A Choice

James's POV

Okay. This would be okay. I took out the mobile, a hand still clutching Eve's, and looked through the phone for Gary's number. I dialed and brought the phone to my ear, trying to remain calm.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Gary? This is James, can you meet us in Mungo's instead of the house? And can you let Caroline know too?"

"Why? What's going on?" he asked, sounding panicked.

"She's in labor," I said.

"See you there," he said, hanging up the phone.

Uncle Ron parked the car and opened the door. Aunt Hermione was there within two seconds with a wheelchair that I helped Eve into. She was sweating hard and I pushed her into the hospital, Ron and Hermione ahead of us.

"Eve Martin," I heard Aunt Hermione say. "No we will not wait. Do you know how this is? Evelyn Martin. And the father is James Potter. And I don't think I have to clarify who we are, do I?" Aunt Hermione almost never uses the Golden Trio thing, so I could tell this was a big deal. Healers swarmed us almost immediately and took over for me. I followed them past the waiting room and into the emergency ward. They went past two double doors, Hermione and Ron both went after them, but I stopped dead, scared.

"James Potter?" I turned and saw an older version of Eve walking toward me.

"Hi, you must be Caroline," I greeted, holding out my hand. She looked surprised and took it. I couldn't help but take a look at her. She looked healthy.

"Nice to meet you. Where's my baby?" she asked. I pointed to the room door behind me and she walked inside. I sat against the wall and tried to breathe.

"James, what's wrong?" I looked up and saw mum leaning down next to me. "Why aren't you in there with her?"

"I don't know," I admitted, a little shamefully. "I'm scared."

"She's having the baby, you wanker," someone said. I looked up and saw Dom walking into the hall, looking beautiful as ever. I jumped up to give her a hug.

"Why are you here?"

"I was in town, dropped by to congratulate you, and heard you were here. So I decided to come by and help in any way I could," she said.

"Could you go get coffee for around—just bring a lot of coffee," she said, frustrated after trying to count the number of people around.

"Will do Aunt Ginnay," Dom said, in a peculiar accent, before running off.

"James, you need to get in there, she's asking for you," she said. I shook my head.

"JAMES!" My head snapped up and I saw Uncle Ron standing in front of me looking angry. "You are not going to be like your father in these kinds of situations. You are my godson and nephew and you will stand up like a man and walk in there and be there for your woman, no matter what she decides to do, you will stick by it. Kapeech?" I think everyone went dead quiet who was out there.

"Uh… is that the room where my daughter is?" Gary asked, having just come up the hallway.

"Yes," mum said. He nodded and went through the doors. Uncle Ron was still glaring at me.

"Alright," I snapped at him, before standing up and pushing open those dreaded double doors.

"James, what in the hell took you so long?" she screamed, her face sweating, right as I walked into the door. "AND HEALER, WHEN CAN I PUSH OUT THIS BABY?" The Healer was trying not laugh, I could tell.

"When you're ready. You just keep having those contractions, honey," the Healer said.

"I was in the bathroom," I said, running to grab her hand.

"Yeah? I WAS IN LABOR!" she yelled.

"You still are," I pointed out. I probably shouldn't have because her eyes went extremely narrow and she looked like she was about to punch me in the face. She grabbed my collar and pulled me down to her face.

"I'm going to ignore that. Look to the right corner of the room. My parents are talking to each other. What do you think they're saying?" she asked. I looked over to see that she was right. Gary and Caroline were sitting down next to her, heads together, talking.

"Well they probably have a lot of catching up to do," I said. Dom walked into the room with a tray full of steaming coffee cups.

"Oh my God. Get her out of here," Eve said.

"What? What's wrong with Dom?"

"She's BEAUTIFUL!" Eve said uncharacteristically, "and I'm fat and ugly and pushing out a baby!"

Dom walked over and took Eve's hand. "Honey," she said, shoving the tray of coffees into my hand. Dad took them from me.

"I need something to do," he explained, before running off. I turned back to Eve, who was resolutely staring down at the sheets. She was sweating slightly from the contractions, her hair was pulled up to the top of her head, and her complexion was rosy. She was more beautiful than ever. But if I told her that, she'd probably claw my eyes out.

"You are doing something amazing. You grew something in there," Dom said, pointing to Eve's tummy, "and now you're about to bring him or her into this wonderful world. Now that's beautiful," she said.

"Just to give him away," she said. I could to tell she was trying not to cry.

"Whatever you decide to do," Dom said, "adoption or keeping her—"

"I have a feeling it's a boy," Eve said, cutting her off. Dom just smiled.

"Keeping him, that child will be loved no matter what, right?"

"I guess so," Eve said, through a watery smile. I wanted to punch Dom in the face for justifying this adoption thing. This was not okay. "Okay, you can stay," Eve told her. Dom grinned and placed a kiss on Eve's cheek. She turned to me.

"Listen up Jay," she said, pulling me to the side. "You're her bitch today. Whatever she wants, you do, understand?"

"This is my baby too," I shot back.

"Are you giving birth currently?" Dom asked, glaring at me. I shook my head.

"Then for once in your life, drop the jokes and the remarks and the comebacks and be there for the girl you love, understood?"

"Understood. But you're a bitch, you know that?"

"I always knew that. I'm half-Delacour. Bitch is in my blood."

/

Eve's POV

This was like the most painful thing. If this was the most painful thing I didn't even want to know how the actual giving birth part would be. James hadn't even showed up till just now. And I didn't even know why. It wasn't like he was the one giving birth here. And my mum and dad gave me a quick hello before going to each other to catch up as if their only daughter wasn't giving birth.

Jerks.

