Talking to the Baby
I'm lying here next to your mother, trying to adjust to the fact that I'm going to be a father. When I came here to our private place, I expected to be greeted by her familiar smile. Instead I found her in tears. I was dumbfounded, which I have to admit, is my usual state. Your mother is tough, and she hardly ever cries.
"What's wrong?" I asked stupidly.
"Harry, I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it. I'm pregnant."
"Wow! Are you sure?" I asked even more stupidly. I'm not always the sharpest crayon in the box, as you'll soon see for yourself. If your mother could learn to put up with me, though, I suppose you will, too.
"It's been two months." She started to cry again. "What am I going to do?"
"I guess we're going to have a baby," I said, and tentatively put my arms around her. She buried her face in my shirtfront, which soon became extremely damp.
"I want to. I know there are things I could do, but they just don't seem right. I mean, they seem really wrong, but if I have it, everyone's going to figure out it's yours."
"Well, yeah," I said, even more stunned. "I would hope so! Don't even think about it, all right? We'll be all right. You didn't think I'd run out on you, or anything like that, did you?"
"I didn't know."
"Well, now you do!"
Then she smiled, and I smile back, rather weakly, but I pull it off. Then I tried to think back two months. I was in a really sucky mood two months ago. I was missing my godfather, for one thing. Oh, wow, if he were still here, he'd be so excited. He'd tease the hell out of me, but he'd be so excited. Of course if he were here, you probably would not be, so it all comes out even.
He died, because of something really stupid I did. I never meant for things to turn out the way they did, but I can't take it back now. I was pretty miserable about it, though, about him dying and about this stupid prophecy. Oh God, that stupid prophecy! I'm holding your mother in my arms, and she's holding you. She really is. She's sound asleep, with her arms wrapped around her waist like she's protecting you. You need it. Hell, I need it.
I don't want to go like my father did, and leave you all alone. You are the biggest surprise I've ever had in my life. You make Hagrid showing up to take me to Hogwarts like an everyday outing. I don't remember much about my family. Now I have a family again. Just like that…a few words are said, and I have a family. You just dropped into my world, and I'm shocked, and amazed, scared and proud, pleased and petrified. I can't wait to see you, to get to know you, but damn it, I don't know if I will. What if I lose and no one ever tells you anything about me, the way no one ever told me about my dad? Your mother won't let them do that, will she?
I'm talking to you now, hoping you'll sense somehow how much I want to spend at least the next twenty or thirty years just watching you turn into the person you are going to be, and never let anyone tell you that you weren't meant to be! I don't know if you're a boy or a girl, and I don't care. You're mine. I know you're mine, and meant to be. I know some stupid arsehole, probably from Slytherin house is going to say that you were just a big mistake. They'll say something stupid about your mother, and I'll have to hex them, and all hell will break loose, but I don't care. You are MY child. I know you are. You'll probably even have the rotten luck to look as much like me as I did my dad, and you'll never get away from it. My dad could be a real prat at times. Lucky for him my mum was decent. It was lucky for him and lucky for me, and lucky for you. Your mum is amazing like that, too.
I was probably sulking when it happened. I did so damned much sulking the last year or so. Everyone tried to talk me out of it, and I wouldn't listen. I wouldn't listen to Dumbledore, or Hagrid, or Professor Lupin. They all tried. Every adult in my life tried. They really did.
Shit. Your mother is right. As soon as she got calmed down, she said, "We'll have to tell my dad."
He's probably going to go mad when he hears. He likes me well enough. Ever since your mother and I started going out, he's been happy about it. He's treated me like his own son. How he'll feel about me getting his precious only daughter in trouble, I have no idea.
Why do they call it that? Why do they call it in trouble? I'm always in trouble anyway, and most of it is so negative. At least this is something positive. I love your mother, and she loves me. She loves me so much. That's why you're here. When I'd go off and sit by myself, she'd just come along and sit beside me. She wouldn't say a word, just sit there, staring along with me at the lake, or the forest, or whatever. It hacked me off at first, then I got used to it. It was comforting, and I started to talk to her, about everything. She already knew about Sirius. That's my godfather, but I had so much more to say. I had things to say that I'd been holding in for years. I talked about my mum and dad dying, and about what it was like living with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.
They're going to go ballistic, too, but that could be fun. I should go buy a house on Privet Drive as soon as you start to show, and sit in the front garden with your mother every morning, smiling at all the neighbors. Your mother can go knock on Aunt Petunia's door and ask to borrow a cup of sugar. After you're born you can learn to walk and talk. Once you have that down, you can run around the front yard yelling until Aunt Petunia goes mad, or you can kick a ball through her picture window. You can play football if you're a girl or a boy right? Will you do that for your dad? Go kick a football right through Aunt Petunia's window?
They made me miserable for years. I'm going to give you everything I didn't have when I was a kid. You have to have a red bicycle, all right? I don't care what kind you really want, do me a favor, and take the red bicycle, and the computer, and swimming lessons, and a thousand trips to the zoo. If you can talk to the snakes, though, I'm going to have a heart attack. I can just see it. I can see it so clearly in my head.
"Honey, did the baby just say something to that snake?"
"Of course Harry, dear…parseltongue is inherited, you know."
Mum's going to have to pick me up off the floor if that happens, I swear.
She's been picking me up for so long, though. Ever since my fifth year, and that's a long time. I bet you came along the day I told her about the prophecy. I started to cry. We were sitting on a cloak down by the lake, in my special spot, where I always like to go to think. I felt so stupid, but I started to cry and I couldn't stop, and she just took me in her arms, and held me like I'm holding her right now, and then she kissed me, and it wasn't like any kiss I'd ever had. I needed that kiss so bad, but once I started, I couldn't stop. I'd never needed anyone so much. I needed someone to care about me, and your mother cared about me more than anyone on this earth ever has.
I didn't know there really is a point of no return. She just kept repeating, "It's all right, Harry. It's all right," and it felt right. It felt good and right and perfectly natural. I was always so damned bad with girls, but that day, everything felt perfectly right to me, until the very moment it happened, and I realized exactly what I had done and what a big deal it was for both of us.
I didn't mean to hurt her, and she tried not to scream, but she did a little, and I kind of froze, and I was staring into her eyes. There were two tears running out, one on each side, but she was smiling kind of crookedly. "I wanted it to be you," she whispered, and then I knew it was too late to stop anyway, so I went on, and it was so great I never wanted to stop. Maybe if I had stopped, we wouldn't all be here now. You might not be here, but I don't know for sure which time it was, and I guess I never will. I just know I didn't stop that day, and that's how it all started for us.
If you ever love someone that much, I'll try to understand. I want you to be careful whoever you are, but I swear, I'll try to never forget that moment, and what it mean to me. If it means that much, it's meant to be. You are meant to be, and if I have to spend every knut in my Gringotts vault to get you here, I will. It's almost not fair to you. It certainly isn't fair to your mother. It's going to be damned rough in spots. We're in for a world of heartache, and hurt, and we'll see a lot of evil. We'll all feel a lot of doubt, and a lot of frustration. I can't help that.
Your mother says she doesn't mind, that the good days are worth the bad, but I don't know if you'll feel the same way. I hope you forgive me for bringing you into a world where you have to see so many dark days. Maybe it's better that I started now. That might take along, long time, for you to forgive me, for all we're going to go through together, but please, my baby, remember this, no matter what happens, your dad adored you.
"Harry? What are you doing? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Luna. Go back to sleep."