Disclaimer: I don't own, so you don't sue. All rights go to J.K. Rowling
except for my pleasure of toying with her ideas.
"The Augurey's Song" Chapter two "Aurora Brings Life" by Duskrider Q
A/N: Aurora is the Greek goddess of dawn and her name is also given to Northern Lights. I chose it because she's helping to bring Harry into the world and Harry like the Augurey's Song promises a new day.
Lily Potter stood in the kitchen of her parents old home with an also nine months pregnant Alice Longbottom, who was educating Lily yet again about motherhood. . . . Alice sighed gruffly, "No! You can't carry a baby like that." reaching towards Lily's massive belly, "here let me show you. . ." Lily made a motion for her wand. This was her unborn son, not that chubby know-it-all's. . . But Alice was suddenly not round-faced and insisting, but pale and demanding. She had morphed into a hideous man with long, slick, dark hair and inhumane red eyes. Voldemort grinned filed-sharp teeth and ordered with a slight glimpse of a forked tongue, "Give me the boy. . ." Lily tripped over something as she backed up. . . She hit the floor hard, worrying if her carelessness had hurt the baby . . . She was completely paralyzed. . ! She looked down and to the side seeing that what she had tripped over was her hero and husband James lying dead under her feet with blank eyes. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes with a mixture of pain and horror she had only known once before, but she couldn't scream, move away from him, or move to him. . . . Voldemort hissed and held his wand to Lily's stomach. . . if only she could get up! Green light flashed and a screeching cackle rang in her ears.
Lily awoke from her sleep in a shuddering gasp, and an icy sweat. Something was wrong-- She knew it-- She felt it-- She saw it! Her pale hands moved instinctively over her round belly. Her son jerked; had he sensed it too? She turned her head quickly to see her husband lying still. He was perfectly fine, judging by the slight smile brought by dreams and the steady rise and fall of his chest. She looked around her bedroom but nothing confirmed her suspicions. Shadows of the moonlit treeleaves danced with the wind on the dark walls. Nothing was wrong, but her trembling told her otherwise. A crippled memory of cold and awfulness caused her to shiver uncontrollably.
This was not the first time in the last few months that Lily had awoken frightened and quivering. Everytime she tried to recall what had scared her, but hardly anything returned to her.
Deciding that she needed a glass of water or maybe even a shot of something stronger (after all a small glass for the first time in nine months couldn't hurt now). She moved for the kitchen, trying not to wake her husband. But she couldn't move gracefully or softly to anything anymore. With a trick of her arms she had invented, moving them up and in front of her like a wave, she raised herself into sitting position as the baby inside her pushed uncomfortably into her diaphragm.
She thought with a twitch at the corners of her mouth, "I'm not even pushing yet and you're a pain?" Lily could tell that their son would be a nice baby. Aside from waking her up every so often at night kicking, and the couple of times she had fainted in her first three months, he hadn't been a pain at all, truthfully.
Still shaking slightly, she snatched up a robe at the foot of the bed, and with a backwards glance at James, who's head had lolled toward her and the door, tiptoed as best she could down the stairwell. Her hand trailed over an ornate, gold, and oak banister. The other moved a lock of dark red hair behind her ear that had escaped from her braid. The soft carpet of the wide staircase that circled to the sittingroom massaged her feet on every step. Classic antiques and gorgeous paintings decorated the entire three story house.
Although James had inherited the Potter estate, he could no longer bear to live there because both of his parents had passed. Due to the neglect of an Assistant Healer, his mother's tragic demise came after recovering from dragonpox, but catching a lesser disease soon after. This was followed exactly two months later by the death of his father, who was trampled in a panicked crowd when someone falsely shouted rumor of a Death Eater attack. James wouldn't speak for three days, just nod if spoken to. Lily understood this about him: James could only pull himself out of depressing situations, and that the best was for him to open up to her was to wait. So one night she walked over to James who was sitting besides an half empty whiskey bottle, sat down next to him, rested her head on his shoulder, and waited. After hours of silence rippled only by breathing, he slipped his hand into hers. Words like the one of their talk scorched and relieved all at once, but the last of them brought indescribable satisfaction. They'd lived in this new house together for the two years since they'd been married.
Lily reached the kitchen which was filled with Muggle and wizarding spices, fine silverware, and soft colors. She liked the kitchen best out of all of the rooms,because she could be creative with her cooking. . . particularly since her pregnancy began.
Lily drew a tall glass from one of the cabinets and took out a bottle of white wine. Steadying her hands as best as she could, she poured herself a drink for indulgence. She sank heavily into a chair at the dinner table with her glass and felt what she hadn't noticed of her shaking return to her. This time she could only remember flashes of fear, helplessness, confusion, sadness, all like on the day she saw her parents dead. And then there remained one sound. . . a familiar, chilling cackle. Then her shivering worsened.
"Still can't remember what's waking you, Love?" Lily turned her head towards the doorway. James was leaning there with his house robe loosely draped around his shoulders. His dark mess of hair was flattened to one side. He rubbed his glasses to his pajama leg. He placed them on his handsome, thin face which contracted in a slight frown as his chiseled arms crossed in front of his chest. He had a slender build but a nice physique none the less.
When these night terrors had first began, James lovingly joked about it as he held her. But then inquiries asked in mock earnest like, "The Boogie Man got you, again, Lils? You know he's just an idiot kelpie." gradually turned into, "Are you sure that you're all right?"
Lily kept quiet and gazed into her drink.
James walked along the side of the table big enough to seat ten until he reached his wife. His hazel eyes flashed. "You're shaking," he said with a hint of alarm, and draped his house robe over hers.
