3Thoughts in the Middle of the Night
Molly turned the lamp down lower, so the glare of the flame wouldn't disturb the little boy. She twitched the blanket a little closer to him then settled herself more comfortable on the rocking chair.
It had been a rough few weeks with all her grandchildren. And even more so with her children. A virus had spread like wildfire through each family, leaving no one unscathed. Oh, no lasting harm, just many sleepless nights, ever-anxious parents, and poor children who couldn't keep anything down. The typical tummy bug that affected Wizarding folk as much as Muggle.
James was to be the last to get it. He had no symptoms until the end of the epidemic. Harry claimed he ran too fast to catch it. But then Ginny, very pregnant with her third baby, started getting sick. Harry was just sent on a long mission and before he left, he asked, no begged, her to come help. The four-year-old boy was too fussy, his fever was just that little too high, and Ginny had no energy being sick herself.
Well, of course she could help. That's what she loved, to help with all her grandchildren. Little Albus, ever an easy child, had recovered several days ago and tonight, went to bed without a problem. Ginny was tucked into her bed with Harry's jumper stretched over a pillow for comfort. With seven children and an army of grandchildren, vigil over an ill child is nothing new.
It was two in the morning. She rocked and watched over James. He would stir, cry out when his tummy wanted to rebel. He went from cold to hot, but through it all, she was there. When he had an incident, she cleaned him up and wrapped him in clean pajamas. But between times, she just watched over him and knitted another Christmas jumper.
She was amazed at this little boy. With so many grandchildren, she didn't have much time one on one. He seemed to have grown up in the past few weeks alone. She noticed that gone were his chubby cheeks of babyhood. The stout thick legs of toddler-hood were now replaced by the stick-thin limbs so commonly seen of the fast-growing pre-school aged. When did he get so tall?
Who did he really look like? He didn't look like Harry, much. He had Harry's dark, wild hair, but with eyes shaped so like his great-uncle Fabian with the brown of his mother. His crooked smile was just like Uncle Ron's, without the freckles. Like his Uncles Fred and George, he was determined that the world will conform to him, and there was no way he would return the favor. James S. Potter was his own self, and he knew it.
This made being sick so much harder for him. Being sick was getting in the way. There's too many things to explore, to discover, to experience. There wasn't enough time to do it all in a day and being sick put him behind on his child's schedule.
These are the aimless thoughts of Gramma Molly, in the middle of the night, rocking and watching her sleeping grandson.