Harry listlessly tossed his quill at the corkboard on the far wall like a dart, summoning it back to him with his wand before tossing it again. He was getting better, he could almost always hit what he was aiming for now.
Someone knocked at his door; a quick glance through the small window confirmed that it was Marjorie Foster, the hit-witch on his current squad. "Come in," he called, not pausing in his rhythmic throwing and summoning, nor did he sit up in his chair. Lounging was far more comfortable.
Marjorie watched him for a few moments. "Don't you look busy."
Harry left the quill quivering on the photograph of the latest suspect who had turned out to be innocent, but Harry secretly wished he could arrest for something anyway. "It seems unwise for me to open any new lines of questioning when I'm going to be pulled away any day now. Willoughby's taken over for the time being. And I've nothing to do, unless I really want to go help out in Archives, and I'm sure you'll all forgive me if I don't."
"Baby obviously isn't born yet?" Marjorie asked.
"Baby was due about a week ago. I asked her if she was going to induce labor, but apparently that's a Muggle thing." He summoned the quill back, threw it again. "So's going to a hospital, apparently."
"A hospital? What on earth would they do with a baby in the hospital?" Marjorie asked, flummoxed.
"That's what she said." Summon. Throw. "Met the midwife last week, though." Summon. Throw. "I knew I was born at home, but it never really occurred to me to ask how it's normally done." Summon. Throw. "Muggles go to hospitals when they're in labor. Which makes perfect sense to me, as they've got babies coming out of them." Summon. Throw.
Marjorie chuckled and shook her head. "Witches are a tougher sort. What about wedding planning? Doing any of that?"
Harry raised his eyebrows and looked over at Marjorie. "Do I really strike you as someone who can plan a wedding? I can hardly plan afternoon tea. If it doesn't involve rushing in somewhere with wands blazing, I can't plan for rubbish. No, Neville's grandmother is taking care of those preparations. We pretty much just have to show up and act like we're madly in love." Summon. Throw. "It's not happening until August. There'll be cake. I have to buy new dress robes. That's really all I know." Summon. Throw.
"Are you relaxed?" Marjorie asked as her eyes followed the quill back and forth. Harry threw her a questioning look. "I was supposed to come in here to relax you. Are you relaxed?"
"Yeah, sure. Peachy. Why?"
"Because your fiancee is waiting outside. Apparently today is your son's birthday."
"What d'you mean, I'm not allowed in?" Harry asked, having been stopped at the door to the nursery by Mrs. Weasley.
"Menfolk have no business being around until there's an actual baby there," Mrs. Weasley told him in a no-nonsense tone.
"It's true," Neville said, pulling Harry's arm, "It's how it's always done, we get to sit downstairs, come on." He winced for some reason, putting his hand to his stomach.
"Hell no," Harry said, shaking Neville off. "That's my son, and I want to be there when he's born."
"Where on earth does he get this?" Mrs. Weasley asked Neville. "Is this a Muggle thing?"
"Yes," the midwife called from within the room. "I get it all the time with the half-bloods. You can come in if you really want, dear, but keep in mind Ginny's got a fiery temper and I'm not going to stop her wailing on you."
"I haven't got a fiery temper yet," came Ginny's voice as Harry looked pointedly at Mrs. Weasley, pushing past her. "The contractions have barely even started." Neville went pale as Harry grabbed his hand.
"Come on, then—"
"I think I'll stay out here," Neville said. Where I'm supposed to be, it sounded like he wanted to add.
"You're being ridiculous. That's your godson being born in there. Don't you want to be there?" Harry asked, bewildered.
"That's not how we do things," Neville insisted. "The blokes all gather somewhere we can't hear the screaming and heckle the father. It's tradition."
"That's a stupid tradition," Harry pronounced, "And you're coming with me."
"Harry, he doesn't have to," Mrs. Weasley said firmly. "Leave him be if he doesn't want to go in."
"Fine." He shot a glare at Neville before sidling past Mrs. Weasley into the nursery.
He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but he'd thought Ginny would be on a bed, and there would be a lot more bustling about. But she was standing up, leaning against the cot with a cup of tea, looking rather serene. The other women gathered in the room—Fleur, Audrey, Andromeda, even little Victoire—stared at him as though he'd sprouted horns. Hermione, however, just beginning to show signs of her own pregnancy, reached out to squeeze his hand.
