The Space Between

One year later

I pace the hallway of our house. I was in Hermione's room until the midwitch - the wizarding world's midwife - kicked me out about an hour ago; Ron's still in there.

"Sit down, Harry," Ginny Weasley - no, it's Longbottom now - barks at me. She motions to the empty space on the sofa beside her with her cup of tea.

I flop myself onto the sofa and begin bouncing my leg up and down, trying in vain to work out the nervous energy I'm feeling. I feel Ginny's eyes upon me and turn to look at her. She's smiling at me and barely repressing laughter.

"What?" I ask impatiently, folding my arms across my chest and stretching my legs in front of me.

Before she can say anything, however, we hear Hermione yell. My heart plummets into my stomach, twisting it in knots. It's all I can do not to cover my ears like a four-year-old. To know that I've caused her pain rips my heart to shreds.

Thank you, Hermione, for finding a binding potion for our scar. The potion is relatively short term - it should last a day - but it means I'm not experiencing labor with her.

"I think you're more nervous than she was," Ginny finally says, amused.

I jump up and begin pacing again. "Of course I am, Ginny. Neville hasn't addled your brain, has he?"

She leans back, patting her pregnant abdomen. "No, hormones have. Doesn't mean I'm not right."

The door opens and Ron pops his head out. "If we let you back in, are you going to be okay, mate?"

Swallowing hard, I nod. Ron opens the door further, allowing me readmittance. "How is she doing?" I ask quietly.

"She'll do better with us both here," Ron replies.

We arrive at Hermione's beside and the midwitch glares at Ron.

"I told you not to leave her side," she berates in a tone so like McGonagall's, I'm surprised there isn't a Scottish burr in the words. She slaps a damp cloth into Ron's palm before returning to the foot of the bed.

Ron moves to the side of the bed and begins gently wiping down Hermione's sweating face. Hermione grits her teeth and moans, clutching Ron's other hand so hard she leaves fingernail indentations on the back once she finally releases him.

I stand there feeling stupid and useless. Not knowing what to do with my own hands, I tuck them into the front pockets of my jeans and rock on my heels.

Hermione's eyes snap open and lock with mine. She narrows those brown eyes at me and purses her lips. "Get over here," she says, biting off each word.

My palms begin to sweat as I make my way to the other side of the bed. I resume my place at her side in the chair placed there hours earlier.

Before Hermione can begin to berate me for my earlier loss of control, another contraction hits. She already has Ron's hand in a death grip, but she gropes for one of mine as well. I offer it, then immediately regret it.

The tips of my fingers turn white as Hermione cuts circulation to them. She moans, panting, until the contraction passes. Exhausted, she collapses onto the pillow where Ron blots her forehead with the damp cloth again.

I turn to the midwitch. "How much longer?" I don't know if I can stand to see Hermione in pain for much longer. Labor has already lasted 20 hours and she hasn't even begun pushing.

"It will take as long as it takes, Mr. Potter," the midwitch replies cuttingly. She doesn't approve of our...living arrangements, but is being paid well enough to ignore her distaste long enough to assist Hermione.

I bite my lip to refrain from retorting in a similar fashion. Something about her tone reminds me of Draco Malfoy - who is now locked away in Azkaban prison.

A shudder runs down my spine when I think about how close I was to a cell next to his. Mitigating circumstances - namely the physical assaults on Ron and Hermione - and public pressure kept me out of prison. The fact my solicitor told me to use the public's sympathy made me feel just as dirty as the deeds I performed. But I did it. If I hadn't, Hermione and Ron would have been without me and that was something none of us could live with.

"I want to push," Hermione grunts, levering herself up onto her elbows.

Ron and I look at each other when the midwitch reaches inside Hermione to check the baby's position. The nervous, disgusted smile on his face assures me that it is creepy seeing someone's hand inside Hermione.

"You may," the midwitch says. "You're fully dilated."

Hermione doesn't answer verbally, but with another grunt. She clutches my hand, this time digging fingernails into the back of my hand.

Distantly, I hear Ron counting evenly to ten, then Hermione releasing the breath she'd taken and subtly relaxing for a minute.

