A/N: This was inspired by the HUGE storm that hit my home last night...some of the hail was still on the ground at 9:45 this morning. Anyways...
There was a bright flash of light, then…Boom!
"Mummy! Daddy!" Little feet came scurrying into Harry and Ginny's room.
"James? What is it?" said Harry. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Harry nudged his pregnant wife gently to wake her up.
"Daddy, I'm scared." Now the three-year-old launched himself into the air and onto his parent's bed.
Ooof. Unfortunately, he landed on Harry's stomach. Ignoring his dad's grunt of pain, James continued across the bed and clambered on top of Ginny, who blanched.
"Harry! Get your son off of his future brother before I puke on him!" Urgency made her voice higher than normal. Her husband quickly scooped their son off of her distended stomach and cradled him in the circumference of his arms as Ginny quickly made for the bathroom.
To cover the sounds of Ginny retching, Harry addressed his son. "Look, James, it's only a stor--" Boom!
From the bathroom he heard Ginny swear. "Er, honey? You alright in there."
"I'm fine. The baby just kicked at the same time the thunder went. It startled me." She slowly came out of the bathroom. "Where's James?"
Harry looked around before realizing that James had attempted to burrow further inside his dad's embrace. He had managed to get twisted up between Harry and the headboard, with his feet sticking in his father's face. Harry gently pulled him out by the ankles, before placing him in the middle of the bed. Ginny climbed back in and she and Harry each put an arm around their trembling child. "It'll be alright, honey, don't worry."
The storm carried on, getting progressively worse. James shook with fright harder each time the thunder cracked. Harry tried to make the lightning and thunder into a game. "James, look, the thunder's not very close. See? You see the lightning and count till the thunder goes. Look, there's lightning." Boooom!
"Harry, I don't think that helped." James was now trying to crawl under his mother to hide from the thunder. "Try something else."
"Like what?"
"I dunno, what do you do when you're scared?" Ginny snatched up her son and held him tightly. "Now watch Daddy. He won't let you be scared anymore."
Harry looked at his son's expectant, fearful face. Great. Way to put the pressure on, Ginny. He wracked his brain, trying to come up with something to cheer James up. What do I do when I'm scared? The first idea to come to him wouldn't work. Fighting Voldemort was impossible as the Dark Lord was already dead, and Harry was most definitely not bringing him back. Nor would that do anything for James but to put him in danger and scare him more. But how do I fight back against something intangible?
Then it hit him. It was a brilliant idea. And it just might work. Harry picked his wand up from the bedside table.
Expecto patronum! Silently cast, a glowing silver stag erupted from the tip of his wand. It cantered around the room before coming to a halt before Harry. He stretched out his hand and caressed the patronus' nose. It stayed in place while Harry returned to the bed, picked up his son, and carried James back over to the silver stag.
"James," he said. "This is Prongs." And the storm was quite forgotten.
Much later, Ginny asked what Harry had thought of when he conjured the Patronus. "How happy I feel to know that you, James, this future baby and I are a family." he replied.
A/N: Never having been pregnant, I don't know exactly when kicking starts and morning sickness ends. Because I do know that every pregnancy is different, I am choosing to believe that for Ginny, morning sickness extended at least midway into the second trimester. Don't forget to review!
