“If it's a girl, she’ll be Lily,” Ginny said, running her hand along the soft curve of her stomach. “Obviously.”
Harry glanced at her, somewhat blearily. James had tugged his glasses off his face and was contentedly chewing on the end of them. “Are you sure? Is that weird, naming siblings after a married couple -”
“It’s not weird,” Ginny confirmed. “Dee and her brother were named after their great grandparents.”
“But I’d feel bad, hogging up all the names when you’re the one doing all the work.” He nodded at her plainly pregnant belly.
Ginny gave him a withering look. “Well, if it means so much to you, we’ll have a third and I’ll name it Dingleberry. And Dingleberry will be all mine. Maybe you can have visitation, at the weekends.”
Harry snorted. “And if it's a boy?”
Ginny shrugged helplessly. “Well, we’d be at a loss, wouldn’t we? We’re running out of dead male relatives. George has dibs on Fred, and I reckon we should save Remus for Teddy, if he has kids -”
“And we’ve already used up Sirius on James -”
“Right, and dad is starkly against having a junior, he said.” Ginny looked at him conspiratorially. “You, on the other hand…”
Harry snorted. “Absolutely not.”
“C’mon, now, think about it -”
“You’d ruin that kid’s life!”
Ginny huffed and settled back into the sofa. They stared at the far wall of the sitting room, at the wallpaper that needed replacing since James had gone after it with a box of crayons. Really all it would take was a simple scourgio, and it would be done with. Neither of them had the time.
“Fine,” she said, “I suppose we’ll have to be original…”
Harry bounced James on his knee and tried to disentangle his glasses from his tightly bound fist. “God forbid we have a kid named Ned. Something simple, like.”
“We can’t name our baby Ned.”
“How come?”
“It’s unoriginal.”
“It’s unoriginal,” Harry parroted, lightly mocking her.
Ginny glared at him. “Remember who’s doing all the work here.”
“Right. Sorry.”
He finally succeeded in wrestling his glasses away from James, who promptly turned his attention to the watch on his wrist. Ginny watched in smug amusement.
“Maybe you’ll be a seeker like your daddy, James,” she said, pinching his arm affectionately, “seeing as you like going after shiny things.”
Harry raised a brow. ”What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I spent plenty of time hanging out with Hagrid at school,” Ginny said as she rubbed at a smudge on James’ cheek. “I heard a story about you and a… was it a solid gold cauldron?”
Harry shrugged. “Suppose Hagrid saved me a lot of trouble with that one.”
“Yeah.” Ginny grinned devilishly. “Can you imagine Snape’s face if you walked into potions with a solid gold cauldron?”
“Expect he’d probably have had me executed firing squad style. Oh, cut it out. Here.” Harry undid the watch strap and let James have at it.
James stared at him with wide brown eyes. “Want it.”
“You have it,” said Harry.
“Mine?”
“No. Daddy’s.”
Ginny’s eyes widened. “What about Fabian?”
“Huh?”
“For the baby if it’s a boy!” she squeezed Harry’s arm in excitement. “Oh, Mum would bawl. She’d love it, of course, but you know how she is. And it would be so meaningful, seeing as you have his old watch.”
“Fabian,” Harry repeated, bouncing James on his knee. It was the name engraved onto the back of the watch he wore everyday, that sat against the skin on his wrist near constantly. He remembered how touched he’d been to open it on his seventeenth birthday - the surge of love he’d felt towards Mrs. Weasley, the first person he could remember showing him kindness.
“Bit of a mouthful. We could do Abe for short,” said Ginny.
“I like it,” said Harry. “It goes with our theme, too- naming babies after the people he murdered.”
“That’s a bit morbid,” said Ginny.
The corner of his mouth quirked up. ”Is it?”
Ginny frowned. “D’you reckon it’s too much? Tagging a kid with a name like that - people might think we’re trying to start our own little living graveyard -”
He snorted. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just a name.”
She stared at him. “Since when are you the one telling me to relax?”
“Dunno.” James reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, so that his next words came out nasal-sounding. “Don’t let Skeeter hear that ‘living graveyard’ bit, yeah?”