I feel so out of place. My history has been to take life, not bring it into the world. I never knew my parents, have no brothers or sisters...in fact, I'd never held a baby until a couple years ago at the Burrow when Bill and Fleur visited with their first daughter just before we were kidnapped.

She was so delicate I didn't want to hold her. I knew my hands would break her. Then Ron compared her to a Snitch: she only looked delicate, but was really made out of something tough. Bill teased him for reducing his child to a Quidditch analogy, but it got the point across.

With trembling hands, I held a baby for the first time in my life. Margaret Rose Weasley, with her tufts of strawberry-blonde hair and big blue eyes, looked up at me in wide-eyed wonder. I joked at the time that she was staring because I didn't have red hair. But there was something in that baby's gaze that both frightened me and empowered me.

It frightened me that a small child like that three-month old baby could wrap me around her finger without effort. Some primal tug made me want to protect her at all costs. And, even knowing now what "all costs" entails, the answer would still be the same.

That power, that drive, also empowered me. Her guileless blue gaze, the gaze that reminded me so much of Ron when he's just woken up, seemed to feed right into my unspoken need to be needed. The need to feel loved unconditionally that I rarely admit to having.

That need is there for everyone. But for me, for someone who had no friends until I was eleven and didn't realize those friends were the loves of my life until we were 21, it's like trying to fit myself into a puzzle I don't know the shape of. Growing up with the Dursleys certainly did nothing to help me understand what love is.

But finding Ron and Hermione and holding that baby have gone a long way toward helping me understand that force. Ron and Hermione are the better parts of me, they complete me. It's a truth I often ponder, and will believe until my dying day. I'm nothing without them.

Hermione's fingernails into the back of my hand again draws me out of my thoughts.

"I'm going to kill you, Harry," she spits at me with such venom that alarm fills me. I dart my eyes toward Ron, who shrugs.

"Apparently all women say things like that during labor," he replies.

If I'd known that I would have insisted on staying out of the room. I didn't sign up for Hermione abusing me until the end.

Hermione whips her head around, tightening her grip on my hand as another contraction tightens her abdomen. "Don't you dismiss me, Ron. I can kill you, too." She hisses a breath out at the midwitch's demand, then continues, "And I'll do it with my bare hands."

"Push, Hermione," Ron says, his voice quavering uncertainly.

Hermione's hand creeps further up my arm until she's gripping my forearm so hard there will be bruises. At the end of Ron's count to ten, she stops pushing and glares at me. "You did this to me and I wish I hadn't blocked our connection." She drops her head and pants before continuing viciously, "I want you to feel pain."

I'm afraid. I'm beginning to think I don't know Hermione at all. Ginny tried to warn me many hours ago that Hermione wouldn't be herself, but I didn't understand that I wouldn't recognize her either.

The midwitch shifts and looks up at Hermione. "The head is starting to crown. Take a deep breath and bear down."

I look up and see Ron wince as Hermione actually draws blood from his arm; she merely deepens the bruising on my arm when her grip tightens. A loud, low moan emanates from deep within her as she lifts her shoulders from the bed, tucks her chin to her chest and bears down.

I step to my left enough to watch the baby's head crown. Oh, Merlin, I think I'm going to be sick. It's just not natural to see Hermione stretched like that. With a last grunt, the head emerges.

There is a faint covering of downy brown hair on the baby's scalp. The midwitch quickly suctions the baby's mouth and nose. Before I can even wrap my mind around the fact the baby is nearly here, Hermione bears down again, a cross between a grunt and a scream issuing from her mouth. One shoulder emerges. Another push brings out the other shoulder. The rest of the baby just seems to fall out once both shoulders have emerged.

It's a girl.

Suddenly lightheaded, I drop to my knees beside the bed. A baby. There's really a baby.

Ron gently takes the baby from the midwitch, wrapping her in a large swaddling cloth. It's as I'm watching Ron clean the baby's face with one corner of the cloth that I suddenly find myself on the floor though my arm is still trapped on the bed by Hermione's death grip.

The midwitch leans over, looking down at me over the edge of the bed. "Are you okay, Mr. Potter?"

The baby cries for the first time. It's a sound that pierces my heart. Though I'm terrified, all I want to do is comfort her. Ron shushes her, saying nonsense things in a low tone that seems to comfort her.

