A/N: Amy's POV

I was still exhausted from childbirth, despite the fact that it had been plenty long since the twins were born. Twins, I argued when Sirius said he was concerned, were twice the work of a single child, and anyway, my body was tired with the worries of war.

But we had been sitting up waiting anxiously for news about Alice Longbottom, who had gone into labor in the night. Sirius had the note from Dumbledore in his hands and I was watching his face as he read it, frowning, his face unchanging.

"Well?" I demanded. "What's happened? Is she all right?"

"Alice is fine," Sirius said slowly. "The baby's been born, and a large one from the sounds of things. It was a hard labor, but everybody's perfectly healthy. Tired, but healthy. They've named him Neville."

"Merlin, tell me you're joking," I snorted.

Neville Longbottom. There was a name worth getting punched over. Even for a wizard...it wasn't stately or latinate or anything like that, like pureblood names often were. It was just...poncey.

Sirius gave a little chuckle and sat down beside me, kissing my forehead. He had a pensive look that he'd been wearing lately, the sort of look that made me nervous and a little bit concerned. I could see him run his tongue along the front of his teeth behind his upper lip and then he said, "Lily's going to go into labor any day now, isn't she? They were due within, what, three days of each other? What do you want to do if you're not fully well when she goes into labor?"

I snorted again.

"Do you honestly think a bit of exhaustion is going to keep me from being there at the birth of my best friend's son? You're barmy, Sirius. We're going, no matter what."

Of course I understood his concerns. He didn't like the idea of my exerting myself, but he didn't want to leave me alone, either. And how could he miss the birth of James's son? He pulled a book out of the drawer of the bedside table and slipped into bed with me, wrapping an arm around me and reading.

He'd been doing this lately, reading. I'd not managed to get a good enough look at the cover and he didn't talk about it, so I wasn't sure what it was he was so engrossed in, but whatever it was he seemed to be absolutely devouring.

"Good book?" I asked, resting my head against his arm, too tired to move so that I could be resting it on his shoulder.

"Hmm?" he asked, turning the page. "Oh, yeah, it's fine. It's weird, you know, I used to tease Remus for this sort of thing. But now that all I do all the time is run, run, run, it's sort of nice to have something calm I can do when I've got a moment."

I bit back a laugh. Perhaps reading at the bedside was a sign of maturity. I kissed Sirius's cheek, smoothing his hair as he focused back down on the book. His face had a look of concentration I hadn't seen since our last exams, and it was surprisingly attractive on him. Of course, his face was always attractive, but this expression seemed to be a different sort, one that a mature, paternal figure would have. And while he was an excellent father, I never would have described my husband as a mature, paternal figure.

"D'you think," I said as he turned a page, marked it, and set the book down, "that the girls are going to all get along?"

Sirius smiled and turned over, kissing my cheek and pressing a bit of sweat-soaked hair off my brow.

"I think that children born in wartimes often do. There's an attitude, you know, of solidarity. Plus, they're a little bit you and a little bit me, and when have we ever not gotten along?"

I snorted.

"When you were trying to control my life."

Sirius's laugh was a low rumble against my arm. The sound relaxed me, and I let my neck soften against the pillow. He moved a bit closer. I closed my eyes as Sirius played with my hair, untangling knots as he found them. Sirius seemed to take a vast deal of pleasure in brushing his fingers through my hair when it was sweaty. Perhaps it reminded him of the moments after sex, back before I'd gotten too large to have sex comfortably.

"That feels nice," I sighed, closing my eyes and wondering if Frank and Alice were having a quiet moment with their child somewhere. "Do you think the Longbottoms are going to have another?"

"With the trouble Frank had with this first pregnancy?" Sirius said with a soft laugh. "I doubt it, love."

He began to kiss my neck with slow, tender, gentle strokes of his lips and I let my trembling fingers tangle in his hair. It amazed me, how silky his hair was compared with mine. Why on earth did he want to touch my hair when is own felt so perfect?

If we had lived in a different time and place, I might have counted myself among Frank and Alice, one child and done. But the war made me look at everything so differently.

The kisses did not progress, but they did continue for a while, Sirius lazily laving my skin with his tongue, eagerly lapping away. The sensation was strange and lovely, and I allowed him better access, tilting my head back, my fingers still tangling in his hair.

Sirius finally kissed down to my shoulder and rested his head beside me on the pillow again.

"Do you feel up to moving?" he asked softly. "I feel like a cup of tea. I could help you to the kitchen."

I hesitated. I really wasn't feeling much up to going all the way in to the kitchen, but I'd grown sick of laying in bed.

