This is

I sat down at my kitchen table, the light pouring through the open window. It was uncannily hot for a day in early June, especially for England. I turned on all the fans, but nothing was working that well. Harry was going to have to fix the air conditioner. I would just do it with my wand, but with my teaching James and playing Quidditch, I just couldn't handle all the household stuff. Thank God my mother came once a week to clean.

As I drank my coffee, enjoying the silence in my home- for once!- James came down the stairs. He was rubbing his eyes sleepily. His hair was a bit mussed up, but then again, it always was. I jumped up, put my coffee cup in the sink, and walked over to my son, giving him a hug.

"Hey sweetie," I greeted him. "How are you?"

James looked at me sadly. Now that I was closer to him, I could see some flaws in my perfect son. His cheeks were unnaturally flushed, and his skin was very hot. I knelt down to his height and put my hand on his forehead. "Are you feeling OK, buddy?"

James nodded at me. His eyes shut. He was exhausted, too. I picked him up and brought him over to the couch. Silently, I conjured up a thermometer that will take him temperature from his ear. I knew that he had no patience for keeping it under his mouth.

I called out, "Accio chair!" and the chair from the living room zoomed underneath my feet. When the timer beeped, I pulled the thermometer into the light so that I could read it. The number read 104.3. Almost 105 degrees.

James had been laying on the couch quietly since I put the thermometer in, but he stirred when I got up to get the ibuprofen out of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. "Mommy," he asked me quietly. "Will you stay with me?"

I looked at James lovingly. He looked just like his father, which made it that much harder to refuse him. "Of course I will," I replied. "I'll be here as long as you need me."