It had been a miracle birth, they had said.
The boy, her littlest boy, had barely made it. And it wasn’t guaranteed he wouldn’t be swept away in the coming hours, or days, or weeks, or so on.
Complications could arise, they warned.
Euphemia Potter couldn’t care less as she swaddled her baby boy and soaked in his little soul, recited prayers to Allah in her near-unrecognisably hoarse voice being her tethering rock in her rapids of weeping relief.
She would hold him, she would shelter his pudgy face from the harsh sea-spraying winds and she would pray her Lord would see it fit that he would live to learn the rocking of the waves beneath the winds.
Her boy did.
Her darling baby boy did.
She sat through family from all across the globe, her sisters and brothers and cousins and family friends and distant relatives spread across Pakistan and Britain and France and America and everywhere, visiting with repeated joyous sentiments ‘it was in his qismat to live.’
Every time they said it made it feel a little more real.
Regulus Aatik Potter, they would call him.
Regulus, as her dear sister-in-law had whispered entrancingly, a black family naming convention, yes, but Euphemia payed no mind to any bystanders interpretation of that, instead entrapped by the idea. Her littlest boy would have a constant reminder, there high in the sky, a marker to orient himself and find his way home.
Aatik, a reminder of his family chosen by his still-adorably-young cousin, even if countries and continents separated them, he would find a home in those familial, be that through blood, generations or even new friendships, bonds.
And Potter, the blood he would find next to him throughout all, the promises that would stand tall in face of the unknown future and the name she built that would provide for her boys during every hammering storm.
Yes, the littlest boy would be loved just as his brother. His clingy, huffing brother who was imitating a lullaby while circling the crib.
Maybe slightly cruelly Euphemia did not take action to gently shush him before her sister walked into the room, the almost-heart-attack from laughter was worth it, she was sure Regulus, once he was old enough to understand such things, would agree.
They have a responsibility to keep their older siblings on their toes, no matter the age, do they not?