And then there was Dom, who was so blindingly beautiful and smart. It was just all too much. I was sweaty and greasy and wanted a god-damn shower. And I wanted my cervix to be fully dilated so I could get JJ, this kid who must have had some sort of vendetta with me, out for good, because I was tired of it. I was tired of having these internal battles with myself. I was tired of not knowing what was best for my kid. And yeah, I guess the decision would be worse after I gave birth, but for now, I just wanted to not be fat anymore. And I wanted to be able to hold my emotions together as usual. And I wanted to be normal for fucking once. I came to England hoping to be normal like I never was. But that didn't happen.

And it was my fault.

I knew I hated careless people. And I had come to hate myself.

"You're ready, honey," the Healer said, smiling. Oh did I mention I hated her too? For being so bloody cavalier? Yeah, I used the word bloody in my head. I must have been becoming a true Englishman.

"I'm fully dilated?" I asked. She nodded.

"Who do you want here when this happens?" she asked.

"James," I said immediately, "mom and Ginny." Everyone else filed out after saying good luck, and I tried to fight the nausea that was coming up from being so scared.

/

James's POV

I was to stay. Okay. I could do this. I know I'm the sperm-giver in this situation but I was kind of hoping that she didn't want me in the room. But she did. Okay, Dom said I was her bitch today so I'd be that. She looked so scared so I went to her side and took her hand.

"Alright honey," the Healer said. "Time to start pushing." And she did start pushing and I don't know how she did it. She screamed with every push and all the strength I knew she had had come to the forefront. Also, my fingers were going numb. "You're doing good, but you need to push harder!" the healer said. Eve snarled at the healer.

"No. I'm not pushing anymore," she said and went limp. Her eyes closed and she went completely pale.

"Eve," I said leaning down. "Please, come on love, you can do this." No response. I saw mum lean down and push back Eve's hair.

"Just a little more, Eve," she said. Caroline came and took her daughter's face in her hands and shook her.

"Something's wrong, Healer," she said, panic entering her eyes. "She's not breathing."

I looked down at Eve, who was indeed as still as a board. "What is going on?" I said, trying hard to keep myself standing, "why isn't she breathing?" But even as I said this, I was pushed aside by a team of healers, one of whom was ordering me and the rest of the family out.

"NO," I yelled at the Healer who was taking my arm and bringing me out the door. "NO YOU ARE GOING TO TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON!" I bellowed. Two arms gripped me from the back and pulled me out. Anger rippled through me and I punched the person in the face and made for the door again, but I found that I couldn't move at all. Someone had petrified me. I fought hard against it but I couldn't do anything. I couldn't fight it. I saw mum and Caroline coming out of the room, looking as scared as I felt, but not fighting their healers. The double doors swung shut and locked and the jinx was off of me. I ran at the doors and beat on them. "FUCKING LET ME IN!" I bellowed, my fist bleeding from hitting the door.

"JAMES POTTER!" I turned around, ready to strangle someone, when I saw dad standing in front of me, his eyes flashing. "Sit down." Angrily, I pulled a chair to the hospital doors and sat down, biting my fingernails. Uncle Ron was standing next to him, nursing the black eye I had just given him. I felt bad, but not that bad.

"What happened?" I heard Gary ask Caroline.

"She's not breathing," Caroline said, choking up. Gary stood up and started pacing. Dom started making more coffee, her face pale.

"Did the Healers say anything?" Dad asked.

"No," mum answered. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Aunt Hermione.

"It's going to be fine, James," she said, kissing my forehead. "It's going to be okay."

"No, it's not," I said, fists clenched. "She wasn't breathing," I hissed. She sighed and stood up, giving my hair a ruffle before going back to the rest.

The minutes seemed to become hours. I took to pacing like Gary, frightened. I couldn't believe this was happening. Everything had been normal until just now. Everything. And no matter what, I thought the worst thing could be giving up this baby. But I found out there was a worse thing. I never even thought about this happening. It didn't occur to me. I thought magic was capable of anything. I still couldn't believe that this was even an issue.

A healer came out and I jumped up to greet him. He looked sweaty but I couldn't read anything from his expression.

"She's had a heart murmur. I'm not sure why, but we're working on it."

"You're healers!" I said, exasperated. "What about magic?"

"We're not willing to try anything. Then both the mother and the child could die. We will have to do this the old fashioned way. We will come out periodically with updates. I think that the media is here too, but precautions are being taken to make sure they do not enter this hospital."

"Thank you," I heard dad say from behind me. The healer nodded, turned, and went back into the hospital doors, despite my desperate yell.

"Fuck," I said, kicking the doors through which the healer just went. I hated him. I hated everyone who was so desperate to withhold information from me.

"James," I looked up and saw Al, Rose, and Lily standing in front of me. Scorpius was behind them too. "We heard and pretty much forced our way down here."

"You got the train stopped?" I asked, confused.

"Well yeah. And then McGonagall apparated us to the hospital and went back to school. She sends her prayer," Al said. "What happened?"

"I don't fucking know," I said, trying hard not to kick the door in anger again. "A heart murmur but they won't fucking say anything more. She stopped breathing."

Rose's POV

He was crying. I walked over to him and put an arm around him. He fought me off but I stayed there, and finally he allowed me to stay and leaned in against me. "Tell me it's going to be okay, Rose," he said, letting a sob escape him.

"I can't James. But we'll know soon." He began to shake violently in my arms and I kept my grip solid.

A healer walked out and he literally launched himself out of my arms.

"We can't save them both," the healer said, looking grave. My heart stopped. James stopped shaking completely, "but we can save one."

AN: So I'm a compulsive liar, because this isn't the last chapter. Obviously I'm not so heartless as to leave you here. And I'm sorry about this by the way. I know many of you are cursing my name, but unfortunately, this is always what I had planned.