know if he would make it, she was finally able to keep him.
So she's known as Mum now, and she loves each and every day that they spend together. Especially Thursdays when they're covered in flour and she runs her dough-covered hands through his fine, messy hair and he flicks a little batter at her in retaliation. And they giggle and share a mischievous grin and shh don't let daddy know that I let you eat so much frosting and he's the best thing that has ever happened to her – her son, her little boy, her miracle baby.
Her James.
A/N: Written for Day 1 of Jily Week on tumblr! The prompt was childhood - hope you liked it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter lalalalala