NEPENTHE ⟶ James Potter

Chapter Sixty-Nine

"How did they waste it?" James asked her. "Because they didn't follow the careers that you wanted for them?"

"Exactly, wasted on poor occupations, such as becoming musicians or never pursuing anything outside of their education, instead, they stay at home, have children and that's it. I was left baffled, the students who scored the highest marks, selfishly withholding their minds and not putting them to proper use, " she gave a shake of her head, " what was the point of me working at that point?"

"Mamma, you realise that not everyone can go on to be a Healer, an Auror, or whatever it is that you want them to be, " Adelmo argued with her, " there are multiple occupations that need to be filled, especially with a growing population."

"That's what those other schools produce, they can produce the lesser folk to fill in those positions, but not my students, not my children," Alcina told him, "which is why when I became Headmistress, I became selective with who would be allowed it. Families that wanted success, families that wanted to see society improve..."

Adelmo bared his teeth in frustration at his mother's words. "But you obviously knew it was wrong! You knew it was wrong because you and the other families have been trying to keep it a secret for so long!"

"It's not wrong," she said, " but I understood that people would not understand the new way of thinking-"

"It's not a new way of thinking-"

Alcina apparently had enough of him arguing with her as she turned her wand on him and within seconds, he was back under the Cruciatus Curse, leaving Sirius to try and fight the spell holding him in place. James yelled at Alcina to stop but instead, it had only lured her attention back to Renata, who was just finally sitting up on her own.

"Mam-ma," she called out in a shaky voice above her brother's yelling, " you have to stop this, please-"

There wasn't any sort of mercy being displayed as Renata was placed under the curse again, leaving James to panic even more as Adelmo had announced that Renata had reached her limits before with the curse. He had no choice but to push himself up from Renata to face Alcina, even if he was wandless. However, he only found Alcina's hand extended out to him, meaning that she was waiting for him to take her up on the offer of the Unbreakable Vow.

Looking back at Renata, she was hardly giving a reaction to the curse anymore as her body had been exhausted enough, while Adelmo was on the verge of hurting himself trying to escape the pain. He was struggling with the idea of making such a vow with Alcina because he knew Renata would more than likely take death over being stuck in a brainwashing cult.

But if he took the vow, if he broke his part to expose Alcina and the others, it would result in his death. However, as he thought it over, he knew that Harry would be looked after, not only by Renata once she was freed, but by Sirius, Adelmo, the Weasleys, the Longbottoms, and Remus. He knew his son would be safe and taken care of, however, just the idea of being away from Harry permanently, James was at a loss.

If he took the vow and didn't interfere, Renata would live the rest of her life as a puppet to her mother and the others. She would never be truly happy, it would only be a false sense of the feeling and every time she broke out of it, he knew what was going to fall upon her.

Suddenly, Alcina let out a laugh that chilled James to the bone as he faced the woman once more, only to see her shaking her head at him.

"Pathetic!" she spat in his direction. "That's what you are, completely pathetic. I was right when I said you were a bad influence on Renata. I can see it just by having you stand in front of me. You're as weak as they are, all you're focused on is what is going to make everyone "happy."