The corridors of St Mungo's seemed rather chilled as Renata sat outside the Janus Thickey Ward with Harry resting in her lap. Her mind was completely spinning from the time that James' friend, Remus, came out of the room with a worried expression, claiming that something was wrong with James. She was attempting to settle a crying Harry at the time, leaving her to be of little help, but it seemed there was little they could do at the time anyways as James had entered some sort of dissociative trance. They weren't given much of an option but to bring James into St Mungo's to try and figure out what had happened.

Remus had practically carried James along and while he advised Renata to stay behind with Harry, she didn't think it was right. After all, James didn't know her well enough at the time and she didn't think he would be comfortable with the idea of leaving Harry alone with her just yet. And if he was in such a bad state, she didn't want to make things worse for him if he was to come out of it.

Thankfully, when they arrived, Adelmo was on shift and Renata was able to request him right away. Normally, Adelmo didn't deal with mental health, that was Miriam Strout, who usually looked after more permanent residents. However, since she was the expert on mental health within the hospital, it only seemed right that she was the one called upon. Of course, Renata didn't like the idea of James being brought to the permanent ward as she honestly hoped it was nothing too serious.

Harry didn't seem to know what was going on and for that, she was also very grateful that he was incredibly young. Instead, he was more or less interested in everything going on around him, witches and wizards going back and forth paired with Healers. His eyes fell over the colourful robes and his ears tuned into the passing conversations that he didn't understand. Overall, in many respects, Renata knew that he was confused. He was nearly always around James and for him to suddenly be away from him without warning, he just seemed to be wondering where his father had gone.

"It's alright, Harry," Renata reassured him as she placed her hand over the top of his head gently, "he'll be back soon and he'll be all better then."

It felt as though that she had spoken too soon as Remus came out one of the rooms looking quite distraught over the matter and in tow was Miriam Strout and Adelmo. Quickly, Renata rose to her feet, holding onto Harry tightly as they approached where they were.

"I don't like those faces," she said, " is everything alright?"

"They want to keep him overnight," Remus said, " he's out of whatever it was now, but there's a possibility he might slip back into it. They want to observe him further, but that leaves us with a problem. Who's going to watch over Harry?"

Renata gave the man a look, considering he was one of the people that James spoke so highly of, she didn't understand why that was a question. Why wouldn't he be able to look after Harry during the night?

"Couldn't you take him or stay with him overnight?" she asked, completely unaware that it would be a full moon that evening and Remus would not be in the vicinity.

"No," Remus answered quickly but not offering any more information that would give her any insight into a reasonable explanation. 

"Look," Renata said, rubbing at her forehead with her free hand, " I don't mind watching Harry overnight, however, I think the matter of James' comfort should be taken into consideration first and foremost. If he is in a fragile state of mind, we wouldn't want to do anything that might make it worse. I haven't been in Harry's life long enough for him to feel comfortable with me handling him overnight. So we have to come up with a better solution, is there anyone else we can get involved?"

She looked to Remus but he fell silent and Renata knew she was going to have to press on one of his nerves for the sake of James and Harry.

"What about Sirius? Why not contact him and see if he can watch over Harry?"

"Sirius is not capable of looking after Harry on his own," Remus said in a solemn tone, " he can hardly look after himself as it is."

Renata felt like she was close to losing her temper because she didn't know the full story behind why Remus and Sirius didn't seem to get along when they shared James as a mutual and he referred to them as his brothers. However, now wasn't the time to be hashing out any sort of issues that didn't have to do with the current situation.

"Well is it possible if he stays the night while I stay the night as well? That way I can look after Harry the majority of the time and James can have the comfort of someone he knows and trust remaining in the household?"

Remus looked as though he was going to put up some form of protest but as he met her gaze, he seemed to give in to the idea and gave a nod of his head.

"Yes, I'm sure that would work just fine for the time being."

"Good," she stated in a firm tone before looking over at her own brother and Miriam, " is it possible for James to see Harry before we have to leave?"

"I don't think that would be a good idea, Renata, he's having a bit of a hard time inside right now and we figured it would be best to just give him a bit of time to himself."

"Alright," she said, biting the inside of her lower lip for a second, " well, I guess I should get in contact with Sirius, shouldn't I?"

It was clearly written across Adelmo's face before she left that he did believe that she was taken on way too much for people she hardly knew. His eyes were pleading with her to reconsider and let others handle the situation with Harry because it really wasn't her problem, but she refused. It was troubling enough to see that James had gone from having a good day to falling into a terrible state so quickly. James certainly didn't deserve that, but Harry didn't deserve to witness that either.

