Harry tromped trough the jungle at a furious pace and it was all Hermione could do to keep up with him.
"How---" he was saying, shaking his head in disbelief. "How could this have happened?"
"You didn't seriously just ask that question did you?" She replied.
He stopped abruptly and turned toward her, she was moving so fast to keep up with him that she ran right into his chest.
"Ouch. I mean, I know how it happened. I remember how it happened. I remember quite often actually." Then he shook his head free of that thought and turned back on his heel and marched on again. "But this couldn't have happened. We—"
"Did absolutely nothing to prevent it?"
He groaned and finally stopped his march and threw himself onto a fallen log. Hermione had asked that they meet in a private place and the middle of the Amazon jungle was the remotest location he could think of.
"But we're just friends! Friends shouldn't be having children together."
Hermione sat down next to him.
"Then perhaps friends shouldn't have done that other thing we did either."
He groaned and pushed his hands through his hair. That's when a boa constrictor slid by their feet. Hermione gave a cry but Harry didn't even look up. He waved his hand dismissively at the snake and muttered something in Parsel tongue and the snake, looking affronted, moved on.
Hermione watched the snake slither off as she waited patiently for Harry to finish his melt down. Finally he looked up at her.
"What do you want to do?"
"Well, have it of course," she replied matter-of-factly. "These are obviously not the best circumstances but this child will still be a part of me and you."
He nodded, unexpectedly relieved with her answer. Then something else suddenly occurred to him.
"My God, Hermione, what are we going to tell Ron?"
"Nothing." She said briskly. "We don't tell Ron. We don't tell anyone."
"What do you mean?"
She looked truly worried now. She opened her mouth and spoke very slowly, very softly.
"Harry, I don't think it's a good idea to tell anyone that this child is yours."
Harry pulled back from her like he'd been bitten.
"Why not?"
"Harry," she said quickly. "Your life is dangerous. There are people who would like to see you dead for defeating Voldemort. There are people who would—"
"Want to harm my child."
She bit her lip and nodded.
He stood up and began pacing in front of her. His body was rigid with anger. She could see his mind working, reasoning. She knew he agreed with her when his shoulders slumped and he turned back toward her.
"Who will you say is the father?" He asked in a raw voice.
She didn't answer immediately and she was staring at her feet.
"Hermione?"
"I—I was planning on going away. From my life in America, I mean. Hide it for as long as I could then leave my job to have the baby and then—"
Her lip was trembling and he had an awful foreboding feeling.
"I have a cousin—"
"No!" He shouted and almost startled her off the log. "No, Hermione! I will not let my child go through what I did."
"Harry, my cousin has two children of her own. She's a wonderful mother. She knows I'm a witch. She knows my child will be as well. I've already spoken to her about it. She's OK with it. It won't be like the Dursley's. I promise."
Harry was trembling.
"I've given this a lot of thought, Harry," she said quietly. "It's the best way."
"You found out you were pregnant yesterday, how could you have given it enough thought?"
"Have you thought of anything else since I told you?"
His shoulders slumped and he shook his head. He walked in circles in front of her for a while and then he let out a demented laugh. He looked at her.
"It was my first time," he said.
She smiled.
"Me too."
"I guess we're not all that extraordinary after all."
The day that Jamie was born was the same day that Harry nearly died.
He and Ron were tracking Draco Malfoy through a Romania country side when they came into a clearing with the largest, fiercest looking dragon they'd ever seen. And somehow Malfoy had put an Imperius curse on it. No one knew how he did it because it was believed that dragons were too strong willed to be influenced by such a curse but there it was, a weapon beyond measure at Malfoy's fingertips.
Ron and Harry tried cursing it with every spell they could come up with but it only seemed to enrage the beast. Then one moment Ron was too slow and the dragon swung his tail and caught Ron right in the chest and sent him flying into the forest. Ron screamed the entire way until Harry heard a sickening crunch and then Ron was silent.
In a small town in Kansas Hermione checked herself into a small local hospital after her water broke during breakfast. She knew labor would be much easier in a wizard hospital but she couldn't take the chance. She had forged documents changing her name but she couldn't risk anyone recognizing her and making a connection with Harry.
The dragon was towering over Harry and he was quite certain he was about to die. He hadn't spoken to Hermione since that day in the Amazon because that is what she insisted. But he could add. He knew she was due any time and as he fired what seemed to be completely ineffective curses at the dragon his only thought was he'd never meet his own child.
Hermione was cursing the day she ever met Harry Potter fourteen hours into her labor. She cursed him, she cursed Ron, she wanted to curse the nurse who kept telling her to breath deep but she'd left her wand at home.
Harry's heel hit a root and he fell backwards, his wand jarring out of his hand. The dragon lifted his legs, big as the Hogwart's towers, and Harry prepared to be crushed. Then a blast from behind him cut through the air and right through one of the dragon's leg's, severing it off at the joint. The dragon reared up in agony and Harry scrambled to his feet. Ron was behind him, barely standing upright. He was clutching his wand with his left hand while his right hung limply at his side. There was blood trickling down his forehead and when Harry reached him he fell to his knees. Harry yanked him back to his feet and forced him to run. Right as they cleared the spot the dragon landed with an earth rattling thunder behind them.
Harry slumped back into Grimmauld Place several hours later, exhausted beyond measure. Ron was at the hospital still. His arm was shattered, he had a skull fracture and several broken ribs but nothing that the wizards couldn't fix. They had wanted to keep Harry there as well but he had insisted on returning home.
He was headed toward the stairs and to his room when he saw the strangest looking owl out of the corner of his eye on the mantel in the parlor. The owl was jet black with talons sharp as razors. When Harry reached for the message tied to his leg he found out exactly how sharp. The owl took a swipe across his hand that drew blood.
"Ow!" Harry cried but then watched with fascination as the owl took it's claws dripping with Harry's blood and dipped it carefully into the small test tube tied to it's other leg. The clear water turned a neon green and that seemed to satisfy the owl. It gave it's leg a shake and the message fell into Harry's hands. Then it took flight out the open window.
Curious, Harry unrolled the message. It was a photograph.
There was Hermione, looking about as exhausted as he felt, sitting up in a hospital bed. She was holding his son. Across the bottom was written: James Sirius Potter.
Harry sunk down onto the floor, staring at the photograph. Hermione kept lifting the baby so he could get a clear look at him. He actually looked kind of like any other baby he'd ever seen, scrunched, slightly misshapen, pink. Except for his hair. He had a full head of dark black, unruly hair.
Harry knew what kind of picture it was. Being an Auror he was use to how it worked. Much like a Howler he knew it would self-destruct in a few minutes so he clutched it, studying every detail, every feature of his son's face, the sad smile on Hermione's face. He held onto it even as it burst into flames and blackened his fingers. He held on to it until it dissolved into ash and tricked to the floor.
And then Harry, sitting alone in the parlor of his home, sobbed.