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Birth of the Potter Children By JetLaBarge
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Category: Post-DH/AB
Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Minerva McGonagall, Neville Longbottom, Nymphadora Tonks, Ron Weasley
Genres: Action/Adventure, Comedy, Drama, General, Romance
Warnings: Death, Intimate Sexual Situations, Violence
Story is Complete
Rating: R
Reviews: 59
Summary: Third in the Almost Happily Ever After series, starting at the end of the hunt for the remaining supporters of Tom Riddle and the end of Ginny's Quidditch career.
Hitcount: Story Total: 123073; Chapter Total: 4398
Author's Notes: I want to thank my beta FriendofMolly for the title for this chapter. I felt it was better than “California Here We Go”, but I had to smile at that suggestion.
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Harry Potter was sitting at the dining room table with Ginny, Andromeda, and the elves looking at the calendar the middle of June. “We need to talk about scheduling the next few weeks,” Harry said.
Ginny said, “Class ends Friday June 18, and I guess we need to be at the International Confederation of Witches and Wizards from Saturday to the final ball June 27. After that we should be free.”
Harry said, “We all have to make a presentation on what our responsibilities are going to be in implementing changes to keep the Statute of Secrecy in the face of the increasing abilities of Muggle Technology. Part of the talk is going to be about the politics of it. One of the teachers pointed out that administrative power is not always the same as actual power. Somebody well respected could change minds even if they did not have any official power, and somebody not well respected could have all the power but face open revolt.”
“Like the revolt when Umbridge was at Hogwarts?” Ginny asked.
“Yes, she had a lot less power than she thought she had,” Harry said.
Ginny asked, “Formally who in your class has the most power?”
Harry answered, “Formally, a couple of Vice-Ministers of Magic.”
“Who had the most influence informally,” Ginny asked sweetly.
”That’s what is so stupid,” Harry said. “They had this chart, and way on top was my name. I’m only twenty three, and several of the people, including both Vice-Ministers of Magic, want me to talk to their Wizengamot, or whatever their governing bodies are.”
Ginny giggled, and then looked at Harry. “You really don’t think you are that influential?”
Harry said, “I don’t think I should be, just for one duel with a crazy man.”
Ginny said, “It was seven years of danger and success before the duel, and years of hard work since, Harry. You deserve the respect people give you.”
Harry shook his head, obviously not convinced.
“I wouldn’t mind going with you, to see different countries, for a couple of months,” Ginny said. She put her hands down over the five month bump in front, not large, but pretty obviously a baby bump. “Well at least for as long as I can.”
“You are assuming I am going to do it,” Harry said.
“Yes, you are,” Ginny answered. “When have you ever refused to do something that needed to be done?”
Harry said, “I have to give my presentation on Wednesday, the sixteenth, and then leave for the ICWW right away. You need to meet me there as soon as you can get away on Friday, and we are tied up until, well.” Harry looked at a small pile of paper and parchment. “They want both of us there the last three days of June, three days after the ICWW is over. The Prophecy Department is going crazy, and we seem to be at the center of some of it.”
“And what might that be?” Ginny warily asked, fearing the something else was coming.
“Us having a baby has changed or confirmed some prophesies, but I don’t know any more than that,” Harry said.
Andromeda said, “When you are both gone we are going to send most of my and Teddy’s things back to the New Burrow. Are we still going to take a vacation in July?”
“I was hoping for six or seven weeks,” Harry said. “I know I have four, maybe five weeks. People trying to get me to do something in July have met the Hungarian Horntail in me. I assume you and Teddy are going to travel with us.”
“Teddy is already talking about the BIG VACATION!” Andromeda said. “You are stuck with us.”
Harry woke up first Wednesday morning. He was worried that this would be the last day for their regular morning ritual for a while. He used the loo, brushed his teeth and did a shaving spell. He did the charms for self-control on himself, then the charms that got Ginny’s body all ready. He did the breath freshening charm too, and the charm that took off all the sleep wear they had taken to wearing while there was a little boy who occasionally bounded into the room. Harry made sure the door was locked.
Then Harry and Ginny made love, the same positions, the same fantastic emotions, the same sharing of their bodies. Harry always enjoyed making love in the morning, and Ginny felt it started her day out just right. Tonight Harry would be in Switzerland, and Ginny still in San Francisco.
The time change was never easy, even with potions. It was Friday morning in San Francisco, but Friday Afternoon in Switzerland, and Harry was tired after a whole day of meetings. Right in the middle of one of the meetings Harry saw Andromeda’s Patronus saying, “Ginny fell down the stairs and is hurt. You need to get back here As Soon As Possible.”