"It's odd to me too," she said in a low voice, "but as it's the typical way things are done, I suppose I'd better learn about it."
"Shouldn't you be in bed?" Harry blurted, ignoring Hermione. Ginny raised an eyebrow at him.
"Bed? No. Are you mad? It'll be hours before the baby will be born, I'm not going to lay about until then. I'm not even sure why you're here already, you could have at least stayed until lunch hour."
Harry was having trouble finding the proper response to that. "Neville came and told me you were in labor. Of course I'm going to come home."
"I tried to get him to stay," Neville called from the hallway. "He wouldn't hear it."
"Here's how it works, dear," the midwife said, offering him a kindly smile as she handed him a cup of tea. Chamomile, by the smell of it. Harry took it without looking at it. "Ginny will be in this particular stage for a few hours as her body gets ready for the baby. She'll have contractions every few minutes. Once they stop having long pauses between, that's when we'll have her get in whatever position's most comfortable. And then that will take a few hours, most likely. It's really not as stressful as you're making it out to be, and among witches, it's a time for bonding and celebrating while the wizards have their own celebration elsewhere." She gave Harry a pointed look. "You're welcome to stay if she wants you here, but she's probably been expecting a...different sort of birth, given her upbringing."
"But..." Harry was absolutely bewildered. "I always thought I'd be able to be there, hold him—"
"Of course you'll get to hold him," Ginny cut in. "You think I'm not going to call you in as soon as it's all through? It's just the bloody and sweaty and naked bit we don't want you in here for." She smiled and reached out to touch his shoulder. "It's sweet that you want to be here. But it's like the midwife says, that's not the kind of thing I've been expecting, or really wanting."
Harry blinked. "Why didn't anyone tell me this is the way it is?" he asked, somewhat accusingly. "I could have...I don't know, prepared myself, come to terms with it."
"Darling, we assumed you knew," Mrs. Weasley said gently.
"I should have told you what to expect. I'm sorry." Ginny squeezed his shoulder, and then her grip became vice-like as her eyes went wide. "Merlin's saggy left bollock, that one's strong," she gasped, setting her teacup down on a table with a clatter to put her other hand to her abdomen.
Outside in the hall, Neville gave a strangled yelp. Harry's head whipped around, along with everyone else's in the room except Ginny's, as she was currently holding herself up by Harry's shoulder and studying the floor very intently.
"Oh dear," the midwife sighed, getting up from her chair and making her way to the door. She opened it, and Harry could only just hear the conversation.
"You'd be the gay best friend? Neville, right?"
"Yeah, but—"
"Let me guess—you've been having back pain for no reason, mood swings, odd weight gain the last few months?"
"Yes? How did you know?"
The midwife laughed, then pulled Neville into the room. "Ginny, your friend here is having sympathy labor pains. This might get interesting."
"WHAT." Neville and Harry both stared as the room erupted into gales of laughter.
"It usually happens with the husband," the midwife said, attempting to hide her mirth and not particularly succeeding. "But as your family's not as cut and dry as all that, I'm not entirely surprised that it's Neville." She smiled fondly, patting a completely nonplussed Neville on the shoulder.
"I'm sorry, but what exactly do you mean, 'sympathy labor?'" Harry asked.
"Occasionally, someone close to the mother will mimic her pregnancy and labor symptoms," the midwife explained. "Most often the father, but rarely you'll get siblings or very close friends, and you and Ginny are rather close, aren't you?" She directed this last at Neville, who nodded, looking rather put upon and somewhat horrified.
"That's not fair," he said plaintively, "I didn't sign up for this, you're the father, it's supposed to be you!" He looked almost accusingly at Harry. Harry held his hands up.
"It's not my fault!" he protested.
"Oh yes it is," Neville said, much to amusement of the gathered women, "You're the one who started this all off and got her pregGAHHHHHH!" Harry did not need the sudden grip on his shoulder to know that Ginny was also now doubled over. Hermione was trying very hard not to laugh; the rest of the women were not being nearly as nice. Fleur was actually wiping tears from her eyes.