As he gingerly removed the glass from her hands, his eyes flickered to the wine in a small double take. "As you're due any day," he began with his eyes slightly narrowed, "but haven't touched a drop for all three trimesters, I'll let that slide. But you shouldn't have had--"
"I don't need you telling me what I should and shouldn't do while pregnant, James," Lily snapped raising with much effort to her feet, and feeling her deep green eyes ablaze with emotions. She knew that she was wrong, and that no alcohol should touch her lips even then. Any drink or food that was too magical or mind-altering during this time was unhealthy for the baby, even one too many butterbeers! The matter seemed touchy tonight for some reason. Right then, the feelings of her sleep, not to mention a mood swing, were taking hold, so she simply didn't care.
James rose and stared her down, "It's my baby as much as yours!"
"I get enough from Alice Longbottom talking to me as if she's on her fiftieth pregnancy rather than her first, without having to hear it from you, too! Just because I'm twenty--"
"I only felt you get up, and wanted to know what's up--"
"Well if I could just remember what's doing it, I would tell you!" Lily shouted noticing her hysteria. She truly did want him on her side, but there wasn't a lot to go on in a conversation about what she couldn't recall. She recognized Voldemort's laugh in the dream because it was the last thing that happened before she'd always wake up, but everything else was vague or forgotten.
A beat of silence sounded. Lily instantly noticed that James had been scrutinizing her face. "Or is it that you do remember and you're just not telling me?" James asked darkly.
Lily couldn't bear the emotion. Everything from her waist down felt heavy and everything from her waist up felt light. She noticed the feeling flush out of her in a tear and an exhale. She hardly noticed that that was not all that flushed out of her. Liquid that brought an aroma like the ocean splashed to the floor at their feet. She collapsed side ways into James and black.
Lily jolted from her short sleep with an uncomfortable squeeze inside her abdomen, slightly painful. She had dreamt that she was eating dinner with her parents, but now she remembered that her parents had died at the end of her seventh year of Hogwarts. She remembered that it was the middle of the night possibly very early morning, and that she was in the kitchen a while ago but was now laid on a bed in one of the guest room. A stack of towels were at her feet, and a blanket lay over her.
"Lily!" James was instantly beside her and through her half-sleep she guessed he might have jogged to her side. He stroked her forehead and she let a yawn escape her mouth. "I've flooed the Healer-Midwife," he said. "She's just come to call."
Following soon after James, who was now dressed in one of his casual, tan, day robes, was a blonde, brown-eyed woman in her mid-thirties. She had a stylish bag with four golden clasps the size of a briefcase hung on her shoulder, but pale blue, plain robes much in the fashion of the green ones Lily wore to Healer training at St. Mungo's.
The blonde who Lily supposed was the Healer-Midwife inclined her head, then greeted,"'Lo Mrs. Potter. My name is Aurora J. Haven. I will be delivering your baby. Labor can be scary and worrisome. Labor IS trying and torturous, but you needn't fret, as long as you listen to my instructions. Would you like any medicine to ease the pain before we begin?" Lily shook her head no. She wanted bragging rights. She had something to prove to Ms. Alice Know-It-All.
"Well then we'll get started." Haven piped, situating the towels under Lily's naked bottom.
Lily's first impression of her was a woman too serious, making this task of helping her deliver into business like an open-and-shut court case. She wanted someone like a friend for the job, but then Healer Haven flashed a comforting smile like a sunrise and added, "And at if any point you think this kid too painful, just wait a little over a decade." Lily smiled back. Maybe Haven was worth a chance.
James, who was chuckling softly at the joke next to Haven and herself, would be here, too. He looked reminisent, though, and Lily wondered if she might as well be having twins for the load of help heÕd be raising their son...
Lily curiously watched Healer Haven unbutton the top of Lily's pajamas up to her bosom. Then watched Haven open the fourth clasp on her bag and pull out a silky roll of wet, transparent parchement which she ripped off at a desired length.
"What is that?" James questioned Lily's own wonder, but soon found the question answered without words. When Haven laid the clingly parchement over Lily's belly it glowed then faded into a clear view of what was happening within Lily's bulge. There was her baby boy, curled up, and ready to come out headfirst. He looked as gorgeous as the day she went to a Muggle doctor for a check-up.
Lily turned her head excitedly to James who was wearing a face mixed with awe and excitement. Lily wondered if under that he too felt as nervous as she did about her finally being in labor.
There was a lot of preparation and compromise leading to this moment. ÒCompromise is the key to a marriage.Ó That was what Lily's mother told her anyway. So when The Great Birth Debate happened, James argued that the Manchester Midwives had been around for ages and were the only way to go. Lily wanted a Muggle hospital but instead suggested St. Mungos for common ground.
"Lily," James had said shaking his head with a wry smile, "how can you work there and not have noticed that St. Mungos doesn't have a Maternity Ward?"
Lily had then endured a small shock and muttered with annoyance, "What kind of hospital doesn't have delivery rooms?" James's answer was, "The wizarding kind."
Lily still got her way on Lamaze classes however because a friend of her late mother owned, ran one, and was more than eager to help. She had to settle on the midwife in the end. At least this woman turned out to be a practiced Healer. James and Frank Longbottom had looked into them, for there had be a lot of impostors in times like these.
But then, that day in the guest room, Lily regretted her stubbornness at not having gone all the way with James's suggestion. Lamaze classes worked for Muggles but not for witches. At first the contractions were uncomfortable, then painful, but as they neared home stretch and spans of ten minutes were all that separated Lily screams and grimaces, the contractions had turned down right torturous! Constant ache seemed to follow in between as well to the point that nothing on her body, not just her stomach area seemed to scream in agony. Lily's torment led her to victimize many other things around the room aside from herself. The mirror on the wall shattered when she shot a nasty glare at it during a particularly ugly contraction which she attempted to breathe through.
