Mama (I Love You)

Watching her little boy sleep, Ginny reflected tenderly on her own mother. Oh, the fights they had had. She hadn't wanted to admit it when she was younger, but they were quite similar, really. Each had a fiery temper to match their hair, but they also had kind, caring hearts.

It was the latter that she had become to notice more and more lately. She and her mother had clashed over the stupidest things – whether Ginny was old enough to fly, or have a boyfriend. What she got up to in her sixth year at Hogwarts. Whether she was allowed to move in with Harry, Ron and Hermione in the summer between her sixth and seventh years – she was seventeen, after all.

But now, as a mother of an almost 1-year-old, with a second child on the way, Ginny understood her mother more. Looking at James, asleep in his cot with his arms wrapped around the stuffed deer he had been given when he was born, Ginny couldn't imagine what she would do if he got into any of the situations she had as a teenager. At the time, she had thought her mother was being unreasonable – if her brothers were going to fight, why couldn't she? She was only a few months off being an adult, and she could fight just as well as most of the adults already out there, if not better. But now she got it – her mother had merely loved her.

When she and Harry had first been married, she couldn't imagine loving anyone more than she loved him. When she first discovered she was pregnant, she learnt that it was possible to love a second person that much, but it had been nothing compared to when she had first held her baby. Nothing on Earth could take away the love she felt for James in that instant, and she knew she would do all in her power to keep him safe.

As James opened his sleepy eyes and grinned at her, Ginny decided that that afternoon she and James would pay a visit to Grandma Weasley, and let her know just how much she was loved. Because, Ginny mused, sometimes it took being a mother yourself to truly appreciate the love your own mother holds for you.

A/N. Written for the Song Fic Boot Camp Challenge using the prompt Mother and the song Mama (I Love You) by the Spice Girls. NG