The midwife checked her watch. "Hmm. Three minutes. Things may be progressing more quickly than we'd anticipated. We'll have to see if the pattern holds." She absently patted Neville on the back. "That's a good sport. You're in for a long day."
"You can't stop it?" Neville asked, his voice going up an octave in panic, or possibly pain, as he was still clutching at his abdomen.
"Oh, hush, Neville, they're just stomach cramps," Ginny admonished in a breathless voice. "I'm the one actually going into labor over here."
"Just stomach cramps?" Neville asked, looking at her in disbelief. "Do you have any idea how much this hurts?" She arched an eyebrow at him. "Okay, wrong person to complain to. Fine. I get it." He grit his teeth and glared at everyone in the room, including Harry, who thought that distinctly unfair. In fact, he was probably the only other one in the room who didn't find this immensely amusing.
"I take it this is something else I'd have known about if I wasn't raised by Muggles?" he asked in a rather harsher tone than he'd meant to use.
"Oh, heavens no. Muggles get it too. It's a human condition sort of thing," the midwife said. She clapped Neville on the back again as he straightened up, his face red. "Like a champion, dear. It does tend to mirror a bit more closely among magic folk, though, no idea why. Here," she said, reaching out for Harry's hand. Harry gave it, bemused, and the midwife placed it on Neville's shoulder. "You wanted to be present for your son's birth. That's not something that's going to happen, but you'll get to have a very good surrogate experience looking after your fiancee. Preferably elsewhere."
"Wait, what's going to happen when she actually starts having the baby?" Neville asked, the note of panic now more pronounced. The midwife shrugged.
"No idea. Have fun." She rather firmly led them out the door and closed it.
Harry and Neville stared at each other. Neville took a deep breath, running his hand through his hair.
"I'm going to go get blind drunk," he said decisively.
"Neville, it's eleven in the morning," Harry pointed out.
"And I'm going to go get blind drunk."
"The pubs aren't even open yet."
Neville blinked. "Who said anything about a pub? There's a kitchen full of Weasleys downstairs who've brought all manner of intoxicants. I'm going to avail myself of them, right now." He started down the stairs, then whirled around. "And not a word of this to them."
Fairly certain everything would be made obvious the first time Neville doubled over in pain, Harry followed reluctantly. This was not going at all like he'd always thought it would.
Over the next hour and a half, family and friends trickled into the house. Not every woman was upstairs in the nursery; it seemed that was reserved for those closest to the mother. It was a given, however, that the basement kitchen—officially dubbed as "The Cave" for the day—was where the men were currently "holding court," as Marjorie put it. It became very obvious to Harry that everyone present was used to this sort of arrangement—the women would not break the sanctity of The Cave, but would mingle with everyone else in the neutral zones of the house. Their behavior that this was a normal sort of gathering soon rubbed off on Harry, and he felt slightly less excluded from the goings-on upstairs in the nursery.
In the kitchen, Neville was determinedly working on his goal of becoming stone drunk, and the endeavor was progressing admirably. However, it wasn't long before he failed spectacularly in hiding a particularly debilitating cramp, actually sliding out of his chair to moan in agony on the floor. Once the laughter had died down, one of Neville's colleagues shook his head, chuckling. "Why didn't you tell me we'd need a Severance potion in the first place?" the tall wizard asked Harry as he drew a flask from within his robes. "It's really a simple brew, but now we've got to sober him up first so he can take it. Doesn't react well with alcohol."
"He told me not to tell anyone," Harry said sheepishly. "And the midwife didn't say there was anything that could stop it."
The tall wizard snorted. "I expect she thought it was amusing. There you are, Longbottom, l'chaim." Neville looked blearily at the flask, then tossed it back. He retched after he did so, shuddering.
"That's foul!" he said, screwing up his face. At the table, George and Charlie laughed uproariously. "Seriously, Tobias, did you brew that to be as disgusting as you could? It was like Vegemite and castor oil had an ugly child. That they beat."
"A Sobering Draft tastes different depending on the hour of the day," Tobias said loftily. "Had you taken it at midnight, you'd find it rather delicious. Now if you'll excuse me for half an hour, I've got a Sympathetic Severing potion that I think I need to go brew. Drink at least a pint of water while I'm gone, two would be better. Potter, if I may use your Floo powder?"
