Harry woke later that night as one baby kicked his bladder hard. As he sat up, Sirius gave off a mumble and turned over, curling up with the entire king size blanket wrapped round him. He rubbed his eye with the back of his hand and waddled to the bathroom. Feeling down below, he found something else and before he could think about it, a pain overtook his whole system. Trying to think what to do, he breathed through the contraction and once it passed, hurried back into the room. This was not false alarm.

He tried to shake Sirius awake but he just gave a whine and turned away. "

Sirius! Wake up!" Harry said, terror in his voice. Sirius turned to him again, opening his eyes groggily.

"Wassamatter?"

"We're going to get our babies soon." Harry said and Sirius glared at him.

"You woke me for that? I know we're going to. Three weeks from now." He scowled and closed his eyes. He heard Harry letting off a mix of swear words, hexes and a cry of pain.

"Fine, don't help me, why don't I just go deliver them myself in the bloody bathroom?" He said desperately and Sirius chuckled, but sat up so fast he hit his head on the solid wood headboard. Swearing, he held it and stood up. He found Harry on his knees clutching his stomach, tears of pain running down his cheeks.

He quickly scooped him up in his arms and went to the door, but Harry stopped him.

"They'll end being born in a prison cell if we go out like this. Indecent exposure." He said and Sirius realized they were both butt naked.

He hurried back and put Harry on the bed, clicking on the bedside lamp and getting his robes off the floor. He didn't even bother to put the underwear on himself or his husband. Just slipped on his own robe and draped Harry's over his body. It would be taken off soon enough, wouldn't it?

Picking him up again, he hurried out the door, pushing the button for the lift. "Come on, hurry stupid thing!" He muttered to himself. Harry then pointed to the out of order sign. "How can the thing be out of order in a couple of hours?" Sirius grumbled and opened the door to the stairs. It took a while to get down four flights of stairs and not drop Harry, whose contractions were getting closer together.

They finally got to the reception and there was no one there except at the table there was a young man about twenty. He looked strangely at the man who had come down the stairs. He was dressed messily in a robe and looked extremely worried, carrying in his arms a young man who looked to be about twenty years younger and had his eyes closed in pain, taking long deep breaths.

"Where's the nearest hospital?"

"About two hundred miles." Sirius swore. "But there's a healer near here, to the right, down the corridor, up the stairs and four doors down. It's a fi-"

Sirius had run off before he could finish. Man, the hotel assistant thought to himself as he watched the man disappear round the corner, you got some strange people at this place…


Sirius thought angrily about the person at the counter, when they'd mentioned a corridor, they hadn't said it would be a mile long. He finally reached the stairs and stopped.

"Let me just rest for a moment, love." He said putting Harry down and trying to catch his breath. Harry nodded and moved to lean against the wall.

"Uh oh." He said and Sirius frowned and then noticed the puddle around Harry and water dripping from between his legs.

"Uh oh? What's uh oh? What's that?"

"Let's just say last time this happened it was in potions class."

"Your water?"

'Yep." Sirius tired or not, picked him up and sped up to the healer.


Sirius kicked the fourth door open and carried Harry in, the noise attracting the attention of someone in the other room. They came running in, their eyes widening. "Well? Are going to help or not?" Sirius snapped.

"Yes, but this is just a first aid station."

"But you're a healer?"

"Yes bu-"

"And you can deliver a baby?"

"Of course, it's part of our basic training." Sirius gritted his teeth.

"Then what the bloody hell are you standing around for?" He growled. "Do something." The healer directed them to another room where there was one bed, a table with files, a metal examining table and a cabinet.

Sirius put Harry down and the healer shooed him out back into the waiting room. He protested, wanting to be with Harry when they were born.

"You can be there, I just have to do a few tests first and need complete concentration for it." They said and the door closed behind him. After five minutes, Sirius almost laughed as found he was pacing like the times when fathers weren't allowed in during the births, but a scream sounded from the room and Sirius pounded on the door till the healer opened.

"Ok, ok, you can come in," She said, "But first, put these on." She shoved a pile of robes at him and closed the door again. He changed into what he guessed was sterilized robes and came in to find Harry now also changed, his one of those thing disposable hospital gowns with no back. He was on the bed, writhing in pain and then falling back down as it passed.

"I'm here baby, and I'm staying this time." He said to Harry, whispering and taking his hand. Harry groaned in response.

"Give him something for the pain!" He shouted to the healer who shook her head.

"They can't do that Sirius, else I would have had it last time." Harry said.

"And it's dangerous for them, one's already premature."

"One's premature? How is that possible?"

"Well, it baffled me at first too, but three different tests all give results of different conception dates, one due for the tenth of February, the other for the second of March."

"That's why the healers gave two different birth dates." Harry said, his face screwing up again as another contraction went through him. The healer took the metal examining table, rolling it into the other room.

She came back then and checked Harry. "How do you know when they're ready to be born?" Sirius asked and the healer beckoned him forward, she lifted the sheet again. Once she showed Sirius, his curiosity was satisfied and he decided to leave those things to the professionals.

"What? Done sticking your fingers in me?" Harry asked and Sirius, pale and shaking, nodded. "How far is it anyway?"

