HALCYON ⟶ James Potter

Chapter Twenty-Two

Of course, he wouldn't be considered a Marauder if a flicker of mischief did not cross his mind at the moment. Placing the papers down, James crawled further onto the bed, positioning himself over Renata in the best area to go in for her sides. He waited until she appeared perfectly settled before his fingers started digging in at her ribs. Immediately, she was up, jerking her body in almost a panic mode as she was suddenly up on all fours. Which meant that James practically went flying off the bed with a heavy thud against the floor.

A bewildered look made its way onto her face as Renata glanced around the room before peering down at the floor. James was on his back, grimacing in total pain as his arms and legs were sprawled out.

"James?"

"Good morning," he managed to squeak out, " I'm so glad that you're awake."

She pressed her lips together to hold back the smile that dared to form, but it was too late as a small giggle escaped. "What exactly were you doing hovering over me like that?"

James pushed himself to sit up, rubbing his backside. "I was trying to wake you up, of course. I should have probably thought about how you would have reacted and planned better. Anyways, I brought you up some coffee and something for you to read over."

Renata went to thank him for the coffee as he stood up, but it seemed the reading was actually a pressing matter as James held it out to her first. She assumed it was a letter of some sort, whether it was from Molly or Augusta, maybe even Adelmo, but the official marking of the Ministry of Magic at the top of the paper said otherwise.

"Did something bad happen?" she quickly asked, her brows furrowing together as her nerves started to show. But James shook his head in response, sitting beside her and pointing down to the letter again, instructing her to read.

As her eyes scanned down the document, it only took her about five seconds to realise what she was holding.

It was the official adoption certificate.

The silence following the reveal was a bit unsettling for James as he was always one for rather loud and over the top celebration when it came to such things. However, he started to feel nervous as Renata continued to look at the papers quietly. Her hand came to cover her mouth and he wondered if she was beginning to regret the idea of adopting Harry as her own.

It sounded positively silly in his head, after all, James knew damn well that Renata had fallen in love with the idea of being Harry's mother before anything or anyone else.

She couldn't possibly have second thoughts about it, she was always so sure of everything, just as long as Harry was included, he could attest to that. But he couldn't help but wonder if Renata's dreams were subject to change as time went on. She had once spoken so highly of her restaurant dream, only to allow it to come second to family. Was there something else on her mind that would come to light or was James reading too much into things?

It was the one thing that he had gone over many times in therapy, he couldn't just jump to conclusions. And he had to stop thinking of the worst as the first thing, he had to put a little more faith that not everything was destined to go wrong. Taking a deep breath, James was about to ask Renata if everything was alright, only to have her turn to him first.

There were tears in her eyes, her hand still over her mouth muffling the sounds of her own crying. And yet, despite the tears, she didn't look sad at all, she looked overjoyed. She finally removed her hand from her mouth, lifting up the papers once more.

"This means I'm Harry's-"

"Mummy?"

The two looked over in the doorway to see that Harry was finally awake that morning. His hair was all over the place, but he had his glasses fixed on his face, and carried his blanket that trailed behind him. At the sight of his seeing his mother crying, Harry suddenly became quite alert despite his sleep stupor before. He abandoned his blanket and raced over the bed, launching himself and crawling over to her.