"Of course," Harry said graciously, ignoring Neville's dirty look as Tobias departed—back to his office at Hogwarts, Harry suspected, by way of the fireplace in the Great Hall.
"Come off it," Mr. Weasley said to Neville, offering him a hand to help him off the floor. "I needed a Severing potion myself, when Molly had Bill."
"You did?" Neville asked, looking slightly less mortified.
"You've never actually been to one of these parties before, have you?" Bill asked from his perch on top of the kitchen counter. Neville and Harry both shook their heads. "Someone nearly always needs one. I'm surprised there wasn't one ready to go, they're standard fare at about one of three of the ones I've been to—though it's not usually noised about."
Neville looked slightly more relaxed, though he grimaced as he put his hand over his stomach again. Harry rubbed his back, still unable to completely shake the feeling of being out of place.
"Anyway, Harry, as I was saying, before Neville so rudely interrupted us with his theatrics," Ron said, throwing a jocular look at Neville, who mouthed "twit" at him, "You've no idea how lucky you are to be having a son, I don't know what I'm going to do with a daughter—pull all my hair out, I reckon—"
"Girls aren't so bad," Bill interjected. "At least yours won't be part veela."
"Yeah," Ron said, looking suddenly happier, "There is that."
"How soon you going to have him on a broomstick?" Charlie asked with a grin. "Six months?"
"I figure he should probably start walking first," Harry responded with an answering smile. "Don't want him all bowlegged."
Conversation continued, much of it directed at Harry, each question driving home the reality that in a few hours, he was actually going to be a father, responsible for a living, breathing child. Warm pride took turns with cold terror in his chest. He checked his watch frequently; Ginny had said several hours. How many hours was that?
"Oh, we'll probably be here for another three or four hours at least," Mr. Weasley said, and Harry realized he'd asked the question aloud.
"That long?" Harry asked, astonished. Mr. Weasley nodded.
"Not nearly as long as it takes Muggles, at least that's what I remember our midwife assuring us. But start to finish, Molly's first time in labor was...six, seven hours?"
Neville boggled. "Six or seven hours, feeling like this?" He gestured at his stomach. Bill laughed.
"Feeling mighty worse than that, I imagine. There's also the logistics of getting a Quaffle through a cocktail straw."
Neville paled. "Why haven't women taken over the world already?" he asked, to general laughter.
Presently, the flames in the fireplace leaped and glowed green again, and Tobias stepped out with a bulbous flask of a clear bubbling liquid that appeared to be emitting blue steam.
"To your good health," he said, pulling out the cork and handing it to Neville. "Should sever the sympathetic link in a snap." Neville took the flask and looked blankly at it, seemingly unaware that everyone in the room was staring at him. "Bottoms up, Neville," Tobias said after a few moments. "I've managed to get rid of the side effect that makes you want to bawl uncontrollably, but at the cost of it tasting more and more like rancid pumpkin juice for every minute it's allowed to age after decanting."
"I...don't know that I actually want to," Neville said in a low voice that, had the kitchen not been more or less silent, would have carried to Harry's ears only.
"Are you serious?" Harry asked, his voice pitched low as Neville's, but still fairly clearly heard around the kitchen. "Not five minutes ago you were wishing for death."
"I know," Neville said shooting a glance around the kitchen. Everyone was studiously not looking at them, but apparently could not think of anything to say to cover the fact that they were listening to the murmured conversation. As though aware that being quiet would not stop the others hearing, he returned to a more normal voice. "But...it makes me feel..." he shrugged. "Involved. Like I'm a part of things. Like..." he flushed, very slightly. "Like he's my son too. Ridiculous as it sounds." He glanced around again. "Everyone keeps talking to you about how you're going to raise him, and I'm more or less ignored. Makes me feel like some sort of hanger-on."