Harry was given a special diplomatic series of portkeys, and in less than a half an hour he was at the hospital in San Francisco. Teddy was very upset, and the house elves were worriedly talking.
“What happened?” Harry asked.
“I didn’t mean to!” Teddy wailed. “I slipped and fell down stairs. I hit Mum Ginny and she fell down. She started to bleed!”
Harry looked at Andromeda, trying to make sense of what was happening.
An obviously worried Andromeda said, “The placenta started to come loose, but they think they have gotten it reattached. I would feel a lot better if we knew more.”
After what to Harry was one of the longest fifteen minutes of his life Tammy Tidewater came out and said, “Hello, Harry. I’m very glad you are here. It was real touch and go for a while, but we think Ginny is going to be fine. Mitzi caught Ginny’s head and kept her from suffering another concussion.”
“What about the baby?” Harry asked.
Tammy said, “So far we are OK. We will know more in a couple of days. Meanwhile we need to keep Ginny close to medical care at all times!”
“What could happen?” Harry asked.
“The placenta could become loose, rupture, and then Ginny would quickly bleed to death. We can save her life if that happens here, but not if she is not very close to good medical care.”
“What about the baby?” Harry asked.
“The longer we can keep that baby growing inside Ginny the better,” Tammy said. “He is a boy and a strong healthy one so far. He is just not ready to be born yet.
“You can come with me and see Ginny now. She has been asking for you.”
Harry went into the room where Ginny was. She was surrounded by very concerned looking witches.
“How is Teddy?” Ginny asked. “He was terrified. Mitzi got me to the hospital right away, but as I was leaving I could hear Teddy screaming.”
“I was going down the stairs, and here comes Teddy, flying out of the apartment door. He slipped and fell down the stairs right into my legs. Mitzi kept my head safe, but I landed on the baby, and then I started to bleed down there.”
“Teddy is worried,” Harry said. “He will get over it, as long as you and the baby recover. Tammy said the baby should be fine too. You and the baby are not totally out of danger yet, but right now everything is fine.
“At least we know we are having a boy.”
“Still want to name him James?” Ginny asked.
“James Sirius,” Harry replied. Then, talking to Ginny’s womb, he said, “Hey there, little James Sirius. I am very anxious to see you, but not yet. You have to stay in there until you are big enough.”
Ginny started to tear up, saying, “It’s gotten very real. I can feel James moving inside, and it’s not just a pregnancy. It’s a new person, there.” She patted her baby bump. “I’m so worried about him.”
Harry said, “I don’t think worrying will help much, but doing what the healers tell you to will. I love you, and I love little James. It’s all I ever wanted, really. Having a wife and children to love is my Happily Ever After, even if everything is not perfect.”
The healers put Ginny to sleep.
Harry asked Tammy, “How long does Ginny have to stay here?”
Tammy answered, “I know you and many people in Switzerland want Ginny over there. We can transfer her tomorrow. She is just going in a special carrier, with a young healer going along. She is very young, but in training she has helped me in some very difficult cases. Her name is Candy Striper.”
Harry went out to the waiting area. He sat down next to Teddy and said, “We think Mummy Ginny is going to be fine, and the baby too. She is just going to have to be careful for a few weeks.”
“I DIDN’T MEAN TO HURT MUMMY!” Teddy wailed.
“I know you didn’t, Teddy,” Harry said. “The first thing Mummy did when I saw her was ask about you. She and I love you, and know you would never do anything on purpose to hurt us. It was just an accident.”
“You are not sus-spoce to hurt people accidently. You are sus-spoce to be careful,” Teddy said. “Mummy and Grandmum tell me to slow down near stairs. I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“I forgive you, Teddy,” Harry said. “It seems this has been a good lesson for you.”
Once Ginny was at the castle in Switzerland she was able to be out of bed for a couple of hours at a time, and eat meals with Harry. About mid-week, when Ginny was able to be out of bed for four or five hours at a time, John and Mary, the head house elves, came to Harry and Ginny when no one else was around. Harry and Ginny had almost two totally free hours. Ginny would normally want to spend at least some of the time in intimate play, but Tammy had made it clear to the Potters that they were going to have to wait at least a couple of weeks, and maybe until Ginny had delivered, for married intimacy to resume.
Mary asked Harry and Ginny, “May we have some house elves meet you? Very private. Do not tell anyone!”
Harry said, “We can keep a secret.” Ginny nodded yes as well.
Six beings came into the room, four female house elves and two female Goblins. Mary said, “House elf prophets all female. Same with Goblins. Magic comes from female, not male.”