After six hours, Lily felt that there should be an entirely new word for the type of "pain" labor was causing. The very muscles in her bulge were ripping themselves, trying to squeeze something the size of a small watermelon out something the size of a lemon, which had only expanded to the size of a mango. Sweat was pouring down her face now. And though the very act was stressing, projecting her powers, though accidentally were taking a lot of energy out of her too.
"Can't you do something!" Lily gasped after another tight contraction.
Healer Haven interjected exasperatedly but sweetly with honest sympathy, "If you had taken my classes rather than Lamaze with Muggles, who couldn't possibly tell you how to control your powers under stress, you wouldn't be taking your pain out on other things." Again Lily despised Haven; what good did that comment do her?
"Yeah," mumbled James stroking his hand lovingly, "Like me." He had insisted on hold Lily's hand through the ordeal, until she suddenly gained the strength of ten men during another evil squeeze within her abdomen. The Healer-Midwife had to charm the eight broken bones inside James's right hand back to perfect mend. At that point, he resigned to stroking her head every so often and retrieving things Healer Haven asked for.
While James busied himself searching Haven's bag, Lily screamed through another contraction. After it passed she noticed Haven with her head cocked sympathetically. "I've been there too, Lily. I have two daughters... TheyÕve been the love of my life since my husband died." For the first time Lily was seeing a person. Up until now, this midwife had done nothing but reprimand and attended to business. "It's unbearable now, but you have to learn as you go along. No class can really prepare you," Haven finished. They exchanged grins.
"See, Lils," James chuckled, "I didn't have to go to Lamaze classes with you after all."
Lily rolled her eyes at her husband and panted to the Healer-Midwife, ÒDr. Haven-- er-- Aurora, if thatÕs alright by you,Ó Haven nodded, ÒIÕm just...Ó Lily trailed off unable to articulate the many feelings welling inside. ÒHow much longer?Ó
The Healer directed James to remove her tools from out of her bag within the first clasp as she looked through the transparent parchment on LilyÕs belly. ÒNot much longer now.Ó Some tools looked comforting enough or tolerable like one Lily recognized for clamping an umbilical cord. Then she gasped and James's face lit in horror as he pulled out one with a huge, sinister spiraling sort of screw at the end with pointed metal claws on opposite sides.
"No need to look as if a chimera were on a rampage you two," Haven laughed, "I won't be using that one, I just like to carry all my tools with me." Lily wanted to sigh but somehow she wasn't all comforted. Lily watched Haven cover her legs with a large towel and put another underneath her while James pulled out a little, stuffed, Andepolean Opalaye dragon.
Lily cryed out and squeezed her eyes shut through another long contraction. . . Through a haze of excruciation she saw a familiar kitchen and Alice Longbottom who said in Haven's distant voice, "No, that's not how you carry a baby . . .Let me show you--" When she opened her eyes and her vision focused she realized that a high table had been conjured in front of the bed, and the stuffed Opalaye doll James had retrieved sat on it. What had just happened?
"Lily," began Haven, "I want you to concentrate on the dragon and push when I say. You're doing fine, dear,"
Lily, felt James hand brush her forehead. Another contraction seemed to rush through all her body, and the table that the stuffed dragon had been charmed to, shuttered. The haze returned. . . she had to deliver her baby, but pallid hands stretched for him. Voldemort demanded, "Give me the boy."
"No! Get away!" screamed Lily. . . her carelessness had led her son to this. . . where was James?
Lily could vaguely make out a wand. It looked undefined around the edges like everything else around her. Two figures kept tuning in and out, fading into one menacing other. "What are you doing? Don't point that at her!" came James's voice. He sounded so distant. "She's loosing consciousness. I'm trying to help!" protested a feminine voice. What was going on? Where were they?
Then there was weakness all through Lily's body. The last two voices had faded away. to be replaced by a high, crazed cackle. Mad red eyes were glinting at her triumphantly, and the wand came back stronger than ever directed at her stomach. A new strengthening surge erupted from her.
"NO! NOOOOOO! You can't have him!" she shouted at Voldemort.
"Lily, concentrate," said James. Voldemort was disappearing but his chilling laugh echoed in her mind.
"Oh James," she moaned as a tear leaked from the corner of her eye, "I don't want to have this baby."
"What? It's a little late for that now, don't you think?"
ÒIÕm not--- joking!Ó she panted. ÒJames..?Ó
She could indistinctly see James now. He seemed ghostly, though he hovered over her . . . Had he died? Suddenly an image of him laying utterly motionless rushed to her sight. Her reality was clashing with her reoccurring nightmare. The dolorous labor made it difficult otherwise to tell the difference as both delivery and her nightmare tugged at so much of her attention and absorbed her strength.
Hysteria overtook her again, and concentration vanished. . . "No. NO! He wants our baby! He's coming for our baby!" she sobbed. . . She could hazily see Voldemort poised readying his wand. . . ÒJames, don't . . . come back--- I--" She felt some magic bind her to wherever it was that she lay thrashing, and the same woman's voice saying, "It's almost time to push."
"Lily, I'm right here," soothed an invisible man. But the high- pitched cackle was louder.
"No, not my baby, too!" sobbed Lily summoning whatever courage would aid her now.
Voldemort grasped her face, but his grasp was not cold, pale, and dangerous at all. The grip morphed into James hand.
James. He was here. He was alive. "Lily focus on me. No one is here for our baby. Whoever tries something like that will break out into so many sores-- no boil in so much undiluted bubotuber pus--"
Things were coming back into clarity. She could see James's hazel eyes fearful and concerned digging into her own.
"Sounds like a hex you put on a sixth year back a school." He smiled, relieved, at her wit. Lily gasped at the most excruciating of contractions yet.
"Lily, you're strong. Fight, through. Look at the Opalaye," James assured. She then remember where she was, that she still had her baby, and that she needed to focus on that doll now. That pretty little Opalaye that wasn't drenched in sweat and hurting all over. That had to change.