Before I could make up my mind, however, there was the sound of fervent knocking on our bedroom door.

"Merlin," Sirius hissed, grabbing his wand and leaping out of bed.

"A Death Eater wouldn't knock, Sirius," I reminded him, sitting up as best I could.

"Are you decent?" James asked, his voice shaking and small.

"Yeah," Sirius said slowly.

James threw the door open, his face white as a sheet.

"Lily's gone into labor," he croaked. "Please, you need to come with me. I...I'm..."

Panicking was the proper word, but I pulled myself out of bed, staggering across the room until Sirius pulled me into his arms, holding me up against his body.

"We're going," I said firmly.

"Amy, the girls..."

I hesitated, thinking of what to do, who to call in to look after them while we were gone, because I was not missing the birth of my godchild.

"Call in Mad-Eye," I said. "They'll be fine. I'm getting a dressing gown on and I'm going with you. James, you take me. Sirius, follow along when Mad-Eye's here."

"What if he's working?"

"Then get your bloody cousin!"

Before Sirius could argue, I pulled myself up with the little strength I had and I grabbed for James, who made sure I was stable before Disapparating.

Landing in Godric's Hollow on two feet was harder than I could have imagined, and I could hear Lily's screams the moment we walked in the door. James had to support me all the way to her room, but when I sat at her side and let her squeeze my hand, I knew it was the right thing, being with her.

"You're going to be fine," I said softly. "Just breathe Lily. Everything's going to be fine." I turned to James. "Have you called in your midwife?"

"Right," he said, nervous. "Right. I'll just..."

He hurried out of the room and I grabbed Lily's hand in both of my own.

"Sirius is coming," I told her as she focused on breathing. "He's getting someone to watch the girls and then he's coming straight over. Should I have him send for anyone else?"

"No," Lily choked. "No, no, if the others are here I'll feel like a heifer giving a calf to the whole collection of field hands." She gave a shaky laugh that I didn't echo. "Sirius and James can keep each other occupied while this is... Shit, Amy, this really, really hurts. How the bloody hell did you have two at once?"

"Well, they didn't come out together," I said dryly. "It was one at a time."

Lily barely cared about the humor. She was in too much pain to care about much anything else.

James came back about twenty minutes later with the midwife, who said she couldn't reach the Healer and was going to move ahead with delivery without him.

"Go keep Sirius company, James," I told him. "We'll call you when she starts to push."

He hesitated, but he rushed out of the room quick enough when Lily threatened to kill him if he didn't do as he was told.

Lily was in labor into the early hours of the morning, and it wasn't until about three when the midwife told me to fetch James. I wasn't capable of moving very quickly, but I hobbled out to the kitchen, where the boys looked like shadows of themselves, with tired eyes, messy hair, and a half-drunk bottle of firewhiskey between them.

"She's pushing, James," I said, smiling at him weakly before collapsing into the chair beside Sirius. "Go. Go on, she'll want you there for the birth."

James teetered between fear of being there and fear of missing it before barreling into the other room calling, "I'm coming, Lily!"

Sirius chuckled, leaning forward to kiss my cheek.

"How is she doing besides being louder than both your labors put together?"

"Oh, you know that nobody knows how to make a fuss like Lily. But she's having a long labor, and that's tough."

"Tougher than twins?"

"I'll let you know when I'm fully recovered," I said wryly. "Look, she's going to have him soon, and we'll see our godson and then we can go home and be with the girls." He poured himself another drink absently. "Out of curiosity, did you get Mad-Eye or Andromeda?"

"Mad-Eye," Sirius said, clearing his throat. "I said he was needed at our place if he could be spared and he came in thinking we were under attack." He gave a weak laugh. "I don't think I'm scared anymore of something happening to you or the girls. If there was even a threat, Mad-Eye would be there in an instant ready to destroy anyone who tried. He actually looked a bit afraid."

I smiled, but I was nervous at the thought that anything could make Mad-Eye Moody afraid.

Half-past four in the morning, Lily's screams hit a climax and then stopped abruptly. Sirius and I exchanged a nervous look and then we let out the breath we didn't realize we were holding when the angry cries of a small newborn child were heard.

"Oh, thank Merlin," I sighed.

James brought out the wrinkly mass of newborn child and I laughed at the tuft of black hair already on his head.

"I suppose this means he's got your hair, James," I teased. "Let's hope he looks like his mother otherwise."

"Oi!"

Still, we stayed long enough for Lily and newborn Harry James Potter to both fall asleep before I felt myself growing tired and I allowed Sirius to take me home. I was asleep before we left Godric's Hollow.