Harry blinked. He hadn't considered that. "Neville..." he said, somewhat awkwardly. "You're going to be my husband, as crazy as it still is to hear myself say it. That makes him your son, whether or not you put up with your insides twisting themselves in knots. And...I don't know, maybe everyone else just doesn't understand that you're going to be doing just as much as I am to bring him up." He almost involuntarily glanced about, registering the expressions of chagrin and embarrassment on the faces of the people gathered there. "We are a little unconventional, you know. Loads of people don't know how to react to us." He looked down at the flask. "Taking that doesn't make you any less involved. I promise. Just a whole lot more comfortable for the next several hours."
Neville offered a small smile, then jumped as Ron patted him awkwardly on the shoulder; neither he nor Harry had noticed him approach. "I'm sorry, mate," he offered. "I didn't realize...but it's obvious, yeah? I mean, you and Harry have always done everything together. Of course you'd raise his...your...son together."
"That kid is going to be seriously messed up," George commented from the table.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Harry asked hotly as Neville's eyebrows drew together in anger.
"He's got two of the most stereotypically Gryffindor blokes I know for dads. One of them killed Voldemort, one of them sliced the head off a great bloody snake while he was on fire. There's nothing for it. James is going to think he's bloody invincible." He took a swig of butterbeer. "Why, what did you think I meant?" He winked outrageously, and Harry couldn't help but smile.
Neville brought the flask up to eye level. "Cheers, I suppose," he said, and tossed back its contents. A split second later his eyes bulged, he dropped the flask with a tinkle on the stone kitchen floor and both hands went to his mouth.
"Neville!" Harry exclaimed, but Neville waved him off, looking slightly green.
"Reparo," Tobias said somewhat lazily, and the shards of the crustal flask leapt back together and into his hand.
Neville swallowed and shuddered. "When am I going to learn to never drink anything you've given me, Tobias?"
Tobias shrugged as the tension in the kitchen melted into laughter. "I told you to drink it straight away, but you had to be all dramatic and sentimental first."
"I take it you're the Potions Master, then?" Bill asked.
"Oh," Neville said. "I forgot introductions. Um, everybody, this is Professor Tobias Caine, my colleague at Hogwarts. Been there...two years now?" He looked questioningly at Tobias.
"Right," Tobias said. "Neville, Magnolia Rivers, and I are the youngest professors at Hogwarts. Mags said she'd be over after her third years finished their exams, by the by," he said as an aside to Neville. "And my wife asked if it would be proper for her to come. Muggle-born, you know—doesn't understand this whole party thing—"
"'Course it'll be proper. Supposed to be everybody the parents know, right?"
"Wait," Harry interrupted. "I know a lot of people. And Ginny's family is huge. Are you saying they're all going to come, too?"
Neville shrugged. "They'll probably stop by, if they know the birth's today, or they'll send an owl. We've got the space for quite a lot of people, especially if we open up the sitting room and the drawing room."
Harry stared. "We haven't been in the sitting room since we changed the carpets. It probably smells like old shoes."
"It did. I fixed it." Neville laughed at Harry's expression. "Ginny and I knew you were clueless as to how these things worked. Don't worry, Harry, we took care of everything. We're bloody lucky you inherited such a big house. There's probably already tons more people upstairs."
"But—we haven't been there to greet them—"
"I know, Gran has." Harry goggled at this response. Mr. Weasley laid a hand on Harry's shoulder.
"Harry," he said gently, "You've got quite enough to be getting on with. Maybe you could just trust that Neville's thought of everything and go with it?"
"Yeah, business as usual," Neville said with a broad grin. "Though, now that you mention it—we probably should go upstairs at some point and say hello..."
Many more people had in fact arrived in the two hours Harry and Neville had been closeted in the kitchen. Harry couldn't actually remember knowing this many people all at one time in his life. The seldom-used drawing and sitting rooms had been opened after the living room had filled with people; even the hallway leading from the foyer to the stairs for the kitchen housed clumps of people. All of them gave a little shout of greeting as Harry started coming up the stairs. Harry found himself cornered by coworkers and old school friends and distant Weasleys he hadn't seen since Bill and Fleur's wedding every time he tried to take a step. They had all brought food, heaps of it, and had taken it upon themselves to organize a spread on the dining room table. The congeniality and sense of community was almost overwhelming, even if some of the Weasleys weren't quite sure how to react to Neville, who was nevertheless a tremendously good sport about the whole thing.