"Push," ordered Haven from underneath the covers. Lily did so. "Push, Lily. Good." Lily shot a contemptuous glare at the Opalaye whose neck twisted around so tightly that had it been real it would have snapped. It must have been charmed to stay on the table and take the brutality that she subjected it to.
The echoing cackle returned, and her heart raced faster. Although she was unsure of which was happening anymore, she knew there was a choice to let Voldemort have the child as she was all that stood in his way to the baby, or fight through and give the baby a chance at life. She believed in the chance of life that Aurora and James brought more than the one of death that Voldemort did.
"He is such a pain!" Lily bellowed with a final great cry and the most determined push yet. She heard her baby's sobbing, and felt relief. Dawn's light washed from out the window onto the bed. Lily then recalled what it felt like to have a peaceful sleep.
Lily blinked sleep from her eyes. Confusedly she notice small details like the broken mirror, then bigger ones like the strange, missing feeling of her deflating stomach, the absence of the Healer-Midwife and her Opalaye, a note from Haven that started with "Congratulations" and "I'm so proud of you, Lily," and the papers by the bedside table where the word birth certificate clearly read from the top. Like deja vu, the events of late last night rushed to her.
Morning light spilled into the room through the huge window of the guestroom. She followed it with her eyes to where James sat in a chair before her, holding a small bundle of cloth.
"So, I do all the work, but you hold the glory?" Lily croaked to James. The screaming of labor had taken her voice. James looked up slowly from the bundle and beamed an expression of overwhelming joy. He crossed the room over to her side, and placed what turned out to be a welcomed pain, but still a pain after all, in her arms.
Lily gazed at the little ball of purityÕs unblemished face, whispered, ÒHeÕs a baby angel...Ó and faltered.
James answered in the strangest voice Lily had ever heard issue from his mouth, "I thought that 'he was such a pain.' " It was filled with his normal sarcasm but busting with something new.
But Lily forgot all that as she continued staring down again, and without realization whispered, "What pain?"
The feeling seemed to surpass words. Lily felt pride rise up inside of her. She made this . . . James helped, but only a little! It wasn't like the Outstanding + on her Charms N.E.W.T., or invention of an easier way to enchant a wound shut. This breathing work would have personality and a chance at the things in life she hadn't had. She could give him that. . . or die trying.
She wanted to give her son everything. Her son. She liked the sound of that even in ony her mind.
"Healer Haven will come back to call, to check on you and the baby later this evening, but she had to go. I think Alice went into labor this morning as well,
"I left it blank on the certificate, but," James hesitated, "we are naming him James Potter II. Right?" Lily knowing the same smile of reverie hung on her lips turned to James. Then with a playful sort of pity, shook her head.
"No. We've been through this. How will I ever tell you two apart?"
"You can call me 'my king' or 'lordship' and our,Ó James sighed here and with bold pride repeated, "you can call our son James."
"I like 'Harry.'Ó
James whined, "Why?"
"It's my favorite boy's name." A moment passed before she offered, "How about a compromise?" James kept his eyes on their son, but raised his eyebrows. "Why donÕt we name him both: Harry James Potter?"
James considered. "Fair enough." Lily turned her head away, back to Harry. She had just been thinking everything had worked out for the best but something sat unsettled inside of her like a dead fish that floated to the surface of a lake. Then James narrowed his eyes intently at her.
With an unsure exhale she began, "James, I remember my dream now. I couldn't before. . . It was like the last times." James eyes flashed and he without a missed second drew up a plain chair out of thin air with a stroke of his wand. It clattered to the floor. Harry moaned and twisted in Lily's arms.
"I was living my nightmare. It felt like. . . the real ones." Lily was what wizards called a Psychic, slightly different from a Seer which fell into trances to prophesize rather than rely on intuision and vision. Lily had had premonitions before, mostly in her sleep like any other dream but found by the death of her parents just what she was seeing could sometimes be true. Once she had been terribly wrong and found that what she had believed to be a vision was only her insecurities creeping from her subconcious. She barely escaped Death Eaters because of it.
She went in a detailed account of what she had seen. James listened raptly, and flinched at the part of his dead body. Then silence fell.
"Voldemort doesn't even know of Harry's existence, Lily. Besides he hasn't any reason to come for him."
Lily quickly jumped to several reasons why Voldemort could use her baby. Ransom. Bait. Dark Arts sacrifice. She began sobbing unrestrainedly as she let Harry's puffed hand hold her pinky.
"I'm sorry I was cross with you--" Lily offered through tears, but James cut her off with quiet hushing.
"Whatever. Look. I shouldn't have pushed you about it. You've always been straight forward with me--" Harry broke the apologies with gurgling.
The newborn blinked up at them with curious eyes. Tiny wisps of black hair threatening to follow James's example peeked out from under the blanket wrapped over his head. Hair line veins could be seen on his puffy eye lids. He pouted small lips.
Perhaps it was only a nightmare and she had been stressing unnecessarily. She had once dreamed that she had been trapped in a giant pack of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, but that didn't mean she was doomed to live in a multi-colored bubble for days. Lily sniffled and changed the subject. "I know it's baby button, but I think that that's your nose, James."
"I think you're right. In fact, I think my genes carried on quite nicely." Lily soon regretted this. He didn't need this baby to fuel his ego, which had gotten much better than when in school but emained in small measures.
"Well. . . I reckon that's my chin!" she declared.
Lily weakly pushed her crimson hair from her faces and beamed bemusedly at her husband opening then closing his mouth. Finally Lily fell for James' sparkling eyes as he started, "I can see you in him, too, Lily." He kept his gaze on a cooing Harry James Potter who just opened his own Lily-like, brilliant emerald eyes. "I can see you looking back at me." But was the inheritance of LilyÕs eyes a good thing?
