This is the second fiction in the End Times series. Motherhood has always been an aspiration of mine. It's sacred, and tough, and messy, and not for everyone. From that belief springs this one-shot. If you enjoy it, or have any constructive criticism to offer, please let me know in a review!
"Are you sure? Because it's not a big deal. I can just take another wide-eye potion and-"
"JAMES! It's fine, really. I can take him for a while. Go and get some sleep." I reach out my arms for our son, still lying in bed. I am under strict orders from the healer not to move from bed for at least a week. It's been five days, and I'm going to go mad. The pain had been tremendous, it was a rough birth. I don't think I've ever seen James quite so scared. But I'm already going stir crazy. There are only so many things I'd rather be doing than laying here in bed.
"But you need rest! The healer said-"
"James, I know what the healer said. I also know that if you take one more of those potions you will start having hallucinations. What good will you be to us if you're chasing pink elephants around the room?" I stare him down, practicing my mummy face. It doesn't take much before James splits into a grin, his beautiful mouth curving toward the sky. I still lose myself in that face, with its easy smile and hazel-eyed sunlight. "Pink elephants?" he snorts. I roll my eyes.
"It's a muggle expression. Give me the baby."
"What if I just don't want to give him up?" he teases, holding Harry closer.
"Then I will have to curse you and come and get my son," I say in mock warning, holding my wand up and making motions towards getting up. James chuckles, a beautiful, warm, exhausted sound. Even sleep-deprived, in nothing but a dressing gown, he lights the room with laughter. He sees right through my bluff; he doesn't call me on it. He brings the baby to me. I gather the tiny, sweet-smelling bundle into my arms. Cherished and untainted by the world, Harry is a gem, something sacred and untouchable. James drops his sharp chin down onto the top of my head as I stare at our child, transfixed. I know he's staring too. After a few moments, I feel James swaying on the spot. "Go get some sleep, love. You need it," I murmur, looking up at him. He smiles, that smile that I live inside of in my mind. He drops a kiss onto my head where his chin had been, and makes his way out of the room, slump-shouldered and yawning. He looks at us one last time before shutting the door behind himself. He is fixing this moment in his mind. I know, because I've done it too.
Our son sleeps on soundly in my arms, unaware of the cataclysm he's brought down on our world. I stare at him. He is perfect. He already has his father's unruly head of ebony hair. His eyes, now closed, are a temporary bright blue, but I recognize my mother's eye shape, and my own, in the curve of his soft eyelids. I brush a few fingers over his soft head, and gather him closer.
There is never a moment when we don't live in fear now. That was why we couldn't go to St. Mungo's for the birth. The moment Dumbledore explained that damned prophecy to us, and that we had to go into hiding, I wanted to throw things and scream. I wanted to experience motherhood on my own terms, not on the terms of my would-be murderer. It still feels like he is gaining ground on us, every day we stay in this tiny house. He dictates our daily schedule, who we can see, what we can do. I feel like a bird in a net, beating its wings to try to remember what it was like to fly. And it's infuriating.
And it's terrifying now, more than ever before. Because this tiny, innocent being in my arms is what he might be after.
Harry twitches his nose in his sleep.
We had to bring in a healer for the birth. It was painful, and wretched. I bled and tore in ways that magic is hard pressed to heal. They had to turn him. He wanted to stay right where he was, with his back turned to the outside world. I wonder if he could read my thoughts. I didn't want to bring him into this world. I wanted to bring him into a world of sunlight, of trust and of freedom, somewhere he could explore and own for himself. Instead, I bore him through my narrow hips into a world of wind and fire, of chaos and secrecy and doubt. We can't trust anyone but ourselves, and a very few others. I wanted to show my son to the world. Now the only thing I can show him is the panes of our windows. With the metal running between them, they look like prison bars.
Lost in thought, I start seeing again and notice that Harry is looking up at me. His tiny cheeks work, and he stares up at me. Smiling, I slip a shoulder of my nightdress. He latches immediately, but all wrong. Pain wrings through the spot like someone has shoved a needle through. Gritting my teeth, I slowly slide my finger between his precious lips and let him try again. This time, no pain. Thank god. I've had enough of pain in the last nine months. He's a hasty one. He'll be like his father that way. Oh who am I kidding, he'll be like me that way, too. Neither James nor I were ever terribly slow to action.
I lean back against the pillows that James has lovingly propped up for me, like large, fat marshmallows. I'm pretty sure he may have actually transfigured them to make them more comfortable. It would be like him to do that.
The room is quiet, except for the quiet suckling sounds that Harry is making as he sucks down what he can from my exhausted body. Greedy little thing. I was so scared I wasn't going to produce enough for him. I'm so small. I want him to have the best, and the best comes from me. I want him to have another part of me, and this is the best I can give him, now that I've given him my own body as a home, and my own soul for him to hang on a star whenever he pleases. He'll wring me dry before he's grown. I'm sure of it. I won't ever be truly myself again. I'm part of him now.
My mother always said that children become the reality, and their parents exist to be memories for them. I'm not my own anymore. I wouldn't have it any other way. Did she feel the same, when she held Petunia, when she held me?
She must have.
She's a memory for me now. But it's too painful still, too fresh. So I push it away.
Lying here seems surreal. I was sure, at some points, that we wouldn't survive to see this. I can still see those slitted eyes staring at me, that wand pointed. I saw the words form on his inhuman lips before I'd been pushed sprawling to the ground. I saw the flash of green, felt Dorcas fall nearly on top of me. James grabbed me by the hand and we were gone. Just like that. James and I had decided to make one of our rare trips to see Dorcas. She and I had been close in school, same year, and Gryffindors. Giggling moments in that tower, discussing boys and homework and plans for the future, all snuffed out by a stick of wood no thicker than my finger. He'd come to kill her personally. We only barely made it out. But I couldn't run fast enough to outstrip the guilt that burned the soles of my feet with every step.
That was seven and a half months ago. If that curse had landed, neither of us would be laying here in the peace and quiet of this room, with a sloping ceiling that seems to stretch the space to the sky. My cowardice, in some way, is legitimized, even if my guilt still treads water, bobbing like an ever-present buoy in the ocean of my mind. Harry hiccups and suddenly detaches with a slight pop that makes me wince.
Pain will be part of motherhood. I know that. Physical pain, emotional pain. As I shift Harry up onto my shoulder, rubbing his back, I close my eyes and inhale deeply. If there is nothing like the smell of a new baby, then there is literally no sensation on earth like understanding that the scent belongs to your own child. I hear his tiny little breaths in my ear, a sound of life and of love, and of struggle. Breathing seems like such a trivial thing, but it is a struggle for him as he lets out the tiniest, sweetest burp I've ever heard. I bring him down to lie on the bed in my lap. A haphazard smile crosses his face. I know it can't be intentional, not yet. But it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I wipe my face so I don't disturb him by dripping my own joy onto his pudgy face.
I will cling to my motherhood through this war, this storm, and come out the clearer on the other side of the squall. I will be there when he struggles to take his first step. When he learns to laugh and to speak and to dance. When he starts to make odd things happen, when he asks about why he hasn't got grandparents like some kids at school do. When he asks why some people call him half-blood. When he begins to see a young woman for what she is, and loses himself to her, like I've lost myself to him.
When his bones snap. When his world tumbles down. When his heart breaks.
I'll be there.