HA 2b: Child

HIM AGAIN: Chapter 2: Harry's Son - Child

Harry Potter took five long strides forwards, stopped, turned around and then took another five. He halted, about-turned and walked, before repeating the process. His legs were beginning to ache and his feet were growing numb, but pacing was the only way to combat the anxious energy bubbling inside him. His hands were clasped together behind his back, so that he could feel how clammy he had become. He could sense Ron smiling encouragingly at him from the nearby sofa, but he was more annoyed by his friend’s serenity than buoyed up, and ignored him.
“Harry,” Ron said at last, after ten more minutes of frantic activity had passed. “She’ll be okay.”

Harry stopped and stared at him. Ron stared back, grinning.

Ron’s long body was draped over the sofa in a careless manner, having flopped down into it and not moved since. The sumptuous red and gold outer robes he wore were spread down onto the floor, revealing the garish orange he wore underneath. Looking at it, Harry winced inwardly.
Ron, Keeper for the now legendary Chudley Cannons, had literally walked straight off the pitch mid-game, right past his adoring fans, simply to sit and watch Harry pace a hole in the carpet. At exactly the time when Ron should have been saving the Quaffle, signing Chocolate Frog Cards of himself and laughing with his team-mates, here he was-

“Harry,” Ron sighed. “Don’t beat yourself up. If you hadn’t told me, you know I would’ve killed you.” He gave his friend a look of mock severity under his brows.

The bespectacled man’s eyes looked at him uncomprehendingly before seeming to past beyond him, to see something else. The unexpected popped out.

“I wish we’d had one earlier. Ginny wanted to, y’know. But I guess I needed time to …” Harry’s voice drifted off and the distant look in his eyes grew.

Ron shifted uneasily, caught by surprise. The sentence was finished by the silence that stretched between them: to live without the threat of death. To recover from all that had happened. Harry could see Ron’s thoughts being played out across his face - there was that slight tightening of the lips that meant that Ron was thinking of the Second War, and that troubled look in his blue eyes that indicated that his friend was thinking of a time about a year after…

Harry had not thought about the Second War for quite a long time. It was inevitable that occasionally his mind would go back to it - whenever someone said, “When I was at Hogwarts…” Yet he always focussed on the enjoyable memories - the memories which were not evoked by the mention of a war of any kind. Eating lunch with Ron and Hermione. Making cushions fly in Charms. Playing Quidditch. It was at that point that he usually stopped thinking about Hog warts - otherwise, the memories would begin to descend into those with undeniably painful undercurrents. Moaning in Potions about Snape. Meeting Sirius for the first time. Talking with Dumbledore. If he remembered any more intensely… Sirius falling through an archway. Snape’s face twisted in hate. Dumbledore’s body falling from the tower. Memories that were scenes from a nightmare - and that didn‘t even count the final battle...

A year after it had all ended - that was when he’d finally broken down. It didn’t make very much sense to him. Immediately afterwards, he had merely felt numb - and when he’d seen the picture of the blank young face with its dispassionate expression as a wand pointed as the body of He-Whom-Few-Had-Dared-Name - he’d almost thought of them as someone else, someone entirely separate from him. Yet it had taken an entire year for it all to crash down. He recalled the nightmares and the way thoughts had seemed to whiz madly around in his head like starlings - and, most of all, Ginny’s worried face as he begun to sink away from her. He had needed Sirius and Dumbledore, and neither was there because of a man whom he’d failed to avenge their deaths upon… That was the worst thought. Even now, long after he had recovered and withdrawn from the public eye, the fact that somewhere, a traitor to rival Pettigrew was stilling eating, drinking and breathing was enough to send a thrill of anger through him. Snape! Oh how he’d feverishly hunted… but Ron and Hermione had put a stop to that - and although he’d been angry at the time, it had saved him. They had brought him back.

Ginny had suppressed her growing desire for a child for him - but once he’d got back from his inner death, and felt confident enough to feel capable of raising a child, he’d found he wanted one too.

That thought brought him back to the present. His heart thumped! His child! His son was being born right now! He wanted to be with Ginny, needed to be with Ginny… He resumed pacing.