"The Augurey's Song" Chapter two "Aurora Brings Life" by Duskrider Q
A/N: Aurora is the Greek goddess of dawn and her name is also given to Northern Lights. I chose it because she's helping to bring Harry into the world and Harry like the Augurey's Song promises a new day.
Lily Potter stood in the kitchen of her parents old home with an also nine months pregnant Alice Longbottom, who was educating Lily yet again about motherhood. . . . Alice sighed gruffly, "No! You can't carry a baby like that." reaching towards Lily's massive belly, "here let me show you. . ." Lily made a motion for her wand. This was her unborn son, not that chubby know-it-all's. . . But Alice was suddenly not round-faced and insisting, but pale and demanding. She had morphed into a hideous man with long, slick, dark hair and inhumane red eyes. Voldemort grinned filed-sharp teeth and ordered with a slight glimpse of a forked tongue, "Give me the boy. . ." Lily tripped over something as she backed up. . . She hit the floor hard, worrying if her carelessness had hurt the baby . . . She was completely paralyzed. . ! She looked down and to the side seeing that what she had tripped over was her hero and husband James lying dead under her feet with blank eyes. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes with a mixture of pain and horror she had only known once before, but she couldn't scream, move away from him, or move to him. . . . Voldemort hissed and held his wand to Lily's stomach. . . if only she could get up! Green light flashed and a screeching cackle rang in her ears.
Lily awoke from her sleep in a shuddering gasp, and an icy sweat. Something was wrong-- She knew it-- She felt it-- She saw it! Her pale hands moved instinctively over her round belly. Her son jerked; had he sensed it too? She turned her head quickly to see her husband lying still. He was perfectly fine, judging by the slight smile brought by dreams and the steady rise and fall of his chest. She looked around her bedroom but nothing confirmed her suspicions. Shadows of the moonlit treeleaves danced with the wind on the dark walls. Nothing was wrong, but her trembling told her otherwise. A crippled memory of cold and awfulness caused her to shiver uncontrollably.
This was not the first time in the last few months that Lily had awoken frightened and quivering. Everytime she tried to recall what had scared her, but hardly anything returned to her.
Deciding that she needed a glass of water or maybe even a shot of something stronger (after all a small glass for the first time in nine months couldn't hurt now). She moved for the kitchen, trying not to wake her husband. But she couldn't move gracefully or softly to anything anymore. With a trick of her arms she had invented, moving them up and in front of her like a wave, she raised herself into sitting position as the baby inside her pushed uncomfortably into her diaphragm.
She thought with a twitch at the corners of her mouth, "I'm not even pushing yet and you're a pain?" Lily could tell that their son would be a nice baby. Aside from waking her up every so often at night kicking, and the couple of times she had fainted in her first three months, he hadn't been a pain at all, truthfully.
Still shaking slightly, she snatched up a robe at the foot of the bed, and with a backwards glance at James, who's head had lolled toward her and the door, tiptoed as best she could down the stairwell. Her hand trailed over an ornate, gold, and oak banister. The other moved a lock of dark red hair behind her ear that had escaped from her braid. The soft carpet of the wide staircase that circled to the sittingroom massaged her feet on every step. Classic antiques and gorgeous paintings decorated the entire three story house.
Although James had inherited the Potter estate, he could no longer bear to live there because both of his parents had passed. Due to the neglect of an Assistant Healer, his mother's tragic demise came after recovering from dragonpox, but catching a lesser disease soon after. This was followed exactly two months later by the death of his father, who was trampled in a panicked crowd when someone falsely shouted rumor of a Death Eater attack. James wouldn't speak for three days, just nod if spoken to. Lily understood this about him: James could only pull himself out of depressing situations, and that the best was for him to open up to her was to wait. So one night she walked over to James who was sitting besides an half empty whiskey bottle, sat down next to him, rested her head on his shoulder, and waited. After hours of silence rippled only by breathing, he slipped his hand into hers. Words like the one of their talk scorched and relieved all at once, but the last of them brought indescribable satisfaction. They'd lived in this new house together for the two years since they'd been married.
Lily reached the kitchen which was filled with Muggle and wizarding spices, fine silverware, and soft colors. She liked the kitchen best out of all of the rooms,because she could be creative with her cooking. . . particularly since her pregnancy began.
Lily drew a tall glass from one of the cabinets and took out a bottle of white wine. Steadying her hands as best as she could, she poured herself a drink for indulgence. She sank heavily into a chair at the dinner table with her glass and felt what she hadn't noticed of her shaking return to her. This time she could only remember flashes of fear, helplessness, confusion, sadness, all like on the day she saw her parents dead. And then there remained one sound. . . a familiar, chilling cackle. Then her shivering worsened.
"Still can't remember what's waking you, Love?" Lily turned her head towards the doorway. James was leaning there with his house robe loosely draped around his shoulders. His dark mess of hair was flattened to one side. He rubbed his glasses to his pajama leg. He placed them on his handsome, thin face which contracted in a slight frown as his chiseled arms crossed in front of his chest. He had a slender build but a nice physique none the less.
When these night terrors had first began, James lovingly joked about it as he held her. But then inquiries asked in mock earnest like, "The Boogie Man got you, again, Lils? You know he's just an idiot kelpie." gradually turned into, "Are you sure that you're all right?"
Lily kept quiet and gazed into her drink.
James walked along the side of the table big enough to seat ten until he reached his wife. His hazel eyes flashed. "You're shaking," he said with a hint of alarm, and draped his house robe over hers.
