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It was the rapping on the door that first alarmed them - frantic, urgent, desperate, it made them think of Death Eaters and panic. They looked up at each other over the breakfast table, horror struck, but then they heard the letter box open with a scraping clatter, and Harry’s voice rang through it.
‘Hellooo, hello hello hellooo! Get up, get up, get up!’
‘Is he drunk?’ Ron asked.
Hermione frowned towards the door for half a second, before her eyes went wide and round and she looked back at Ron with pure joy. ‘Oh my gosh!’ she shrieked, and then something clicked for Ron too as they pelted to the door.
‘Is it here?’ Ron demanded, wrenching the door open. ‘Harry, is the-’
‘A boy, a boy-’ he babbled. He looked quite delirious; pale and tired, his hair even more rumpled than usual, but with a shining, glassy look in his eyes and the stupidest grin Ron had ever seen. ‘Come and meet him, you must come-’
They shoved their feet into shoes and seized their cloaks while Harry leant on the door frame, still babbling with nervous energy. ‘He’s perfect, perfect - you must meet him, come on, hurry-
They appeared at Sparrow Cottage - press had already gathered at the front gate, clearly word had leaked that Ginny Potter was in labour.
‘Has the baby been born yet, Mr Potter?’
‘A boy or a girl, Mr Potter?’
‘Can we see the baby, Mr Potter?’
Harry pushed through them all without a word, as usual, but still couldn’t stop the mad grin on his face as he pulled Ron by the arm up the front garden.
The midwitch was in the kitchen, packing up her maroon canvas bag, and she smiled as they entered. ‘Congratulations again, Mr Potter. I’ll be off now, first check up is tomorrow but you know where to find us.’
‘Yes, yes, thank you, Ada, thank you-’
To Ron’s great surprise, Harry hugged her. A blush appeared on her cheeks and she giggled nervously, but Harry barely noticed. He had turned back to Ron and Hermione and was gesturing for them to follow.
Up the stairs to the master bedroom, where suddenly Ron found it was very quiet, and there, sitting up against the headboard, was his sister.
Obviously even Ron knew better than to tell her that she looked bloody awful, but if he had thought Harry looked exhausted it was nothing on her. Her skin was pale at the best of times, but there was a white clamminess to her skin, the tendrils of her hair that had escaped the hastily made bun plastered to her face with sweat, the oversized red cotton t-shirt she was wearing sagging off her shoulders.
But she heard them enter, and looked up from the bundle she was cradling, and her smile was serene and at peace and painfully happy.
‘Oh, Ginny,’ he heard Hermione whisper as they slowly approached. She kneeled beside the bed, peering into the blankets. ‘Oh, Ron, come and see him, he’s so beautiful.’
The baby was small and pink and his face was all scrunched up, as baby faces usually are, with a tiny tuft of dark hair, and his little hands were up near his face, squirming slightly. Ron reached his hand to one of the tiny little ones - the hand gripped instinctively, tightly, around his finger. He shook it, ever so slightly.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you-’ he looked up at Harry, who was kneeling on the bed on the other side of Ginny, watching with that dazed smile. ‘You haven’t told me his name,’ Ron accused him.
‘Oh,’ said Harry, laughing. ‘James.’
‘Naturally - middle name?’
‘Sirius.’
‘Of course.’ He looked back down at baby James, and shook the tiny fist again. ‘Nice to meet you, James Sirius Potter.’
‘You’re an uncle again,’ Ginny told him, with her happily tired voice.
‘He’s my first nephew, though,’ said Ron.
‘You look exhausted, Ginny,’ said Hermione.
‘She did so well,’ said Harry, leaning forward and kissing her head. ‘Amazing, brilliant - I don’t know how you did it.’
‘I don’t know either,’ said Ginny wryly. ‘It was bloody awful. Took all night and the better part of yesterday.’
‘You were fantastic,’ said Harry. ‘Incredible.’
Ron would have usually teased him for swallowing a thesaurus, but his best friend looked so overwhelmed with joy and so utterly exhausted that it just didn’t seem right. So he just smiled proudly at his sister, and said, ‘Ginny, do you want me to get mum and dad?’
‘Yes, but not yet - it won’t just be mum and dad, will it? It’ll be the whole Weasley clan. Let me have little sleep first, please.’
Harry took James from her arms; she smiled sleepily up at them. ‘Sleep,’ he told her. ‘We’ll be downstairs.’
‘Harry,’ Hermione said in a hushed voice, when they were safely in the living room. ‘You must be so happy.’
‘I am,’ he said, staring at his son. ‘More than I ever… More than I thought you could be.’ He tore his eyes away from the baby, and, without warning, started to hand him over to Ron.
Ron had had less experience with babies than Harry - obviously he’d been around Teddy and Vic and Dom plenty, but there were always more important people to hold them, and none of them had been like this, just a few hours old, completely new and more fragile than he wanted to think about.
He felt his nephew’s light weight and tiny body, and he wondered if his arms were at all comfortable for him to rest in, but the baby still squirmed happily, the little toothless mouth opening into the world’s smallest yawn.
‘You’ll be godfather, won’t you?’ said Harry.
Ron hadn’t thought his grin could get any bigger, but here were his cheeks aching with it. ‘Of course I will, I hope it was never a question,’ he said, even though he was amazed, delighted, touched.
‘Certainly wasn’t,’ said Harry.
Ron looked back down at his godson, swaying him ever so slightly as Hermione reached out and stroked the little patch of dark hair. Now that he was out of the dim light of the bedroom, Ron could see so much of Ginny and Harry in the baby, though he couldn’t have identified any particular features. Even though the face remained the same, his mind seemed to constantly shift over who it was he saw, this perfect little blend.
‘He’s going to be so handsome,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Harry, and there was something different in his voice. They looked up and saw that his eyes were shining.
‘Harry!’ cried Hermione, hugging him.
He gave a spluttering, hoarse laugh as he hugged her back. ‘Sorry, I’m just really knackered.’
Ron could see his arms tensing slightly, the longing in his face. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Back to Dad.’
He handed James back to Harry, who had made a quiet, strangled sort of noise, and now was blinking rapidly and swallowing.
This was right, Ron thought to himself as Harry spluttered through embarrassed apologies to them again, and gazed adoringly down at his son. This was what was meant to happen, after everything.