James knocked on the door twice with the knuckles on the back of his hand before stepping into Dora's hospital room. Early dawn's pink sunlight glowed from the window, which either looked over the streets of London or had at least been magicked to look as though it did. The pink light illuminated Dora's peacefully sleeping face and he slid through the narrow gap in the door, pressed it gently closed behind him, and walked across the room, hands in the pockets of his old Gryffindor jumper - the one that had belonged to Charlus - and he bit his lip as he approached her side, staring down at her. After a moment, he waved his wand and magicked a chair there beside her, sinking down into it, and staring at the profile of her face as he leaned back in it.

"Mum?" he whispered, so quiet it was really only a breath. 

The goal wasn't really to wake her up, he knew she needed her rest, but part of him sure wished she'd open her eyes and look at him and he could just see her stare back at him for a few minutes. Emma's story of what had happened - how his mum's life had nearly ended and what a miracle it was she was here - had scared him something terrible.

Tentatively, he reached out and took her hand from her side, holding it in both of his and he ran his thumbs over the top of it. Her skin's elasticity was loose, the way older people's hands tend to become 'round the knuckles, and he absently moved his thumbs about it, pressing his fingers against hers like he used to do as a child, and counting the lines in the folds of her knuckles. He spun her gold wedding band 'round her finger and smiled at it.

His eyes travelled up to her face, then, and he leaned forward.

"I know you've not gone yet, but I - I have some things I have to say that - well they're things that I ought to have said more over the years, mummy, that I thought but never said that you really deserve to hear and -- Well, I didn't get a chance to say things like this to Dad, you know? So I - I want to say them to you. Even if you're not really awake, I - I still need to say them."

James took a deep breath.

"Remember when I was small and we read all of the Chronicles of Narnia together? You and me and Dad? You read all the parts except the stuff Aslan says and Dad read those and it made the story live because Dad could do the booming lion voice. Remember how comfortable it was all three of us piled up on the couch? And how you made hot chocolate that never got cold or ran out of marshmallows? That was the best.

"Mum, I love your tea cups. I wished when I was little that my tea cups would look like yours when I finally went to Hogwarts and got to make my own. I still wish they looked a bit more like yours. When you're well, will you magic me a whole set? A whole set of your tea cups so I can always keep them?

"You and Dad - you always call me a miracle but I honestly don't feel much like one. Well you're a miracle now, you know. The doctors have said so. I wonder whether you were the miracle all along, whether your sheer determination is what brought me into existence. I'll bet it's what's kept you here, too. I get that determination from you, I know I do. Loads of people say I have a good deal of it. But I reckon you've a good deal more because Mum you've never once failed at a single thing you've put your mind at doing and I really admire that about you. I admire how you persevere through all the rubbish life's thrown at you - your awful family and all, and you say Dad rescued you but you know in secret he said you rescued him, too?

"I think love's like that. I mean I feel like Lily's rescued me a bit and that's not to put down you and Dad, of course, because honestly I have had it really good all of my life, and I appreciate you for that. I mean to say that I could've been a spoiled, arrogant arse my whole life and gone off into the future that way but Lily sort of rescued me from that, and I love her for it and I reckon Dad meant something similar in it when he said you rescued him, too.

"You've just sort of always been the backbone, haven't you? And it's a lot of pressure, being the backbone... I understand.

"I hate dragon pox and what it's done to you, what it did to Dad. Neither of you deserved this sort of thing to happen to you. And it's really rotter that magic can exist and we can do all sorts of extraordinary things but when it comes down to it, magic isn't great enough to stop things like this, and when it comes down to it, magic can't do the things we sometimes want the very most, can it? Like bring a person back to us or make a moment last a bit longer when we want it to. Unless you're Mopsus, perhaps then. But mostly it's just that the only option we have to make - to make people last is to love them. 