She knew it wasn't her problem in a way, but at the same time, she had agreed to be Harry's nanny, she agreed to be there for him in some way and she was going to follow through with it. There had never been any specifics when it came to taking the job, so she was just willing to roll with the punches.

An owl had been sent to Sirius and she hoped that he would respond rather quickly as she returned to the Potter flat with Harry alone. She didn't know the issues that revolved around Remus, but she found it troubling that he had to leave so soon. Was it really that bad that he couldn't stay with them a little longer or was the spat between him and Sirius that bad that they couldn't even stand the idea of being around each other for just a few minutes?

Harry had been relatively quiet since they had gone to St Mungo's, not really saying anything or even making any of his usual noises. Although at any point that Renata attempted to set him down, he would start become teary-eyed and latch onto her and if she did manage to set him down, he followed her very closely.

She could feel it, Renata could feel Harry's fear coming off of him in waves as he didn't want to be left anyone or far from anyone. For a moment, she wondered what he feared but then she realised that he was probably panicking at the idea of his father being gone. His mother had suddenly disappeared when he was too young to understand the concept of death and now his father was gone and he didn't understand what was going on again.

It must have been incredibly difficult for him to process anything at the time, as he was just capable of understanding that people were just there one second and gone the next. And of course, as much as he liked Renata, it wasn't like he was entirely familiar with her as a person. Sure, he liked her, but she couldn't be his sole source of comfort as a stranger. She was just new and exciting.

"I'll tell you what, Harry," she said, picking him up and setting him on the counter, " you haven't eaten anything today, so how's about I fix you a late breakfast? It's always acceptable to eat breakfast foods throughout the day, today should be no exception."

He didn't seem to protest as he remained still on the counter and watched her as she pulled out her wand. Her wand seemed to intrigue him as he reached for it but Renata wasn't about to trust a toddler with a wand. Instead, she had him place his little hand on top of hers and move with her to gather what they needed. Finally, Harry cracked a grin and started laughing as she made some very dramatic arm movements for the sake of his entertainment.

And in mid-laughter, they heard a knock at the door, leaving Renata to pick Harry up and make her way to answer it. As she opened it, she recognised the man right away, the one from the park that Enzo didn't particularly care for.

"Hello!" she greeted him in a cheery tone. He seemed to be a bit apprehensive at first, looking around as if he was wondering if it was just her and Harry or should he be expecting someone else there. "It's just us."

Suddenly, a smile formed on his face as he greeted her in return. "Hello! It's good to see you again, conscious and less bloody!"

"Thank you," she replied, " I think. It's good to see you too. Listen, I was just about to fix breakfast for Harry, he hasn't eaten anything all day. How about you? Are you hungry?"

"Oh no, I couldn't bother you-"

"It's not bothering if I'm offering it," she explained. "Come on, I'm sure Harry will be thrilled to play with you while I cook."

Indeed, Renata was right as Sirius took Harry into the living room, and transformed into a dog to keep the boy entertained. She could hear them wrestling about, bringing her to smile every time she heard Harry squeal in laughter or every time she heard Sirius yip because Harry had managed to grab his tail.

When she did finish with the meal and fixed the plates, she found that Harry was content with a toy in his hand, resting against Sirius who was still in his dog form, wagging his tail. But as soon as he spotted her entering the room, he fell out of his form, but Harry didn't notice or either he didn't care as he continued to play with his squishy toy. Sirius sat up and looked over at Renata, looking slightly troubled as he met her gaze.

"Was it bad?" he asked her. "Was he that bad?"

The concern for his brother seemed extremely prominent in those moments as she set the plates down and made her way over to sit across from him.

"I don't know if he's been worse, " she answered, "I've only known him a short time. But Remus seemed concerned enough at the moment to think we should bring him to St Mungo's and they agreed as they wanted to keep him overnight for evaluation."

"Do you think they're going to keep him there? They wouldn't do that-"

"If it was for his own safety and benefit, they would consider it," Renata informed him. "He was in a very fragile state. He wasn't responding to his name, he didn't make any motion to acknowledge Remus, myself, or Harry. It was as if he was gone and we really had no other choice. But I think St Mungo's can help him or at least, get him on the right path to the help he needs."

Sirius ran his hand through his hair in a stressful manner, swallowing nervously as he shook his head from side to side for a few seconds. Eventually, he peered back up, this time with an even bigger frown on his face.