Looking up at the midwitch, I blink and answer her question. "Not really."

She smiles indulgently before returning to Hermione.

"Harry?" Hermione says tentatively. I manage to return to my knees, but my stomach stays on the floor. She looks worn out, but I've never seen her more beautiful. She returns my weak smile with a smirk. "Shall we tell the world you can't watch babies being born?"

"Everyone has a weakness," I reply, shifting my gaze to Ron and the baby.

Ron is enraptured. As I watch, he lifts her from his chest to hold her close to his face, playing with her fingers and toes and making cooing sounds.

"Ron, let Harry hold her," Hermione says, yawning.

Ron looks at me and grins evilly. "The Boy With The Weak Stomach wants to hold the baby?"

I manage to get to my feet, wavering slightly as if I'm pissed. Hermione snickers, but releases my arm. My shaky legs making me feel like a newborn pony, I make my way around the bed to Ron and the baby.

The baby gazes solemnly at me when Ron holds her out to hand her over. Nerves worse than those before my first Quidditch match are making me nauseous. Swallowing hard, I reach for her.

She seems to sigh as I take her in my hands, cradling her. Somehow I maneuver her to lay parallel to my chest, her head resting in the crook of my left arm with the rest of her supported by my left forearm.

Baby. This is our baby. I don't notice the tears streaming from my eyes until my vision blurs. Ron stands in front of me, cupping my jaw with both hands and wiping my cheeks dry with his thumbs.

I look up at him. The smile on his face is soft, as I'm sure mine is. It's the absentminded smile of someone who is so happy they don't care who knows it.

"Meet your daughter, Harry," Ron says. I can hear Hermione sniffle behind Ron, but the midwitch isn't through with her yet and we can't go near.

Blinking hard, I look back down into the baby's face. This is my daughter. The next child is Ron's, but this one is mine. Ours, but mine. She blinks up at me, her eyes a deep blue. She purses her mouth into a perfect pink bow before stuffing her fist into it.

Everything about her is so tiny. I can cradle her head in one hand. Her entire finger isn't any longer than my fingernail. Her nose is like an afterthought between her eyes and mouth. Her skin is still blotchy from birth, but pale like mine rather than like the slightly darker, easy-to-tan of Hermione's.

I look up at Ron before leaning forward and giving him a gentle kiss. I hear the midwitch scoff in the background, but ignore her.

"It's my daughter, Ron," I say quietly, still amazed. We've known since Hermione was three months pregnant that I was the father of the baby, but Ron and I have shared the paternal responsibility until now. He's content to step back and let this be mine. I don't know how to tell him thank you.

Stepping around him, I sit on the edge of the bed. Lifting the baby up, I say, "Hermione, meet our daughter."

I am entranced by Hermione's reaction. She almost visibly melts as she takes the baby from me. She lifts her gaze to lock with mine, tears blurring both our eyes.

In the background, I can hear Ron performing a memory charm on the midwitch now that she's finished with the delivery and afterbirth. When the door opens, there is clamoring outside, abruptly cut off when Ron closes the door behind himself. He is responsible for sharing the news with the Weasleys and Grangers.

Hermione smiles, yawns, and closes her eyes, cuddling the baby to her chest. The baby has already fallen asleep. "Elizabeth Victoria Potter, you're in for one hell of a life," she murmurs as she falls asleep as well.

Something inside me seems to click into place. This is what I've been looking for, I think. Something completely positive to drown out the negative inside. I thought I had these things before: first, when Hagrid told me I was a wizard; next, when I made the Quidditch team and discovered there was something I was good at that no one could take away; last, when the three of us admitted our feelings for each other.

But as I watch Hermione holding Elizabeth, I realize this - a family with children - is what I need. I love Ron and I love Hermione - so much, so deeply, that the darkness inside me killed for them - but my child is my heart.

The door opens and closes softly.

Ron stands behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pressing a kiss to my neck. Resting his chin on my shoulder, he whispers, "Beautiful, aren't they?"

I rest my hands over his, giving him a sort of reverse hug. "Yes, they are."

Surrounded by love, I can only hope that the darkness inside me is buried for good.