“YES!” said Ginny. Harry laughed in amusement.
The prophetesses all waved hands and, in some cases, small wands over Ginny, then briefly over Harry, then over Ginny again. There was a lot of talk in elfish. Then one of the prophetesses said, “The other womb is open. Two second born, three and three, four and four. It has started.”
Harry and Ginny looked at each other. What did that mean?
There was more discussion, and then Mary said, “From this prophecy and others we think that the mother of the new Queen of the Magic Humans and the mother of the King of the Magic Humans have become pregnant. The blessed children will be the second born. We think ‘three and three, four and four,’ has something to do with the number of children you will have, but we cannot interpret it clearly.”
“You just need to raise a child that is good, a good honest person who can rule humbly and fairly.”
“How do we do that?” asked Ginny.
“No one knows,” the elf said. “Love is most important. Love your husband, love and respect all beings. No promises that it will work.”
Harry and many other people were busy all week, trying to deal with the challenges maintaining secrecy in the face of advanced Muggle technology was posing. It didn’t help that wizards who did sell to or work with Muggles were getting mobiles. The problem was not the possessing a mobile phone. The problem was using the floo network or apparating, and using the same phone in two different locations just minutes apart.
Ginny was well enough to attend the final dance. Adel Regentus, the witch servant of the Potters in Switzerland, and Mary the head house elf, were delighted to dress Ginny in an outfit that celebrated her expanded shape. Despite having a very modest baby bump the dress made it obvious she was pregnant.
“Not so thin,” said Adel. “You have a good shape for a mother.”
Ginny was not so sure. The dress was very pretty. She just felt she looked very motherly, pretty but not the same pretty she was just out of Hogwarts. Her hair was not too short, but as long as she was not going to play Quidditch she was going to grow it really long, and she had at least another year before it was really long again.
Ginny was able to attend the entire dance with Harry, and even danced a couple of slow dances.
The Monday after the closing of the ICWW Ginny spent most of the day, when she was not resting, being examined by healers or prophets. Harry was there for a couple of sessions with the prophets, but at other times he was talking to several witches and wizards who had stayed over to talk about technical issue.
Wednesday the Potters went back to San Francisco to see Tammy. She examined Ginny, and then said, “I think you two ought to resume your love life.”
“No restrictions?” Ginny said. “Well, we really cannot do all the athletic stuff we used to do since my head injury."
Tammy asked Ginny and Harry, “Do you REALLY do it three times a day?”
Ginny answered proudly, “We HAVE, but not very often. Even twice a day was pretty hard some days. It’s probably going to be even harder with a baby.”
Tammy said, “Babies are easier than toddlers.”
Harry laughed. “A five year old godson running into your room and bed kind of limits what you can do.”
Harry had arranged for a motor home to travel the United States and Canada for the month of July. With security they ended up with two motor homes, one pulling a trailer with the big Honda Gold Wing escort motorcycles in it. Harry was doing a little of the driving. In their motor home were Harry and Ginny, Andromeda and Teddy, the house elf guards, and Candy Striper. The other, smaller, motor home had Auror escorts. Often one of the Aurors would drive the Potters motor home.
Being magical they were going to be able to make a lot of miles in the evening, by disappearing and going very fast, but during the day they were going to drive at more normal speeds and see some of the US. They started through the mountains on I-80, and with side trips took days to get to Chicago. They knew a little about Chicago, and spent a couple of days visiting the museums and other places that Teddy would enjoy.
The weekend of June 19 and 20 they spent at the VanLente compound in Holland. Teddy enjoyed the beach and playing with the other children and since the weather was going to be excellent most of the next week they decided to spend another week just taking it easy on the beach. They ended up staying almost a week, doing a lot of nothing and really enjoying themselves.
By this time Harry was aware of the motion going on inside Ginny. During their time at the beach, Harry was able to spend much more time watching his wife. The changes he was most delighted to watch were the motions of his child within his wife. Ginny frequently took his hand so he was able feel the movement of the baby. Ginny was wearing a bikini top and bottoms that went under her expanding form, showing the growing and sometimes moving bump growing on the front of Ginny. Harry occasionally poked at the baby. Sometimes the baby moved out of the way, but occasionally when Harry pushed the baby hit back hard.
Of course anytime the baby moved much Ginny had to go to use the loo. Ginny seemed to have to go all the time! Harry felt glad they were traveling by motor home so they did not have to stop every hour to let Ginny use the facilities. No matter why it happened when the baby pushed too hard Ginny could get real snarky, letting Harry know in no uncertain terms what she was going through carrying his baby. Sometimes Ginny was thrilled to be pregnant, thrilled by the new life inside of her, but other times she was upset, not at having a baby but at having her body change and because she was awkward. Her balance had not been the same since her accident, and having all that weight sticking out in front was making things much harder.