"If they keep him there, that means Harry is my responsibility. I am his godfather after all. Lily and James wanted him to be in my care if anything were to happen to them. I'll admit, I was flattered at the time and I was all for it. But that's because I fooled myself into believing that nothing would ever happen to them. I accepted it on the premise that I would never have to take that active role or be in that position. What an arse I turned out to be-"

"I don't think that's true," Renata said, " I don't think either one of them would have picked you if they didn't think you were good enough for it. They both obviously wanted what was best for their son, they assigned you during a time of war where they very well knew there was a possibility that something could happen to them. In fact, it was more likely and they knew that, but they still chose you."

"Well, they probably would have been better off picking someone like Remus," Sirius said, " he's always been more of the responsible one out of our group."

"I think that's the first time I heard one of you say something nice about the other," she said, " would you mind if I asked what happened between the two of you that led to the fact that I had to send you the owl?"

Renata assumed that she wasn't going to get an answer out of him, that he was going to politely tell her to mind her business over a matter that didn't concern her. But maybe she didn't understand that Sirius was looking for an outlet to confide in. After all, he wanted someone to hear his side of the story, someone new at least who could look at it all with an outside perspective.

"I can't give you all the details pertaining to it," he said, " some things just have to remain private for the safety of others. But you should know that what we all shared, James, myself, Remus, and even that bastard Peter, we all shared a brotherhood from the time we met in school. I had a brother, but we were never that close, not like I was with all of them. We looked out for each other, we cared about each other, we were a family. At least, so I thought... but then the war came."

He straightened himself up with a sigh, closing his eyes for a moment as if he was trying to prevent himself from crying.

"The war came and our brotherhood was put to the test. James and I survived it. James and Remus survived it. But the rest of us, we all had a falling out in a way. To understand, you must know that there were members of my family, the family I left behind that fought for Voldemort's side. They were Death Eaters, my cousin Bellatrix, even my own little brother, Regulus. And the lot of them all supported his ways. Well, at the time, information was being leaked to the other side and no one had a clue who was doing it. Remus looked at me and he didn't see his brother all of a sudden, he saw me as one of them."

Suddenly, the sadness vanished and he appeared angry, even Harry looking up from his toy as he heard a change in the tone of voice.

"He saw me like one of them, even though I had left them behind years ago. I was so angry, I'm still angry, but then I was angry and my judgement was clouded. I started to come up with reasons as to why he was the traitor. I decided if he was going to hurt me, I was going to hurt him. James tried to get us to stop pointing fingers at each other, he knew that neither one of us were capable of such treachery. The problem is, why we were all busy with that mess, it was Peter, our fourth brother, going behind all of backs!"

Renata opened her mouth, about to tell him to lower his voice a bit as she didn't want Harry to be startled but Sirius continued on.

"He knew what he was doing, he saw us all falling apart and yet, it was him all along. He betrayed all of us. He's responsible for the fallout, but even now, just knowing that it was Remus' first thought, I just can't get over that. Even knowing that it was Peter who has caused all this grief, he's responsible for Lily's death, he's the reason that James is like this...it enrages me, but still, I stress over that one factor that no matter what I've done, no matter who I've been to Remus and the others, he still saw me as the others of my family."

"I could see why that hurt you and why it still hurts you," Renata replied softly, "I would probably carry harsh feelings too. But for the sake of your friendship and brotherhood with James, do you think you and Remus could work towards something? Maybe you'll never be what you once were, but perhaps work towards a civil agreement? James is plagued by so much in his life, with the loss of Lily, and many others...but I think one of his greatest struggles too is seeing that he can't have both of his brothers around him at the same time."

"Well-"

"Especially during times like this. What if I hadn't been around, what would you two have done? How would you both have handled a situation if you cannot bring yourselves just to be civil enough in a conversation? I shouldn't have sent you that owl today, Remus should have. And James should feel comfortable calling upon both of you during a time of crisis. I know you both care for him and I know he cares for you. The war has caused so many problems and I understand that, but don't let them control you. Look at James, he is controlled and beaten by his own struggles and insecurities. You are plagued by accusations. Remus has taken to isolating himself."

She took a deep breath and looked at Harry, who looked over his shoulder and smiled at her. She smiled at him in return before it faded from her face once he looked away. She turned back to Sirius, who was waiting for her to continue.

"None of you are on the path to healing, you on the path of self-destruction and if you all destroy yourselves, who will Harry turn to?"