I seem to have a problem keeping up with the long stories that I write...so I decided to try my hand at a short, one-shot piece. This is the product of last semester's Maternity final. I don't know why, but I really like the idea of Molly as a midwife...Please review if you like. Or if you don't. Just let me know what you think. Happy holidays! --Flo

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July 31, 1980 was just like any other Thursday. With the weekly dinner party planned, James and Lily Potter woke at around 7:30 in the morning. After a quick breakfast, the young couple went their separate ways: James to the Ministry and Lily to the market to pick up supplies. James would work for several hours while Lily picked out the meal and then Lily would put in some hours at work while James cooked.

At the snap of James's apparation, Lily allowed herself to collapse in a chair by the kitchen table. She had been holding back her worries all morning so James wouldn't know that she had been feeling strange cramping since around 5. Nothing particularly painful, just more rhythmic than she'd experienced throughout her pregnancy.

With a few deep breaths in her, Lily moved towards the fireplace to throw a handful of green powder over the dead logs. A brilliant flame exploded into life before her eyes, and she quickly called a name.

"Hello?" a disembodied voice called through the flame. "Oh, Lily! What's wrong, dear?"

"Sorry to bother you, Molly," Lily pressed a hand to her lower abdomen. "I woke up this morning with these strange cramps. I've checked twice now and there's no blood, but those contractions I've been having are worse too!"

"Do the contractions go away when you walk or sit down?"

"No, they're the same no matter what I do."

"How much time do you have between each one?"

"I have no idea how long. I just called you as soon as James left." Lily bit back tears. She was trying so hard not to work herself up into a frenzy.

"Well, you're about 38 plus 4 weeks along. Why don't you lie down and see if you can record how long the contractions last and each time one begins. Then you call me back when there is less than 10 minutes between the start of one and the start of another. You did just fine waiting to call me, alright, dear? You know I'm just a floo away." Molly put on her reassuring-mother voice, and Lily almost felt calm again. This was why she chose Molly Weasley for her midwife: she was the ultimate calm in every childbirth situation.

"Thanks, Molly."

The following nine hours were increasingly uncomfortable, but not painful. Lily found herself stopping her paperwork every few minutes to press a hand to her enlarged belly, breathing deeply through the contractions. She had had days similar to this one throughout her pregnancy: the useless contractions that did nothing but bother her all day.

At 5, she made her way home from the Ministry quickly. Standing outside her front door, she gathered her wits before she went inside.

The sounds of laughter and chatter wafted out of the kitchen with a delicious smell.

"Lily? Was that you?" her husband popped his head out of the door, smiling at her. "Pete is going to be a little late. I think his cousin is still sick."

"That's too bad!" Lily sighed. "Poor Peter. He shouldn't have to take care of his cousin on his own."

Sirius leaned against the doorframe behind his best friend, grinning at the very pregnant redhead. "You're looking rounder than ever, Lils."

"Padfoot."

"I'm sure that was as close to a compliment as you can manage," Lily rolled her eyes as she accepted a kiss on the forehead from James and moved past the two tall men to hug her closest friend.

"You look beautiful, Lily," Remus smiled. But his smile flickered slightly as he felt something against his abdomen. "What was that?"

"What was what?" James looked between Remus and his wife.

"It's nothing," Lily sighed. "I didn't want you to know that I've had those contractions again today."

"Why didn't you tell me? Did you call Molly?"

"Of course. And she told me it's nothing. Now, would you please get the potatoes before they burn?"

It almost seemed like James had forgotten about the conversation during dinner, a half hour later. The four friends were enjoying the meal he had spent half the day making when Lily stopped eating, looking queasy. She was silent for a few minutes, glancing at the clock as if timing something. After about ten minutes she interrupted the boys' conversation about Disillusionment charms.

"James…" her tone was a warning.

"What's wrong, Lils?" Sirius looked at her curiously, swallowing half a potato whole.

"These contractions are getting stronger."

"I'm sure it's just gas," Sirius snickered. He had been cracking jokes about her gas since her first trimester when she had mentioned it to Alice in front of him.