It was a quarter past four when Augusta Longbottom, brandishing a cocktail sausage on a toothpick and saying something about boutonnieres (Harry wasn't quite sure what a boutonniere was but apparently they were a terribly important part of wedding planning) turned her head mid-sentence in response to a hand on her shoulder, laid there by Mrs. Weasley.
"If you can excuse Harry and Neville for a moment," she said in a quiet, tired voice, "There's someone upstairs I'm sure they'd like to meet."
For a moment Harry didn't realize what she was saying; had another relative dropped in? Then he realized that Mrs. Weasley had been in the nursery all day, and if she was downstairs now—
His heart did a somersault as his breath caught in his throat. Mrs. Weasley smiled and patted him on the upper arm.
"Calm down now, dear. Come along. Everyone will pretend to ignore you, they all know they're not supposed to react to the new baby until you bring him downstairs..."
In a daze, Harry gripped Neville's hand tightly and followed Mrs. Weasley up the stairs, his heart pounding in his ears. As they passed his bedroom, Harry suddenly remembered something.
"Just a moment—one second—" He ducked into the bedroom, leaving Neville and Mrs. Weasley somewhat confused on the landing.
Ginny's birth coin was in its velvet bag at the bottom of his nightstand drawer, just where he'd left it. He pulled out his wand; what was the incantation he was supposed to use? Oh, yes—"Sculpta natalis," he murmured, tapping the blank side of the coin. Glowing white lines spiderwebbed from where his wand touched, then settled into the metal in a coat of arms he only vaguely recognized, around which read "James Sirius Potter, 17 June 2005."
Closing his hand around it, he plunged it into the breast pocket of his robes and emerged from the bedroom. "Okay. I'm ready."
Mrs. Weasley pushed open the door to the nursery, and as though by magnetism, Harry's eyes fell immediately on Ginny, looking exhausted but happy, sitting in a rocking chair cradling a very small bundle wrapped in a white blanket.
Feeling as though he were moving underwater, he approached her, Neville trailing slightly behind, and as though someone else were driving, held out his arms as the midwife lifted the bundle from Ginny's arms and placed it into Harry's.
He was very small, and very red, with downy black hair feathering his head under the blue knit cap and a button nose and tiny, tiny fingernails on the hand that had escaped the swaddling. Harry couldn't breathe for a moment as the bundle squirmed, James made a tiny noise, and opened his eyes just slightly for one instant before settling back into stillness.
He couldn't think of any words to say. At the moment, speech was beyond him anyway, was as easy to reach as the moon as he gazed down at his son. Suddenly, for the first time in his life, he fully comprehended the power of the love that had prompted his mother to die for him. He was bursting with it, his hand trembling with it as he lightly ran a finger across the tiny pink cheek.
He managed to tear his eyes away to look at Ginny, who smiled at him tiredly, but with immense satisfaction. "Did I do a good job?" she asked somewhat weakly.
"Yeah," Harry struggled to say, looking back at James in wonder. "We make fantastic babies, apparently."
"I'm inclined to agree." She smiled again. "Neville's far too polite to say, but I think he's going to explode if he doesn't get his turn."
Harry looked over in surprise; he'd forgotten that there was anyone else in the room but himself, Ginny, and James. He carefully relinquished the bundle that was his son, laying him in Neville's arms, was surprised and pleased to find that there was not the least feeling of regret or anxiety in doing so.
"Hello there," Neville whispered, eyes shining with tears. Harry surreptitiously knuckled away his own, then knelt down next to the rocking chair.
"I have something for you," he said to her, reaching into his breast pocket. "Your dad gave it to me, to give to you today." He reached out for her hand, opened it, and laid the coin in her palm. Ginny smiled through the tear that ran unchecked down her cheek.
"And I've something for you, too," she said, reaching into the pocket of her own dressing gown and pulling out a coin. Gold, rather than silver, and Harry's breath caught when he saw it; the last time he'd seen this coin, it had been when he'd tucked it into the back of the hollow behind the portrait in the drawing room, and had been blank on one side, and he'd had no idea what it was for.
"I gave it to her," came Neville's voice from behind him; he twisted around, stunned. "I thought...well...it's what your parents would have done."