A week later, the four of us sat around the kitchen table at our house and all four children looked at each other from the laps they sat on around the table. Aludra in particular was curious about all these new faces, unsure what to make in particular of the child curled against Lily's breast, grabbing at the pretty red hair Aludra more or less thought herself the rightful molester of.

"I suppose I'm going to have to learn to put it up now," Lily said, laughing. "I haven't put it up properly since my last Potions exam."

I was feeling a bit stronger, and Sirius seemed more than a little relieved that he could leave me alone for ten minutes and not find me asleep when he came back. He was carefully tickling Arista's cheek, watching her gurgle.

"Who would have thought," James said with a grin, "that we would be sitting here now, the four of us, with all these babies? Granted, we have Amy to thank for most of them."

"Oi," Sirius said, trying to get the snap through without dropping his smile and therefore startling his daughter. "I'm equally responsible."

"For their conception, yes," James snorted. "For their being here today, not quite as equally."

Sirius conceded this point. Apart from when he was spoiling them, Sirius liked to think of them as my daughters, presumably to remind himself how much I had to give up to bring them into the world. Still, as daunting as the twins seemed when I got pregnant with them, they seemed more of a blessing as they existed before my eyes, more than I felt when Aludra was first born. Perhaps this was my becoming a proper mother, or perhaps it was the war teaching me to appreciate even the littlest of things. I never wanted to stop appreciating the things I still had in my life, because if I ever did the things I had lost would consume me.

"I'm thinking we should start planning playdates," Sirius said solemnly. "You know, when they start being able to sit up properly. So they can all play together. We need to train them in teamwork for the day when we start our own Quidditch Team."

"Quidditch teams need seven," Lily said slowly, her voice a sort of warning tone she had used with many a rule-breaker, Sirius and James included. "Where, pray, you expect the other three to come from."

"Oh, that's easy," James said, smiling. "I figure one more from Amy, since we don't want to tax her two much after the twins, and two more for us! Our children will be the Chasers, obvious, because they'll have an excellent trainer. Hopefully the fourth one of Sirius and Amy's is a boy, so he and Aludra can be Beaters, and then I'm thinking Arista for Keeper and Lyra for Seeker. What do you think, Sirius?"

Lily and I lifted our eyebrows at each other from across the table, as if to request of each other the right to smack our husbands in front of our children. Sirius seemed to sense the mood first, unsurprisingly.

"Now, love, don't be cross. We'll save this conversation for when they're done breast-feeding, James. Breast-feeding makes women cranky about things like forced activities for their children."

"James Potter," Lily said in a shockingly calm tone, "if you so much as mention using either of our wombs to breed you a Quidditch team ever again, you will be moving in with Remus or Peter for however long it takes for you to straighten out your mind, because I will not be tolerating that sort of insanity under my roof."

He opened his mouth as if to argue, but I shook my head slightly and he seemed to realize the severity of the situation. Having been in many fights with Lily myself, I could sense her mood better than almost anyone, and I didn't want James to be on the receiving end of her true insanity when she was crossed. He turned a bit green and said, "Yes, dear. Whatever you say."

Those words seemed to be an increasingly natural part of his vocabulary.

Aludra began reaching for Arista's foot curiously and I stood to keep her from disturbing her sister. Of course, considering that our eldest daughter had been so spoiled by her father that she'd grown completely unaccustomed to not getting whatever she wanted, she began to cry as I crossed to the kettle to pour tea for the adults.

"Aludra, please," I sighed. "You'll play with them when they're a bit bigger. You don't want anything to happen to your sisters."

"Baby," she whined, reaching over my shoulder for the three children who were well out of her reach. Lyra blinked in our direction with curiosity, but Harry just contented himself with tangling his fingers in his mother's hair, and Arista was too busy drooling on her father's finger to care about much else.

"Someday, princess," Sirius cooed at Arista, "you are going to be able to bite my finger instead of just drooling on it, and then we can start your canine training."

Aludra cried ever harder to see that her father was using her title of princess on someone else, and she was growing increasingly frustrated that no one but me was paying her any mind, and that the babies she was so curious about were well and truly out of reach.

"Shh," I sighed, trying to soothe her. "It's going to be all right, Aludra. I promise you."

But internally, I had to agree with my daughter. Even if we managed to make it out of the war with all eight of us unscathed, two whole families ready to make Quidditch teams and teach the children to become Animagi like their fathers, in the interim I knew perfectly well that everything couldn't possibly be all right. I just didn't know yet how bad it might be.