"This is definitely not gas!" she snapped, turning her head towards her husband. "James, floo Molly now."

"…during dinner?"

"I don't think your son is going to wait for us to finish our custard, dear."

James got up from the table and hurried out of the room, leaving his two best mates with his huffing wife. She bit her lip as another contraction hit her. They had been getting more uncomfortable since 3, but she was able to ignore them before.

"Is there anything I can do?" Remus sounded slightly hesitant, as if he wasn't sure he wanted an answer.

Lily shook her head and stood, walking out of the dining room without another word. She strode past James frantically explaining the situation to Molly in the fireplace to the stairs and made her way to their bedroom.

It took a half hour for her to dress herself in the thin draping tunic dress she bought for this specific occasion, stopping every so often to ride out a contraction. Now, she was groaning with each of them, clenching the closest object in her hands with as much strength as she could manage.

When she made her way back downstairs, James was lugging the large plastic tub they had bought out of the closet. Surprisingly, his friends were looking through the directions on how to set it up. Peter had obviously arrived and been briefed about the situation at hand. He waved at her from his seat on the table behind Remus. The birthing ball and the stool Molly had pointed out in that A Witch's Midwife magazine were off to one side, and the fire was low in the fireplace.

Lily smiled at James and planted a kiss on his cheek as she walked by towards the birthing ball. He was setting up their home as a perfect little birthing center. The only thing they could do was wait for Molly to arrive at that point.

A pained moan greeted Molly when she arrived through the flickering fire. She took in the surroundings with a nod and a smile.

"What took you so long, Molly? It's been three hours!" James cried out from where he appeared before the short red-haired matron.

"Calm down, James. I had to get my things together," Molly brushed past him to Lily, lying prostrate on the sofa. She opened her bag and pulled out her wand, tapping each of her hands so that a clear shimmer covered them. "Let's see. I need to check how much your cervix has dilated, Lily dear. There's a good girl."

Sirius snorted as Molly performed the vaginal exam and refrained from making a comment only when Remus smacked the back of his head. Peter simply blinked a few times in surprise.

"Lovely," Molly stripped the sterile field from her hands with a careless flick of her wrists. "Looks like I arrived just in time. You're seven centimeters dilated. James? How have her contractions been?"

"Every three minutes apart, and she's been…screaming." James reported what Lily had been telling him for the past half hour. "She's been in and out of the tub twice, and she walked around the house with Peter at 7:30."

"Sounds like you're doing wonderful, Lily," Molly smiled. She quickly went through her procedures: checking heart rates, temperature, fetal position, contraction intensity, and double checking gestational age.

All of a sudden, there was a gush of fluid that soaked the sofa cushions and Lily's lower half.

"Moony, is it supposed to do that?" Peter whispered, his eyes wide and watery.

"I think so. I remember reading something about that." Remus muttered back, looking just as horrified by the sticky fluid Molly and James were now cleaning off of Lily's legs and abdomen.

"But there's so much of it!"

Lily rolled her eyes at James's attempts to preserve her modesty by wiping carefully around her dress. She grunted and whipped the soaked dress over her head, ignoring the squeaks from Peter and her husband. Molly just shook her head, listening to the fetal heart rate carefully to make sure the cord hadn't washed out of the cervix with the amniotic fluid.

Sirius couldn't resist. "Now, I know we used to laugh about someday seeing each other naked, Lils. But Merlin I wish it had been any other time."

"Don't look at my wife like that, Padfoot," James warned.

"Lighten up, Prongs. I'm not going after your girl when she's about to pop your kid out." Sirius ducked another clobbering from Remus, this time on both James and Lily's behalf.

A loud groan shut everyone up as Lily clutched the sofa arm and pushed herself up to standing. She began to pace restlessly, holding her belly and groaning in pain every few minutes. Remus and Peter held her arms when her legs wobbled and threatened to drop out from under her during a contraction. Molly instructed the two confused wizards how to go about rubbing her lower back, catching the vomit Lily couldn't hold in every so often, and other supportive measures during the transition.

