"JAMES!" Lily screamed from inside their bedroom. "It's coming, James!"

James whirled around to face his friends, his hands tearing anxiously at his hair. "What do I do?" he demanded. Last time he'd checked in on his wife in the throes of labor, he'd nearly vomited and their midwife Helena had firmly thrown him out.

"It sounds like she wants you in there when she pushes it out, mate," said Sirius.

"Just try not to throw up this time," Peter added helpfully. He looked nervous, too, tugging at his sleeve—James didn't even know why he was wearing sleeves in July. Remus was lurking behind the others, silent and grim-faced as always.

"Okay." James closed his eyes and took a moment to steady himself. "Okay. I'm going in."

Sirius slapped him on the shoulder encouragingly. "You've got this, Prongs."

James swallowed and twisted open the bedroom door, stepping inside to find Lily gasping and panting and surrounded by blankets and towels, with Helena crouched between her legs. "The baby's crowning," she said softly to James; fortunately, she decided not to kick him out this time.

James had no idea what that meant, but he knew that Lily looked very much in distress, so he ran to her side and gripped her hand as tightly as he could. "You're doing amazing, Lils," he murmured. "Just—just take deep breaths."

"Helena said it's quick breaths now," Lily gasped. "It's too—" She trailed off as her body went tense, her face tightening with sudden pain.

"Okay, okay, quick breaths, then." James pulled her hand up to his cheek and did the breathing exercises with her as Helena demonstrated: hee, hee, hee, hee, hoo.

"There needs to be a spell to make this easier," Lily said once the contraction had eased. "I'll invent it myself if I have to. All those—oh, shit. AAGH!"

"It's time," Helena said. "All right, Lily, you need to give me your biggest push yet, okay? One…two…three…now!"

Lily screamed, her grip on James's hand tightening like a vise; he started screaming with her in response. Then there was a new sound—a high-pitched, pealing cry—and Lily's fingers slipped from James's. Heart quickening, James turned slowly to see Helena lifting up a small, wailing figure, wrapping it up tightly within the stag-covered blanket that James had provided. James felt every muscle within him clench at the sight of it. His baby. How had he and Lily made a baby?

"You've got a perfect, healthy little boy here," Helena told them after a long minute of James's gawking, smiling as she waved her wand to clamp and sever the umbilical cord.

"Boy?" James turned back to Lily, a stupid grin on his face. "I told you it'd be a boy, didn't I?"

"Oh, piss off," Lily said, her eyes still on the baby. Helena brought him over to her and placed him gently in her arms. "Oh," she whispered. "Hello, little one."

James leaned in to see his new baby—he'd stopped crying now and was nuzzling at his blanket. He had a little bit of fine dark hair sticking up in tufts, and the tiniest little fingers poking out among the folds of his blanket.

"He's beautiful," James said. Objectively he wasn't—he was pink and slimy and scrunched-up—but he was also James's son, an eight-pound, miraculous little piece of future. "I wish my parents could've seen him."

"I know," Lily said softly. James's parents had missed the birth of his son by only a couple short months. "But they'd be so proud of you, James."

"Proud of me? I'm not the one who had to give birth. They'd be proud of you, Lils." He swallowed, his eyes still fixed on his baby. "Can—can I hold him?"

Lily nodded, silently handing him over; James brushed a delicate finger across the baby's forehead and rocked him gently in his arms. "What should we name him?" he wondered. The two of them hadn't even discussed their child's name until now, considering it all too abstract and far away, but now James was holding a nameless baby and he very much wanted to have something to call him.

"Well," Lily said slowly, "the Longbottoms named their son after Neville Lewis, right? I really like that idea, naming the next generation after the people we lose in the war."

James frowned a little. "Neville died with Harriet," he said. "And I love you, Lily, but I really don't think naming our son Harriet would be a good idea."

"Of course not, you prat." Lily rolled her eyes good-naturedly at him. "But what about Harry?" She raised her eyebrows. "Harry James, after his pea-brained father."

"Harry James," James mused, studying his son. "Harry James Potter." His grin widened. "Oh, Lily, I love it." He kissed the baby on the head, then moved to kiss his wife. "With us as his parents, little Harry's going to be the smartest, most powerful, most mischievous wizard this world's ever seen."

"Oh, Merlin," Lily moaned. "I can already see the angry letters from Hogwarts."

"I can, too," James said eagerly. "I hope McGonagall's still there when he goes—she always did write the best ones."

"I just hope there's still a Hogwarts to send him to," Lily murmured.

"There will be," James promised her, leaning over and squeezing her arm. "We'll make sure of it." And he very much meant what he said—looking into his son's face, full of potential and newness and trust, he knew that if he hadn't had enough reasons before to fight for the future, he most certainly had them now.