The small boy whimpered in pain as his coughs finally subsided. Kneeling at the edge of the couch he was curled up on, his mother lay the back of her hand across his forehead.
"My sweet boy," she murmured. "You're burning up."
Green eyes met green eyes as the child turned his head to the sound of his mother's voice. "Mumma," he croaked out, reaching a chubby hand out for her.
Lily scooped her son up, cradling his sweat-covered body in her arms. Harry had woken up sick late the night before, and she had been up ever since. Her son had never been so sick before. Teething had given him some discomfort, and he'd had a cold in January, but this was something new. The flu, Lily hazarded a guess, was ravaging Harry's little thirteen month old immune system.
With Death Eaters after them, Lily and James had fled into hiding shortly after Harry's birth. While James had continued to do the occasional mission for the Order, they had more or less confined themselves to their cottage in Godric's Hollow, relying on the few visits from their friends to keep them updated on the world.
They also relied on their friends for needed supplies, and Lily was sadly without many of the potions that could have eased her son's suffering. James was away on one of his rare missions for Albus, leaving Lily on her own with no idea what to do for her sick little boy.
A harsh cough from Harry drew Lily out of her thoughts. His fever hadn't broken yet, and Lily was beginning to think she may need to take him to Poppy soon. She wasn't sure she should move him through the Floo like this, but her baby was so sick, Lily decided she may need to do it if she couldn't bring it down on her own.
Thinking back to her Muggle childhood in Cokesworth, Lily tried hard to remember how her mother had cared for her when she was sick. Through the stress-induced haze of her current situation, her childhood memories seemed a lifetime away.
She had some memories of cool washcloths laid across a feverish head, while a gentle voice told her to sleep.
Heading to the kitchen, Lily soaked a cloth from the drawer nearest the sink with room temperature water before heading back to the living room to cover her son's forehead with it.
"Hush, my love," she whispered as Harry whimpered at the touch of the wet cloth. "I know it's uncomfortable, darling, but Mummy promises it will help." I hope, she mentally added.
She gently rubbed Harry's little arms as she prayed her memory served her well. A hacking cough from Harry startled her out of her thoughts again.
As Harry gasped for air between coughs, Lily struggled to remember something, anything, that might help him.
A fuzzy memory of her mother cuddling her on the floor of a steam filled bathroom filled Lily's mind as she patted her son's back through the coughing fit. As Harry's coughs subsided, Lily made her way upstairs to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her and turning the shower on full-blast, as hot as it could go.
Having stripped Harry down to his nappy earlier in an attempt to keep him cool as he fought the fever, Lily simply sat down on the floor, cradling him to her chest as she did. Harry looked up at her with his bright eyes, reaching out a hand to pull on a loose strand of her hair. Smiling slightly, Lily tugged the strand from his grip and began to rock him back and forth. Quietly, she sang to him, a song she just barely remembered her own mother singing to her.
"From your head...down to your toes...you're not much, goodness knows...But you're so precious to me, sweet as can be, Baby of Mine..." she crooned over and over as Harry's breathing eased.
Steam. That's right. Her mother used to use steam to help her children breathe better when they were sick.
Not wanting to overheat her feverish son, Lily soon turned off the water, wrapped Harry in a fluffy towel, and exited the bathroom, heading to her and James' bedroom. Vague memories of snuggling with her mother in her parents bed rose to the forefront of her mind as she placed Harry on the bed and crawled in beside the sleepy tot. It was the last coherent thought Lily had for quite some time.
The next thing Lily knew, Harry was being lifted out of her arms. In a panic, Lily jumped up, only to find herself face-to-face with a bemused-looking James, holding their still sleeping son.
"He was sick," she whispered.
"I can tell," James whispered back. "He's a bit warm."
Concerned, Lily lay her hand across Harry's forehead again, only to find it was cooler than it had been a few hours ago. "Not as bad as he was," she told her husband.
"No?" James asked, looking down at their son. "Well, Mummy must have worked her magic, then. Should we call Poppy?"
Lily nodded. "Just to be safe, though he does seem much better."
As James moved to the nursery, Lily went to Floo-call the MediWitch, memories of her own mother calling a Muggle doctor "just to be safe" floating through her mind as she did.
This probably seems like a strange place to end, but...the end? Haha.
Obviously, parents do their best to get their kids to the doctor ASAP, and I'm sure Lily probably would have run from hiding in a heartbeat if Harry were sick enough. This was honestly inspired by several instances with my own little boys. The first - I was a new mom, alone, with a sick six month old. No phone, no car, and my closest neighbor more than a mile away. Lily's thoughts of what her mother had done are drawn from my own thoughts during the eight hours I had no way to contact the outside world when my son had what turned out to be bronchitis as a baby. The second - a more recent experience, from just today, in fact, when I sat on the floor of my own bathroom with my two year old son, who is recovering from the flu. I sing "Baby Mine" to all my kids when they're sick, just as my mother sang it to me when I was sick. And as I sat on my floor today with my son, I found myself wondering, like the true HP nut I am, if Harry had ever had this experience with his mother...if she'd ever been able to mother him through being sick, and what she may have done for him. So, I decided to let her.
I hope you enjoyed my little foray into "What if?"