As he gingerly removed the glass from her hands, his eyes flickered to the wine in a small double take. "As you're due any day," he began with his eyes slightly narrowed, "but haven't touched a drop for all three trimesters, I'll let that slide. But you shouldn't have had--"
"I don't need you telling me what I should and shouldn't do while pregnant, James," Lily snapped raising with much effort to her feet, and feeling her deep green eyes ablaze with emotions. She knew that she was wrong, and that no alcohol should touch her lips even then. Any drink or food that was too magical or mind-altering during this time was unhealthy for the baby, even one too many butterbeers! The matter seemed touchy tonight for some reason. Right then, the feelings of her sleep, not to mention a mood swing, were taking hold, so she simply didn't care.
James rose and stared her down, "It's my baby as much as yours!"
"I get enough from Alice Longbottom talking to me as if she's on her fiftieth pregnancy rather than her first, without having to hear it from you, too! Just because I'm twenty--"
"I only felt you get up, and wanted to know what's up--"
"Well if I could just remember what's doing it, I would tell you!" Lily shouted noticing her hysteria. She truly did want him on her side, but there wasn't a lot to go on in a conversation about what she couldn't recall. She recognized Voldemort's laugh in the dream because it was the last thing that happened before she'd always wake up, but everything else was vague or forgotten.
A beat of silence sounded. Lily instantly noticed that James had been scrutinizing her face. "Or is it that you do remember and you're just not telling me?" James asked darkly.
Lily couldn't bear the emotion. Everything from her waist down felt heavy and everything from her waist up felt light. She noticed the feeling flush out of her in a tear and an exhale. She hardly noticed that that was not all that flushed out of her. Liquid that brought an aroma like the ocean splashed to the floor at their feet. She collapsed side ways into James and black.
Lily jolted from her short sleep with an uncomfortable squeeze inside her abdomen, slightly painful. She had dreamt that she was eating dinner with her parents, but now she remembered that her parents had died at the end of her seventh year of Hogwarts. She remembered that it was the middle of the night possibly very early morning, and that she was in the kitchen a while ago but was now laid on a bed in one of the guest room. A stack of towels were at her feet, and a blanket lay over her.
"Lily!" James was instantly beside her and through her half-sleep she guessed he might have jogged to her side. He stroked her forehead and she let a yawn escape her mouth. "I've flooed the Healer-Midwife," he said. "She's just come to call."
Following soon after James, who was now dressed in one of his casual, tan, day robes, was a blonde, brown-eyed woman in her mid-thirties. She had a stylish bag with four golden clasps the size of a briefcase hung on her shoulder, but pale blue, plain robes much in the fashion of the green ones Lily wore to Healer training at St. Mungo's.
The blonde who Lily supposed was the Healer-Midwife inclined her head, then greeted,"'Lo Mrs. Potter. My name is Aurora J. Haven. I will be delivering your baby. Labor can be scary and worrisome. Labor IS trying and torturous, but you needn't fret, as long as you listen to my instructions. Would you like any medicine to ease the pain before we begin?" Lily shook her head no. She wanted bragging rights. She had something to prove to Ms. Alice Know-It-All.
"Well then we'll get started." Haven piped, situating the towels under Lily's naked bottom.
Lily's first impression of her was a woman too serious, making this task of helping her deliver into business like an open-and-shut court case. She wanted someone like a friend for the job, but then Healer Haven flashed a comforting smile like a sunrise and added, "And at if any point you think this kid too painful, just wait a little over a decade." Lily smiled back. Maybe Haven was worth a chance.
James, who was chuckling softly at the joke next to Haven and herself, would be here, too. He looked reminisent, though, and Lily wondered if she might as well be having twins for the load of help heÕd be raising their son...
Lily curiously watched Healer Haven unbutton the top of Lily's pajamas up to her bosom. Then watched Haven open the fourth clasp on her bag and pull out a silky roll of wet, transparent parchement which she ripped off at a desired length.
"What is that?" James questioned Lily's own wonder, but soon found the question answered without words. When Haven laid the clingly parchement over Lily's belly it glowed then faded into a clear view of what was happening within Lily's bulge. There was her baby boy, curled up, and ready to come out headfirst. He looked as gorgeous as the day she went to a Muggle doctor for a check-up.
Lily turned her head excitedly to James who was wearing a face mixed with awe and excitement. Lily wondered if under that he too felt as nervous as she did about her finally being in labor.
There was a lot of preparation and compromise leading to this moment. ÒCompromise is the key to a marriage.Ó That was what Lily's mother told her anyway. So when The Great Birth Debate happened, James argued that the Manchester Midwives had been around for ages and were the only way to go. Lily wanted a Muggle hospital but instead suggested St. Mungos for common ground.
"Lily," James had said shaking his head with a wry smile, "how can you work there and not have noticed that St. Mungos doesn't have a Maternity Ward?"
Lily had then endured a small shock and muttered with annoyance, "What kind of hospital doesn't have delivery rooms?" James's answer was, "The wizarding kind."
Lily still got her way on Lamaze classes however because a friend of her late mother owned, ran one, and was more than eager to help. She had to settle on the midwife in the end. At least this woman turned out to be a practiced Healer. James and Frank Longbottom had looked into them, for there had be a lot of impostors in times like these.
But then, that day in the guest room, Lily regretted her stubbornness at not having gone all the way with James's suggestion. Lamaze classes worked for Muggles but not for witches. At first the contractions were uncomfortable, then painful, but as they neared home stretch and spans of ten minutes were all that separated Lily screams and grimaces, the contractions had turned down right torturous! Constant ache seemed to follow in between as well to the point that nothing on her body, not just her stomach area seemed to scream in agony. Lily's torment led her to victimize many other things around the room aside from herself. The mirror on the wall shattered when she shot a nasty glare at it during a particularly ugly contraction which she attempted to breathe through.
