Harry wasn't used to being in the waiting room outside of the maternity ward. He was used to being in the delivery room with Ginny, or home waiting for the news if one of her brothers' wives were giving birth. But now it wasn't Ginny who was having a baby, and it wasn't Fleur or Audrey or Angelina. It was Hermione, and she and Ron wanted him here at the hospital, and he and Ginny were out in the waiting room with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley with nothing to do but wait.
Well, wait and chase James around the room every time he tried to make a break for it. He was a year and a half old and seemed to delight in doing anything that would distract them from Albus, whether he was old enough to do it consciously or not. In that regard, sitting in the waiting room was actually better than being at home – James was quite content to soak up his grandparents' affections and leave the baby with his parents, or to let Harry chase him while his grandparents cooed over Albus.
Even so, it was strange to be waiting. And it seemed to last forever. Harry supposed he should have expected that. Ginny had been in labor for a long time with James and even longer with Albus, but of course, he'd also been distracted at the time by the fact that she was screaming at him and squeezing his hand so hard it cut off his circulation and digging her fingernails into his palm like she was trying to hurt him. She might have actually been trying to hurt him, but he liked to pretend she hadn't done it on purpose, anyway.
Yes, he decided, the waiting room was infinitely preferrable to the delivery room. Not that he would mention that to Ginny. He liked the idea of keeping his head firmly attached to his body, after all. And he was sure if they had another baby, he'd want to be there for Ginny. Probably. It was hard to think of adding another baby to the chaos of their lives, but . . . at times like this when Albus was asleep in Ginny's arms and James wasn't running into things or falling down or otherwise making them worry that he might hurt himself, it wasn't so hard as it could be.
Suddenly, Ron burst into the room, still in his scrubs and with an almost manic glint in his eye. "It's a baby!" he shouted, pointing at the door behind him as if they didn't know where the baby was. Albus woke up at the noise and started crying, but for once, every adult in the room didn't leap to comfort him.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" Mr. Weasley asked. Mrs. Weasley looked too excited to quite manage words, an expression he remembered fondly from when James and Albus were born.
Ron was grinning just as widely and seemed to have almost none of his faculties. "It's a baby!" he answered, as if that was all they could possibly need or want to know.
Ginny laughed. "Yeah, Ron, we know. But what kind of baby?"
Ron's face got slightly more serious as he looked earnestly into Ginny's eyes. "I don't know!" he said desperately, "It's a . . . it's a baby!"
Mrs. Weasley spoke now, bustling past the rest of them to stand sternly in front of her son, hands on her hips. His face fell, and he seemed to come down to earth for the first time. "Ronald Bilius Weasley! Do you mean to tell me you charged out here to tell us about the baby without finding out whether it was a boy or a girl or giving it a name or anything and you left poor Hermione in there wondering where you'd gone?"
Ron looked like someone had hit him over the head. "Umm. . . maybe? I'll be right back!" Whether he was trying to duck his mother's rage or whether he'd actually realized he'd run out here too soon, Harry wasn't sure, but either way, it was hard not to laugh.
When his best friend came back into the room again a few minutes later, he was considerably calmer, though he was still grinning like a loon. "It's a girl!" he announced proudly. "Her name is Rose." Something in his eyes changed, softening until it was almost completely unlike the manic feverishness of the last time he'd come into the room. "And she's completely beautiful, guys, you have to come see. She's beautiful."
Harry and Ginny stepped back, letting Mr. and Mrs. Weasley go in to see the baby first, and Harry slid one arm around Ginny, keeping an eye on James, who had decided he wanted to climb onto the table and seemed surprisingly close to actually achieving it. "You know," he said softly into her ear, "that's how I felt about the boys. They were beautiful and I was almost too excited to think straight."
She laughed. "Yeah, but you remembered to ask if they were boys or girls, at least."
He laughed too. "Yeah, I guess I did. Cool under pressure, you know."
Ginny laughed. "And I wouldn't let go of your hand long enough for you to run off."
Harry kissed her forehead. "And that."
A few minutes later, he pulled James away from the side of the table and went in to meet his new niece. Ron was right. She was beautiful. She also had an even stronger pair of lungs than Albus did, which meant that when the two of them both started crying at once, getting louder and louder like they were competing, he was almost immediately kicked back out to the waiting room, where he bounced his son on his knee until he calmed down. "You two are going to be trouble, aren't you, Albie? You and little Rose?"
Albus responded with a long stream of babbling that sounded almost entirely unlike words.
"Yeah, I know," Harry answered, "New cousins are exciting." He had a feeling, though, and the feeling said trouble. He kissed his son on the forehead. Maybe trouble would be ok. It wasn't like there wasn't already trouble with James and Albus both being so little. He bounced Albus until the boy started giggling, wondering what it would have been like to grow up with brothers and cousins and the lot. (Dudley did not count.) It would have been nice.
"You know, though, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it won't be trouble at all." Albus giggled. Harry wasn't sure why. The baby didn't understand a word he was saying.