James was strangely absent once Lily got truly restless, grunting and pacing the living room. When he reentered the room, she was on the birthing stool with Remus pushing hard on her lower back and Peter diligently wiping sweat from her forehead. Sirius crouched in front of her, staring at the bloody discharge in fascinated revulsion. Lily spotted her husband and growled fiercly.

"James, you're supposed to be coaching me! What the bloody hell are you doing?" she yelled as another pain shot through her. Pressure in between her legs urged her to push, but Molly had already told her she wasn't ready to start pushing yet.

"I put all the food away. We can't let it go to waste just because—"

"Just because your wife is going through childbirth?"

"Keep breathing, dear," James obediently went to her side, kicking his best mate as he walked by.

Molly huffed as she tried to move around Sirius and found him—as he had been for the past hour—completely in the way. She had had to remind him several times to get out of her way but he'd apparently not gotten the message.

"Sirius, I think it's wonderful that you are so interested, but you are not the only one who cares about this child. So please, move aside and let me check the station." Molly said patiently, sterilizing her hands once more. She felt for a moment, then smiled. "You're fully dilated, dear. It's time for you to push. Now, the next time you feel a contraction building, gather all of your strength and push…that's right dear, but relax your face. Push down below, relax everything else."

"Gahh I can't!" Lily screamed, scrunching up her face as she pushed through the pain and the pressure. She gasped for air when the contraction let up, letting herself go limp against James and Remus. Peter had backed up a few steps so that he couldn't see the blood that was flowing slowly but steadily from between Lily's legs.

Each contraction Lily fought to keep her face loose and use all of her energy down where the pressure was and rest as much as she could in the minutes between. Molly checked every once in awhile whether or not she was progressing, and forty-five minutes in, she urged James to look. His face went completely white as Lily began to shake again, marking the beginning of another contraction. The fearless Auror stood, backing up slightly.

"Oh Merlin I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can do this anymore."

"Shut up!" Lily yelled, gripping his hand until cracks were heard. "You got me into this and by the bloody arse of Dumbledore you are going to sit the fuck back down and stop complaining!"

The next ten minutes were pure hell, as the head began to show. Sirius's face was completely priceless as Lily screamed her way through crowning, and Molly told her to reach down and catch her baby.

A tiny bluish creature covered in white, cheesy substance rested against Lily's round abdomen, his head on her breast. There was no movement or sounds from the thing until Molly clamped the umbilical cord still leading into Lily an inch or so from his belly. Then he began to scream. Loudly.

"Here we go! James, would you like to cut the cord?" Molly held out her sterile scissors, handles towards the shaky father, and pulled out a warm blanket with the other hand.

"Careful, Prongs. Don't cut the wrong thing."

"Shut it, Padfoot," was the thoughtless response as James took the scissors and hesitantly cut where the older woman pointed out.

"Why is he crying? Is he hurt?" Peter peered over Molly's shoulder at the wailing child being rubbed down by the redhead. She motioned for Remus to help Lily back onto the sofa behind her as the new mother went limp and shaky.

"Don't worry, dear. He's just letting us know he's alive. Crying is a good sign." Molly carefully folded the blanket around the child so that he could rest skin-to-skin with his mother. And after a moment, the crying stopped. The entire room went silent.

The Marauders and Molly watched as the newest Potter gazed solemnly up at his mother. He blinked and then a wide smile spread across his tiny face. James sank into the sofa cushion beside his wife.

"It's you, Prongs." Peter's voice is thick with tears. "It's you and Lily."

Hours after the first breastfeeding experience—during which Sirius was thrown out several times for inappropriate comments—the new parents lay on their bed exhausted. Lily was actually lying still for the first time in hours. Molly was making tea in the kitchen, prepared to spend the night so that she could watch over Lily in the immediate postpartum period. Peter was passed out in a rocking chair, worn out from the night of excitement.

Remus and Sirius, however, stood together over the crib where little Harry Potter lay sleeping. Remus glanced to one side at the two of his best friends curled together then back to their child.

"He will never be afraid like we were," Sirius said quietly, his finger clutched in a tiny fist. "He will never be alone."

And on the bed, Lily's mouth curved into a smile.