"Because love sort of... well, it transcends stuff like - like physical stuff. Like I can love you whether you're here or not, and I know you love me whether you're here or not, and - and I love Dad. And Dad loves me. And he loves you. He'll always love us both, death can't stop that. Nothin' can stop that, can it? Not even time. Not even Mopsus. It's probably the only thing he can't do with his clocks, isn't it?

"Anyways, I love you, mummy. And I will always, wherever you are. Wherever I am. It doesn't matter. 'Cause it's bigger than the whole earth, I reckon, love is.

"You think maybe that's why the universe is so big? Because it has to hold all the love ever felt... and just the - the regular atmosphere wasn't - it wasn't big enough, so God had to go and make the whole bleedin' universe go on forever so there was enough space to store it all, and maybe the stars are just... expressions of the light that love makes in the dark places, you know?

"You taught me - you've taught me how to love someone proper. Unconditionally. Because you've always loved me that way. It didn't matter if I was being a - a little prick - because you loved me anyways and that - I reckon sometimes I didn't deserve it and I know I've done stuff I regret in my life - didn't love you back proper, mum - but you never -- you never wavered. And I'm damn lucky, I know I am, I'm lucky I had a mum like you. Not everyone does. Like Sirius? Sirius didn't get a mum like you. I mean he has you now, but I mean - you know what I mean. I - I was lucky to have you from the start, to have you in my veins, to - to get to grow inside you and come into the world from you. You know? And... Well, thanks.

"Thank you, mummy... for being my mummy... for being determined to have me and being determined to love me properly and to show me the stars at night, for being my whole world and teaching me how to love other people like you love me. For being my miracle. Because it's a miracle that of all the mums in the whole world my soul got paired up to you.

"I'm glad you're here still mum. Because I have a lot to learn from you still and I don't just mean knitting and cooking and things of that sort, though I've still a lot to learn with those things, too - we haven't finished that jumper for Remus we've been workin' on yet, have we? And I certainly can't do that on my own, blimey, I have no idea how to do the sleeves mum.

"Lily and I - we - oh blimey, you're asleep so I might as well tell you even if it is embarrassing. We got tested and I might not be able to -- they say my - my sperm count is inadequate and that's really been weighting down on me and - and we haven't been - been trying because I've been scared not to be enough and what if I can't have kids and Lily's so - she wants one so bad and I know you want to see your grand baby and that's what's made us start trying in the first place and all and now this - and I was so afraid and all I could think was how - how if I'm inadequate I'm lettin' down both you and Lily so much and - I just want to - I --

"Mum... that - that determination you gave me, I - if you can use the determination theory to - to will yourself into having me... well, I can do the same, can't I?

"I can make a miracle, too? Yeah?

"I want to be a dad so I can be as good as Dad was, so I can give the love you and Dad gave me to another person because there's so bloody much of it - the whole sky and all, as I said.

"So - so thank you. I said it once already but I'll say it again because - honestly, of all of this I've said, its the most important part and it deserves to be reiterated: thank you for being my mummy. I'll love you forever and ever, and although death can't stop me loving you, I'm sure glad you're alive."

James stopped talking. He just sat there, then, and the sun was coming up more now - the light had faded from pink to gold to now it was just typical white-blue and the sky outside was blue and he stared up at it through the window and he sighed, all out of words. The words he'd said were the sort that leaves a person rather exhausted and heavy-minded though, and his head sort of throbbed a bit, the corners of his eyes felt a bit stuck together from the tears and he finally just lowered his head. He leaned forward, elbows on the edge of the mattress, hands still holding onto Dora's, and he rested his forehead against her hand and closed his eyes.

"I love you, too, Jamsey," Dora whispered after a few moments.

James opened his eyes and they met hers.

Her fingers squeezed 'round his, then she drew her palm out of his hands and reached up, using her thumb to wipe the tears clinging to the corners of his eyes away, like she used to do when he was a little boy and he cried over monsters under the bed or whatever nightmares might have plagued him. She smiled at him.

"How long were you listening?" he asked.

"I'll make you your tea set when we get home."

He leaned down and kissed her cheek.