Teddy had a lot of interesting conversations during his time in West Michigan. Harry and Ginny listened in on one.
“Is Harry Potter really your dad?”
“He’s my godfather.”
“So he’s not really your father.”
“He’s REALLY my godfather.”
“Where are your real mother and father?”
“They’re dead. Daddy Harry and Mummy Ginny say they are dead.”
“What’s going to happen when your godmother has her baby? Then they’ll have a real child of their own, not just you.”
“Dunno. Go back to living with grandma Tonks. She’s my real Grandmum. She is my mum’s mum.”
The conversation carried on out of listening range of Harry and Ginny, but that night they told Teddy he could live with them or move back with Grandmum Tonks and Grandmum Weasley. Teddy was obviously trying to process who and what he was.
“Mummy and daddy dead?” asked Teddy that evening. “What’s it like being dead?”
Ginny turned to Harry, who replied “It’s real peaceful; at least it was when I was dead for a short time. It’s better to be alive, if you have a small child to raise. I’m sure your mother and father wish they could be alive to raise you, Teddy.”
“I wish they weren’t dead,” said Teddy. “I love you, but it’s no fun having a dead mum and dad.”
Harry and Ginny did not know what to say. They just made sure to give Teddy lots of hugs that evening.
There was another time with a small crowd of older children, Teddy along but not leading, approached Harry and Ginny. “Did you really live Happily Ever After?” one girl asked.
Ginny giggled, and Harry explained “We’re a long way from Ever After. I hope our story is not even at the middle yet. I will say I’m very happy I married Mrs. Potter.” At this he gave Ginny a very long kiss, reasonably passionate for having small children around.
“Awwwww,” some of the girls went. A couple of the younger boys went, “Eeeee Gross.”
“Did Mr. Potter surprise you when he proposed?” one of the older girls asked. “Did he take you to a romantic dinner with candlelight and soft music and, how did he ask you to marry him?”
Harry and Ginny started to laugh. “Not exactly,” said Ginny.
“Hey!” said Harry. “I kneeled down in front of your whole family, in front of the whole Hogwarts, all the people who were in the great hall at Hogwarts. That was pretty public!”
“Did Mr. Potter surprise you with the ring?” asked the girl.
“The ring was certainly a surprise, not what I expected we’d find,” Ginny said with a wary look at Harry. “But I got Harry to put it on, and I just thanked him.”
“Before you proposed?” asked the girl.
“Oh she’d had the ring on her finger for hours before I actually asked,” laughed Harry. “She’s said ‘yes’ lots of times. I’d just not asked. I kind of assumed that since she’d said yes we were engaged, so we told some people. It’s not like we both did not want to get married, and to each other.”
“Why did you get down on your knees in the great hall, then?” asked the by this time a somewhat confused girl.
“Her brothers made me,” said Harry, “not that I minded.”
“Right after the battle of Hogwarts, then?” asked the same girl, obviously frustrated with the direction of the conversation. “Was that romantic?”
“When I first woke up Mrs. Potter told me I was filthy and had to take a shower,” said Harry, smiling. “She was right, as she usually is. I was filthy. Then she told me never to leave her and I told her that was all fine and good but I had to go to the loo, so she told me to take off all my clothes and take a shower and get clean.”
“And you did?” another of the older girls asked, horrified.
“Well I didn’t take off my boxers until I got into the, behind the door, and kind of threw them out, it’s not like I stripped naked right there in front of my 16 year old girlfriend,” Harry replied, still laughing. “Ginny had to wait until we were married to see me naked.”
“Harry was so tired if I insisted he probably would have stripped naked,” Ginny said laughing, “but I thought that maybe that wasn’t a particularly good idea.
“I will have to admit I was tempted, though.”
At this remark several of the older children, boys and girls, giggled.
“Was the wedding night as good as they say it is?” asked the first girl. At this both Harry and Ginny laughed and laughed.
“It was awkward to say the least,” Ginny finally said. “If you’re a virgin on your wedding night you have some learning to do. It’s pretty natural to do but not always that natural to please both of you. It takes practice and patience. It’s worth it, though!” When Ginny was done both Harry and Ginny were red, obviously embarrassed.
“I think we’ve had enough questions for the day” said Harry as he dismissed the crowd of youngsters.
From the beach in West Michigan they went to New York, down the east coast of the US to Florida, spending some time in Orlando, then back west.
Friday July 30 they turned in the Motor Home and left for England.
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