After six hours, Lily felt that there should be an entirely new word for the type of "pain" labor was causing. The very muscles in her bulge were ripping themselves, trying to squeeze something the size of a small watermelon out something the size of a lemon, which had only expanded to the size of a mango. Sweat was pouring down her face now. And though the very act was stressing, projecting her powers, though accidentally were taking a lot of energy out of her too.
"Can't you do something!" Lily gasped after another tight contraction.
Healer Haven interjected exasperatedly but sweetly with honest sympathy, "If you had taken my classes rather than Lamaze with Muggles, who couldn't possibly tell you how to control your powers under stress, you wouldn't be taking your pain out on other things." Again Lily despised Haven; what good did that comment do her?
"Yeah," mumbled James stroking his hand lovingly, "Like me." He had insisted on hold Lily's hand through the ordeal, until she suddenly gained the strength of ten men during another evil squeeze within her abdomen. The Healer-Midwife had to charm the eight broken bones inside James's right hand back to perfect mend. At that point, he resigned to stroking her head every so often and retrieving things Healer Haven asked for.
While James busied himself searching Haven's bag, Lily screamed through another contraction. After it passed she noticed Haven with her head cocked sympathetically. "I've been there too, Lily. I have two daughters... TheyÕve been the love of my life since my husband died." For the first time Lily was seeing a person. Up until now, this midwife had done nothing but reprimand and attended to business. "It's unbearable now, but you have to learn as you go along. No class can really prepare you," Haven finished. They exchanged grins.
"See, Lils," James chuckled, "I didn't have to go to Lamaze classes with you after all."
Lily rolled her eyes at her husband and panted to the Healer-Midwife, ÒDr. Haven-- er-- Aurora, if thatÕs alright by you,Ó Haven nodded, ÒIÕm just...Ó Lily trailed off unable to articulate the many feelings welling inside. ÒHow much longer?Ó
The Healer directed James to remove her tools from out of her bag within the first clasp as she looked through the transparent parchment on LilyÕs belly. ÒNot much longer now.Ó Some tools looked comforting enough or tolerable like one Lily recognized for clamping an umbilical cord. Then she gasped and James's face lit in horror as he pulled out one with a huge, sinister spiraling sort of screw at the end with pointed metal claws on opposite sides.
"No need to look as if a chimera were on a rampage you two," Haven laughed, "I won't be using that one, I just like to carry all my tools with me." Lily wanted to sigh but somehow she wasn't all comforted. Lily watched Haven cover her legs with a large towel and put another underneath her while James pulled out a little, stuffed, Andepolean Opalaye dragon.
Lily cryed out and squeezed her eyes shut through another long contraction. . . Through a haze of excruciation she saw a familiar kitchen and Alice Longbottom who said in Haven's distant voice, "No, that's not how you carry a baby . . .Let me show you--" When she opened her eyes and her vision focused she realized that a high table had been conjured in front of the bed, and the stuffed Opalaye doll James had retrieved sat on it. What had just happened?
"Lily," began Haven, "I want you to concentrate on the dragon and push when I say. You're doing fine, dear,"
Lily, felt James hand brush her forehead. Another contraction seemed to rush through all her body, and the table that the stuffed dragon had been charmed to, shuttered. The haze returned. . . she had to deliver her baby, but pallid hands stretched for him. Voldemort demanded, "Give me the boy."
"No! Get away!" screamed Lily. . . her carelessness had led her son to this. . . where was James?
Lily could vaguely make out a wand. It looked undefined around the edges like everything else around her. Two figures kept tuning in and out, fading into one menacing other. "What are you doing? Don't point that at her!" came James's voice. He sounded so distant. "She's loosing consciousness. I'm trying to help!" protested a feminine voice. What was going on? Where were they?
Then there was weakness all through Lily's body. The last two voices had faded away. to be replaced by a high, crazed cackle. Mad red eyes were glinting at her triumphantly, and the wand came back stronger than ever directed at her stomach. A new strengthening surge erupted from her.
"NO! NOOOOOO! You can't have him!" she shouted at Voldemort.
"Lily, concentrate," said James. Voldemort was disappearing but his chilling laugh echoed in her mind.
"Oh James," she moaned as a tear leaked from the corner of her eye, "I don't want to have this baby."
"What? It's a little late for that now, don't you think?"
ÒIÕm not--- joking!Ó she panted. ÒJames..?Ó
She could indistinctly see James now. He seemed ghostly, though he hovered over her . . . Had he died? Suddenly an image of him laying utterly motionless rushed to her sight. Her reality was clashing with her reoccurring nightmare. The dolorous labor made it difficult otherwise to tell the difference as both delivery and her nightmare tugged at so much of her attention and absorbed her strength.
Hysteria overtook her again, and concentration vanished. . . "No. NO! He wants our baby! He's coming for our baby!" she sobbed. . . She could hazily see Voldemort poised readying his wand. . . ÒJames, don't . . . come back--- I--" She felt some magic bind her to wherever it was that she lay thrashing, and the same woman's voice saying, "It's almost time to push."
"Lily, I'm right here," soothed an invisible man. But the high- pitched cackle was louder.
"No, not my baby, too!" sobbed Lily summoning whatever courage would aid her now.
Voldemort grasped her face, but his grasp was not cold, pale, and dangerous at all. The grip morphed into James hand.
James. He was here. He was alive. "Lily focus on me. No one is here for our baby. Whoever tries something like that will break out into so many sores-- no boil in so much undiluted bubotuber pus--"
Things were coming back into clarity. She could see James's hazel eyes fearful and concerned digging into her own.
"Sounds like a hex you put on a sixth year back a school." He smiled, relieved, at her wit. Lily gasped at the most excruciating of contractions yet.
"Lily, you're strong. Fight, through. Look at the Opalaye," James assured. She then remember where she was, that she still had her baby, and that she needed to focus on that doll now. That pretty little Opalaye that wasn't drenched in sweat and hurting all over. That had to change.
