The healers had put it as a mild case of stress, despite all of both the two twenty-year-old’s shouting of what had happened. The seizures had stopped by the time they got her there and clearly, the hospital thought they were wasting their time. They’d discharged a sobbing and terrified Lily that same morning.

“Jamie…” She whispered to her husband, tears running down her cheeks and her hands shaking. “I’m scared. What if something’s wrong with the baby?” Sirius watched as James hugged her closely, just as scared as she was.

“It’ll be okay Lily, I promise…” Sirius shook his head sadly as they stood embracing. He could feel they were in for heartbreak. That child was not normal. It wasn’t going to survive outside her womb and as James' eyes met his, he could see his friend knew that as well.

---

The second time it happened was two weeks later. He wasn’t at their house, but James had relayed him the details over a shared bottle of his strongest Firewhiskey.

She’d woken up with the baby kicking hard once again and had actually started bleeding over the sheets. He whispered quickly to Sirius about the marks she’d had that morning from it kicking as a fit passed over her. Sirius knew he was going through enough and didn’t mention the gruesome sight of the last time, though that was probably what caused the bruises on her stomach.

---

The hospital waiting room was almost empty. Peter had to go off somewhere he wouldn’t say and considering it was the full moon, Sirius sat alone in it. He was lying down across four of the seats, holding a magazine above his head and reading an article on pregnancy.

As James came into the room, he tiredly put his head in his hands and sat in the chair nearest to Sirius’s head. Sirius’s eyes looked back at him.

“How’s she doing?”

“She’s okay, sleeping at the moment. You should have seen her face when he was born alive. She started crying, both of us did.”

“You were crying?” Sirius’s eyes travelled back to the article, not insulting James’ weak moment too much. “You know that muggles can actually have their baby underwater? Weird huh?”

“Lily thought about having that, but with everything that’s happened, she didn’t want to stress him even more.” Sirius put down the magazine and sat up, rubbing where his head had been against the hard wooden chair.

“He?” James looked at him and smiled, nodding slowly.

“Yep, Lily says she figured it would be a man sucking the life right out of her before he was even born.” Sirius laughed and stretched, narrowly avoiding hitting James’s head. “Wanna go see him?”

---

Sirius hadn’t seen many babies in his lifetime, but he knew just by looking at this one that it was smaller than it should be. His skin was pale, almost white pale, but James said the healers had said that was a temporary result of a long labour. He was wearing only a nappy and lying on his side in the box, purple and blue mists floating around it, clearly spells to help him breathe and stay alive.

“Why’s he in there? Can’t you hold him?” Sirius asked and James shook his head, his hand reaching into the hole of the side. The baby was barely bigger than his hand and his little fist gripped James' finger.

“He was born over a month early, so he has to stay in here till he can make it on his own. They say it shouldn’t be more than a week.”. James left to go see Lily again and Sirius stared down at the baby as it slept. Like James, he reached out to it, stroking the few strands of black hair on his head.

Without warning, his eyes opened, bright green staring up at him. Sirius stepped back suddenly and the eyes still looked into his. Coming forward again, his stroked a finger down his cheek softly. It wasn’t as bad as he had thought it would be, but he couldn’t ignore the shivers starting down his spine as soon as the little eyes closed again...

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Wow! I'm really pleased with the response to this so far and will reply to every single review as soon as I get home (I'm kind of in a rush to go somewhere with my dad right now) later tonight. Thankyouthankyouthankyou!

I also must apologise for the short chapters, it's really hard to break this story into pieces, but it'll get easier as it starts to take off.

Once again, thank you! Will update again soon.

(And yes, this is an AU to those who asked.)

Review!