“Harry,” Ron said softly. Harry ignored him.

“Merlin, I wish I was in there with her.”

“She’ll be all right, mate. She’s as tough as-”

“Ron, they said the baby was getting ‘stressed.’ What does that mean?”

“Well,” came Fred’s voice suddenly. “I imagine being born would be a pretty stressful experience.”

Harry spun around to see Fred and George, clad in dragon-leather that practically shouted ‘wealthy and crazy,’ walking calmly towards them.

“Don’t you worry about our Ginny,” George assured him.

“After being on the wrong end of her wand a few times, you soon cease worrying about her-”

“-It’s more a question of worrying for the people who meet her-”

“-Believe me, Harry; me and George were terrified for you at the wedding-”

“-Still, we always knew you were pretty thick.”

Harry grinned weakly at them, but he was too anxious to laugh. He opened his mouth to ask where the rest of the Weasleys were when the door at the opposite end of the waiting room was flung open with such force that it ricocheted off the wall, to nearly slam back into the frantic face of Hermione Granger. Hermione barely paused at this, however, and rushed into the room looking agonised.

“Harry!” she panted. “Is it - she hasn’t - has she?”

Harry shook his head. Hermione slumped into a chair.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I was in the middle of a campaign meeting.”

Harry opened his mouth to ask which campaign that had been, to think better of it and shut his mouth again. By now, Hermione had been involved in so many campaigns, it was hard to keep track. Every time Harry opened the paper, Hermione was usually featured somewhere - either in a photo where she waved her arms and shouted at some hapless bureaucrat, or as the author of an article that raged against the incompetent Ministry. She campaigned for House Elves, giants, werewolves, Muggles… Anybody whom Hermione deemed oppressed found their cause championed. It meant that Ron was often forced into playing a Quidditch match wearing a badge proclaiming his apparent support of S.P.E.W, or G.R.A (Giant Rights Association - “bigger scale, bigger hearts”) or S.P.A.W.L. (Society for the Prevention of Anti-Werewolf Legislation - “the Howling Shame of the Ministry”) or any other society his wife headed. Being Ron, Harry reckoned, must be a precarious existence.

Hermione opened her mouth to say something else - but, at that point, a Healer emerged from the double-doors over near where Harry had paced. As soon as he entered, all three friends leapt to their feet and the twins gave him unconvincing looks of unconcern.

The Healer, a young man with a blonde thatch of hair, stopped, aware that he was mere feet away from some of the most famous people who had ever lived. There they were - Ron Weasley, Champion Quidditch player for the top-of-the-league Chudley Cannons, Hermione Granger, Deputy Head of the Department of Mysteries and Chief Campaigner for so many organisations, Fred and George Weasley, founders of the wildly successful Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes - and last of all, the pale man dressed in jet black - the youngest Chief Auror in three centuries and the Man-Who-Destroyed-The-Dark-Lord, Harry Potter. He had to suppress the urge to ask for autographs.

“Come this way,” he said shortly.

Harry strode after the shorter wizard, heedless to all else. His mouth had gone very dry and his heart was racing. As they walked down the long corridor beyond the doors, he strained for the sound of a child crying. Yet there was just silence - and Harry broke into a trot - the Ward was in sight and the Healer struggling to keep up…

The door opened. For a moment, all that could be seen was white - the white of the walls, floors, curtains, chairs - everything was blinding. Then all eyes adjusted - and a flushed Ginny Weasley with brown pools for eyes could be seen propped up against a pillow. There were lines of exhaustion on her face - but at the same time she was glowing in a way Harry could never have described, maternal waves exuding from her.

The Healer watched as all of the celebrities bounded over towards the bed, the Chief Auror in the lead. He saw the wife and mother, Ginny Weasley, an Auror in her own right, smile at the father - whilst her eyes remained fixed on something another Healer was dealing with in a basin across the room. He saw the tall, thin man’s green eyes widen and follow her gaze…

Harry was mute in wonder. Something small and pink and vulnerable was being washed gently in a basin - something that was his and Ginny’s, something they had created together. Their son.

“Mr Potter, sir?” said the Healer timidly as the baby was swaddled in a blanket. “There are a few things…”