If Anything Should Happen

In which James Potter /tries/ to have a serious conversation.

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"Padfoot," said James, coming into the Potters' sitting room and shutting the door carefully. "Could I have a word with you?"

"You're having it," said the voice from behind the large motorcycle manual. "Oh! Er- yes." A pair of feet in motorcycle boots were promptly removed from the coffee table, and their owner grinned hopefully up at James. "Okay now? Tell Lily I'm very sorry?"

"I didn't mean the furniture," James retorted, sitting down on the coffee table himself. "I meant a word. A serious word."

"Always a serious word with me, man," remarked the motorcycle manual smoothly.

James gritted his teeth. "You know, I'm beginning to see just why Lily said I had to be the one who had this conversation with you."

There was a pause. Sirius turned another page in the manual.

"Padfoot," said James. "Can I have a word with you about Harry, please?"

"What about him?" said the anxious godfather, instantly laying aside his book and sitting bolt upright. "Is there anything he needs? Is there anything I can get for him? Is it that the silencing charm on the bike isn't quiet enough and I'm disturbing his nap time? Is it-"

"No! No! No!" James flapped his hands desperately to try and stem the flow. "Not anything now! It's about the future."

"Ah!" Sirius relaxed visibly, and one hand strayed back towards his manual. "Lily's worried about me teaching Harry to fly the bike?"

"Do you ever think about anything other than that bike?!"

"Of course!" Sirius protested indignantly. "Harry!"

"Sirius," said James quietly. "We asked you to be Harry's godfather. We'd like – we'd like to appoint you Harry's guardian, if anything should happen to us."

"No," said Sirius instantly.

"What do you mean, no?"

"No, nothing is going to happen to you." Sirius frowned at James. "Nothing, Prongs. I mean it."

"But-"

"No. Not 'but'. Nothing."

"Sirius!" James sprang up from the coffee table. "We're in the middle of a war! People are dying every day! Voldemort's after us personally!"

"Yup," said Sirius stubbornly. "And NOTHING is going to happen to you! Not you, not Lily, not Harry. Nothing. That's that. I'm not losing you."

He got up as James let out a infuriated paternal splutter. "Come on, Prongs, we're the Maruaders! Don't you remember, that full moon on the moor when Wormtail fell off your back and it took Moony and I an hour's sniffing about in heather and gorse bushes to find the little chap again? And we told him: We Weren't Going To Lose Each Other."

Sirius snorted as James still didn't look convinced. "Nothing's changed, Prongs. I'm not losing you!" He sat down again with a decisive bump, and rubbed his nose reminiscently. "They were jolly prickly gorse bushes, too. And all you did to help was run up and down tossing your head and saying 'Hrumph! Hrumph!'"

James ran his fingers through his hair until it looked like the results of the wildest broomstick ride ever. "Padfoot," he said wearily. "Er-"

"No."

"Shut up while I'm talking!"

"I know what you want," Sirius objected. "You want me to promise that I will be like a parent to Harry. That I will take good care of him; that I will buy him a grown-up broomstick and go to see him play for Gryffindor even in the pouring rain; that I will get him his first penknife so he can cut his thumb open with it; that I will write to him at school; that I will give him good advice on dealing with little problems like Death Eaters and dragons, and sympathise with him when he's stuck with things, and tell him to keep his nose clean when he reaches that age when boys just go out and get into trouble, even when he wishes I wouldn't; and that I will drop everything and rush off to rescue him when he really does get into trouble. I know the routine," he added airily, with a grin at James. "I watched your dad do it, after all. Ah, and to know his friends' names, and have them to stay in the summer holidays and at Christmas, and occasionally send them presents."

Sirius held up his thumb. "If you remember, I was included in the great penknife business. I think..." – he squinted dramatically – "... I think the scar's still visible. Anyway-" Sirius shrugged. "I could promise all that, but it would be an utter waste of time, Prongs. Voldemort is NOT going to get you, and that's final." And he crossed his legs and picked up the motorcycle manual again.

James reached over and snatched the book away. "If Voldemort was eaten by a dragon tomorrow, Lily and I could still be killed in a- a- a fatal broomstick crash!"

"Not with you flying."

"Or eaten by the same ruddy dragon!"

"Nah. Dumbledore will have put it in a zoo with an Order of Merlin round its neck."

"Or poisoned by a mis-mixed potion!"

"With Lily brewing it?"

James drew back his foot and kicked, hard. "Padfoot! Will you just accept that sometimes people snuff it unexpectedly!?"

"Fine!" snapped Sirius, rubbing his ankle crossly. "Have it your own way! Sometimes people die! But not you," he added shifting his legs to dangle over the arm of the chair. "Or Lily. Or Harry. I wish my mother would," he added in a suddenly moodier tone.

"What?" said James, sitting back down on the coffee table in surprise. "So you could inherit that, and I quote, 'awful hole'?"

"Well, I'll need a house!" Sirius protested. "For Harry and I, if you and Lily are determined to poison yourselves falling off a dragon or whatever, and dump him on me. As for the awful hole – Ugh! It's all your fault, reminding me of it by bringing up such grave thoughts. Where d'you want to be buried, by the way?"

"What?!"

"Grave Thoughts," said Sirius with a smirk.

"In the churchyard on the other side of the village," James snapped. "In the plot all the Potters are buried in."

"Right," Sirius yawned. "I'll tell Harry that when he's older. 'Cause I won't be arranging it."

James glared at him. "So where do you want to be buried, then? After your early and heroic death?"

"Nowhere. I mean it," said Sirius firmly as James looked horrified. "I do not want to be buried. C'mon... give my mother an opportunity to hold me in place with a ten tonne marble block listing the thousand glories of the Black Family and how I failed at each one?" He shook his head. "No Thank You. When I go, I want to go fighting and I want to go laughing. And NO grave! Don't worry – I'll leave Harry all my worldly goods before I go: the bike, the two-way mirror, the stolen hippogriff-"

"WHAT?!"

"Gotcha!" Sirius sat up and clapped James on the back triumphantly. "I was only joking!"

James hit him gently on the head with the motorcycle manual. "Including about saying no to being guardian?"

Sirius yawned again, and wrenched the book out of James' grasp. "If you and Lily want to leave your precious son to a big bad black dog, that's fine by me," he remarked, vanishing back behind the pages.

"Good."

"Does that mean I can stay for dinner...?"

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