Harry didn't trust himself to speak, gazed instead at the coin in his hand. There was that naggingly familiar coat of arms, on both sides—the Potter coat of arms? And there, on one side, his name...had his father engraved this, nearly twenty-five years ago?
Too full of emotion to do anything other than tuck it safely deep within one of his inner pockets of his robes, he automatically took James back as Neville carefully set him in his arms. He could not stop the smile spreading, now that the initial shock of the weight of his son in his arms had worn off; he felt as though he could very well float away.
"And Neville," Ginny said, a slight catch in her voice. "I've...I've got something for you, too."
"What?" Neville asked, mystified, as he came closer to Ginny's chair. Harry wrenched his eyes away from James's face to watch, bewildered, as Ginny drew yet another coin from her opposite pocket. Neville's jaw dropped slightly, his eyes growing wide in astonishment.
"Your grandmother gave it to me. Just a few hours ago."
Neville's birth coin was also gold, of a rosier color than Harry's, a different coat of arms on the one side and with vines instead of scrollwork. Neville took a deep breath as he stared at it, turning it over in his hand to look at both sides, an unreadable expression on his face.
"I didn't know she had it," he said in a thick voice. "And...I didn't think she'd give it to you if she had. She's...very traditional."
"She told me that the world is changing, and if traditions don't change along with it, they fall by the wayside." Ginny reached out and closed Neville's hand over the coin. "Officially, he's your godson. But in every other way that matters..." Neville's brows knit together and he nodded, reaching into his own robes to stow the coin safely away.
Harry became aware of sniffling in the room, looked around in bewilderment to see the women who had attended James's birth patting at their faces with handkerchiefs or wiping tears from their faces. Not quite sure he was currently capable of facing the enormity of the moment, how significant it must be to Neville, he looked back into James's face, intently studying the curves and wrinkles of the cheeks and chin and eyelids.
"Harry," the midwife said gently, "If you'd like to give James back to Ginny for just a moment, there's one more thing you need to do before you take him downstairs to show off." She held up a coin, blank on both sides, mostly silver in color but with a definite gold tinge.
"I thought it appropriate," Ginny said, smiling slightly as Harry laid James reverently back in her arms. "As my coin's silver." Harry nodded wordlessly as he reached for his wand and took the blank coin.
"Sculpta natalis," he murmured once again, and again the white lines glided out from the tip of his wand to curl up on the metal and become a part of it. It felt very warm in his hand.
"And now," Ginny said, handing James carefully back to Harry, "You get to take him downstairs and introduce the family to him. If I know them, they're all clustered in the foyer in a dither because we're taking so long."
Harry smiled, ensured he had a good grip on the bundle that was his son, and shot a glance at Neville.
"You're coming too, right?"
"Uh..." Neville glanced around at the assembled group.
"Of course he is," Ginny said. "We get to make our own rules now."
A small smile lit on Neville's face, and he put his arm around Harry's shoulders.
"Let's go, then."
Harry could hear the voices hush as he stepped on the last stair leading from the third floor to the second; as soon as he rounded the corner he'd be visible from the entry hall. He looked to the side to Neville for reassurance, down at his son who slumbered in contentment in his arms, and took the final step.
As he rounded the corner, he saw that Ginny's prediction was indeed correct; somehow the entire population of the house had squeezed into every possible space to see his emergence from the nursery with the newborn, packed tightly together in the entryway of the house.
Harry cleared his throat. "Hi," he said, with a slightly bashful grin. "I've got someone I'd like you all to meet." With one hand, he awkwardly pushed the blanket back so that James's head was visible. "This is my son, James Sirius Potter. I know it's a little early to tell, but I think he's got some great potential."
Quiet cries of jubilation sounded, muffled applause and cheers came from every direction as revelry designed to not wake a sleeping infant broke out. Harry felt Neville squeeze him around the shoulders, and despite the crowds' best efforts, James squirmed and yawned, opening dark brown eyes that stared, unfocused, at Harry for a long moment before closing once more as his face screwed up and he began to cry.
"Oh," Harry said as the crowd began to laugh. "I, uh, suppose I'd better get used to this."