NEPENTHE ⟶ James Potter

Chapter Eleven

Sirius was settled on the floor, looking over the book that he claimed to have had a copy of back when he was Harry's age, although no one had ever bothered to read it to him.

"Is there any more?" Renata asked him quietly, bringing him to look over, " Family, I mean. Is there any other family that Harry has, just in case? If James wasn't able to and if something were to happen to you or Remus, would there be someone there for Harry? Any other family members?"

"Not on James' side," Sirius informed her, " it was just him and his parents as far as I knew. No mention of cousins or anything like that. Even if there was I don't think he ever met them and since his parents passed away a few years back, they wouldn't be able to, obviously. But Lily had family, a sister, her husband, and a nephew."

"So would Harry go there if anything were to happen?"

"Over James' dead body," Sirius replied, " he would never allow it. Lily and her sister had a falling out back when we were all still at Hogwarts, got worse as they got older. Lily was a muggle-born, you know? The rest of her family were muggles, her parents were accepting, but not her sister, Petunia. A nasty cow that woman is. James and that poor excuse of a man Vernon Dursley ended up going at it, fighting each other constantly. The Dursleys had nothing good to say about magic folk, it would be terrible for Harry to go there. They would hate him, they would treat him like he was nothing..."

Renata didn't need to hear anymore, already Sirius' answer had left her nervous with any sort of idea of what could happen to Harry in such situations.

"Nervous, are you?" Sirius asked her. "You don't think I could handle it-"

"No, that's not what I meant by it," Renata told him quickly. "I only asked as a sort of "what if" scenario. The war is over, there's no need to worry about things in that sense, but there are always possibilities. I was just curious if there was a sort of backup plan put in place, just in case. I have no doubt that you would take care of Harry to the best of your abilities, but if something were to ever happen to you, would Remus really refuse to take Harry?"

"It would be incredibly complicated if he chose to do that. Maybe if Harry was much older it wouldn't be, but not right now, not when Harry is this young. Looking after him on his own wouldn't work."

She really wanted to know the reason why, but still, she didn't bring herself to ask. He was avoiding the topic itself for a reason and she knew she had to respect that, no matter how hard her curiosity was pinching at her to ask.

"Would you take him?" Sirius suddenly questioned her in return, bringing her to glance over at him as she snapped out of her little daze.

"I bet your pardon?"

Sirius sat up, setting the book in his hands aside as he looked directly at her. "If it came down to it, hypothetically, if no one stepped forward to take Harry and he had nowhere else to go, would you take him in?"

"Of course," Renata answered right away, " is that even a question?"

"Well, I don't know too many people willing to take on a child especially from someone they don't know-"

"People do it every day, " she said, " it's called adoption."

He smiled and let out a small chuckle while nodding his head as she had gotten him there. " Touché, " he began, " but that's not what I meant. I'm just wondering why you would be so willing to take Harry on when you barely know any of us?"

"I don't need to know anyone to know that Harry is a child. He's not even three years old right now, and even inside that tiny body of his, he holds such a vast amount of innocence that the world waits to corrupt in so many ways. I wouldn't want him to lose all that, he's been through enough."