"Push," ordered Haven from underneath the covers. Lily did so. "Push, Lily. Good." Lily shot a contemptuous glare at the Opalaye whose neck twisted around so tightly that had it been real it would have snapped. It must have been charmed to stay on the table and take the brutality that she subjected it to.
The echoing cackle returned, and her heart raced faster. Although she was unsure of which was happening anymore, she knew there was a choice to let Voldemort have the child as she was all that stood in his way to the baby, or fight through and give the baby a chance at life. She believed in the chance of life that Aurora and James brought more than the one of death that Voldemort did.
"He is such a pain!" Lily bellowed with a final great cry and the most determined push yet. She heard her baby's sobbing, and felt relief. Dawn's light washed from out the window onto the bed. Lily then recalled what it felt like to have a peaceful sleep.
Lily blinked sleep from her eyes. Confusedly she notice small details like the broken mirror, then bigger ones like the strange, missing feeling of her deflating stomach, the absence of the Healer-Midwife and her Opalaye, a note from Haven that started with "Congratulations" and "I'm so proud of you, Lily," and the papers by the bedside table where the word birth certificate clearly read from the top. Like deja vu, the events of late last night rushed to her.
Morning light spilled into the room through the huge window of the guestroom. She followed it with her eyes to where James sat in a chair before her, holding a small bundle of cloth.
"So, I do all the work, but you hold the glory?" Lily croaked to James. The screaming of labor had taken her voice. James looked up slowly from the bundle and beamed an expression of overwhelming joy. He crossed the room over to her side, and placed what turned out to be a welcomed pain, but still a pain after all, in her arms.
Lily gazed at the little ball of purityÕs unblemished face, whispered, ÒHeÕs a baby angel...Ó and faltered.
James answered in the strangest voice Lily had ever heard issue from his mouth, "I thought that 'he was such a pain.' " It was filled with his normal sarcasm but busting with something new.
But Lily forgot all that as she continued staring down again, and without realization whispered, "What pain?"
The feeling seemed to surpass words. Lily felt pride rise up inside of her. She made this . . . James helped, but only a little! It wasn't like the Outstanding + on her Charms N.E.W.T., or invention of an easier way to enchant a wound shut. This breathing work would have personality and a chance at the things in life she hadn't had. She could give him that. . . or die trying.
She wanted to give her son everything. Her son. She liked the sound of that even in ony her mind.
"Healer Haven will come back to call, to check on you and the baby later this evening, but she had to go. I think Alice went into labor this morning as well,
"I left it blank on the certificate, but," James hesitated, "we are naming him James Potter II. Right?" Lily knowing the same smile of reverie hung on her lips turned to James. Then with a playful sort of pity, shook her head.
"No. We've been through this. How will I ever tell you two apart?"
"You can call me 'my king' or 'lordship' and our,Ó James sighed here and with bold pride repeated, "you can call our son James."
"I like 'Harry.'Ó
James whined, "Why?"
"It's my favorite boy's name." A moment passed before she offered, "How about a compromise?" James kept his eyes on their son, but raised his eyebrows. "Why donÕt we name him both: Harry James Potter?"
James considered. "Fair enough." Lily turned her head away, back to Harry. She had just been thinking everything had worked out for the best but something sat unsettled inside of her like a dead fish that floated to the surface of a lake. Then James narrowed his eyes intently at her.
With an unsure exhale she began, "James, I remember my dream now. I couldn't before. . . It was like the last times." James eyes flashed and he without a missed second drew up a plain chair out of thin air with a stroke of his wand. It clattered to the floor. Harry moaned and twisted in Lily's arms.
"I was living my nightmare. It felt like. . . the real ones." Lily was what wizards called a Psychic, slightly different from a Seer which fell into trances to prophesize rather than rely on intuision and vision. Lily had had premonitions before, mostly in her sleep like any other dream but found by the death of her parents just what she was seeing could sometimes be true. Once she had been terribly wrong and found that what she had believed to be a vision was only her insecurities creeping from her subconcious. She barely escaped Death Eaters because of it.
She went in a detailed account of what she had seen. James listened raptly, and flinched at the part of his dead body. Then silence fell.
"Voldemort doesn't even know of Harry's existence, Lily. Besides he hasn't any reason to come for him."
Lily quickly jumped to several reasons why Voldemort could use her baby. Ransom. Bait. Dark Arts sacrifice. She began sobbing unrestrainedly as she let Harry's puffed hand hold her pinky.
"I'm sorry I was cross with you--" Lily offered through tears, but James cut her off with quiet hushing.
"Whatever. Look. I shouldn't have pushed you about it. You've always been straight forward with me--" Harry broke the apologies with gurgling.
The newborn blinked up at them with curious eyes. Tiny wisps of black hair threatening to follow James's example peeked out from under the blanket wrapped over his head. Hair line veins could be seen on his puffy eye lids. He pouted small lips.
Perhaps it was only a nightmare and she had been stressing unnecessarily. She had once dreamed that she had been trapped in a giant pack of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, but that didn't mean she was doomed to live in a multi-colored bubble for days. Lily sniffled and changed the subject. "I know it's baby button, but I think that that's your nose, James."
"I think you're right. In fact, I think my genes carried on quite nicely." Lily soon regretted this. He didn't need this baby to fuel his ego, which had gotten much better than when in school but emained in small measures.
"Well. . . I reckon that's my chin!" she declared.
Lily weakly pushed her crimson hair from her faces and beamed bemusedly at her husband opening then closing his mouth. Finally Lily fell for James' sparkling eyes as he started, "I can see you in him, too, Lily." He kept his gaze on a cooing Harry James Potter who just opened his own Lily-like, brilliant emerald eyes. "I can see you looking back at me." But was the inheritance of LilyÕs eyes a good thing?