"Six centimetres." The healer said, disappearing again

"Wait, you only told me about two hours ago in the room when it happened, it can't be that far already, unless…" He looked to Harry and the guilty expression on his face. "When did it start?"

"This morning after you left to get the portkey."

"Why didn't you tell me love?"

"Didn't want to ruin the day you'd planned."

"Ruin it? We get to finish it off with two new children, nothing like this could spoil it." He said kissing Harry's forehead. Time passed slowly as with the last labour and it was eleven thirty before the healer told Sirius to put on a mask, pick Harry up and carry him to next room, which had the examining table with a sheet, blanket and few pillows to prop Harry up on. He guessed that was where they would be born. Oh well, it wasn't what either of them expected, but it had would have had to do.

He lay him down on it and once the healer was sure the nine centimetres had become ten, instructed him what to do.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I've done it before." Harry said impatiently and the healer 'hmphed' and walked off to get something.

"You may have done this already, but we're not even discussing more again until they start school. You're going to prematurely age me!"

"I wasn't aware we discussed these ones. Besides, it's not me that's making you old, that happens by itself."

"If you weren't in labour at the moment, I'd slap you."

"Just try it and I'll get up here and slap you back." But he never got a chance because the contraction came and he focused his energy on pushing. Fifteen minutes went by with what felt like no difference.

"Well, looks like you're going to have a set of Valentines babies." The healer said looking at the clock behind her. Eleven fifty eight.

Another hour and a lot of contractions, with each one that passed, Harry seemed to be in more and more pain. "What's wrong?" Sirius asked the healer.

"Absolutely nothing, now, say hello to your first new child." She said and one more long hard push later, a loud cry, filled the air, louder than Crosby's, much louder. She held it up. She had taken it to clean off and left the two of them for a moment.

"You did it love, one down, one to go." Sirius said, rubbing the smaller mound that was their other child. She brought the child and told Harry to call her when he felt the next one crowning.

"Look at him, he's beautiful, so tiny." Sirius whispered looking at his son in his arms.

"Looks like you." Harry said, looking for the first time at his son and taking him from Sirius.

"I know,"

"Well, at least you can't say that one's not yours…" The healer took him, putting him on a table and taking off the blanket, measuring and examining him.

"Wow..." He smiled and kissed his son's head before moving back to Harry, who was starting to feel the contractions again.

After fifteen minutes when the second child wasn't born, the healer realized it was breech.

"Why? What's breech? What's wrong?" Sirius asked quickly.

"Nothing's wrong, it just means it's the wrong way, it'll just take a bit harder pushing and it'll come out just fine." Another ten minutes and Harry looked like he was going to pass out, his face chalk white. Sirius, his hands shaking, putting his face close to where he thought the baby might be.

"Come on, baby, you can't stay in there forever. Even just for your mum's sake." He whispered and Harry would have laughed, had he not felt another contraction, stronger than the others. It seems Sirius talking to it had done the job. Five minutes later another little boy came into the world and with one look at him, Harry passed out into a deep sleep.


Six in the morning on Valentines Day, while waiting for the breakfast in bed James had promised, Lily received a letter:

Dear Lily

Short-lived agreement, I know, I just thought you would like to be the first to see your grandchildren. A photo is enclosed. May I introduce you to Soren James Black and Jem Harry Black, born 14 February at one fifty eight am and two thirty three respectively. If, of course, Harry likes those names. He passed out two minutes after Jem was born and has been out like a rock since. Not that I blame him. It was a long painful labour and a whole nasty business of Jem being breech; he has only been woken once so the healer can give him a blood-replenishing potion.

As far as I can see, Jem is going to be an exact copy of his grandpa, hence the name Jem (English) an alternate form of James and Soren, well, judging by his cry, his name suits him. Soren means thunder. Besides that, I think it's the closest Harry will let me get to naming him after moi.

Thank you for all you've done for us over the past few months. If we ever have a girl/ child with red hair, it will have Lily or some form of that in it's name.

Love Sirius and (I'm sure he would say hi) Harry.

Looking at the picture, Lily almost choked on her coffee at the resemblance. There in what looked like Sirius's arms, was a moving photo of a miniature version of her husband and son-in-law. The one on the right was an exact copy of Sirius, from the three curls of dark hair on his head, to the finely chiselled sharp features, to the way his thumb rested just on his lip, only the top actually in his mouth.

The other however, already had a head of black sticking up hair and was quite a bit smaller. His eyes, unlike his brother's, were open and staring around, a blue colour that would surely turn to brown, the flecks in it already hazel. His hand moved up and took Sirius's finger in his tiny fist.

She saw a pair of troublemakers in them already and felt slightly sorry for her son. Feeling another behind it, there was another picture. This one of Harry, lying asleep in a bed, pale and sweaty, but his stomach gone, flat once more. She understood why he had been given a blood-replenishing potion

Shaking her head, she opened her draw, took out her diary and slipped the photos and letter into it. She knew that this constant worry over her son could go out of her system, but somehow she doubted it would ever go away. A sense of foreboding still ran through her when she though about it. It wasn't over yet. Deep inside her she knew it probably wouldn't. No, it definitely would never end…


The End

I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. Thank you.