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Chapter 2 - The Solution

They never spoke of either of their problems with Remus or Peter - it didn't feel right to tell them - but by the end of Seventh year James had managed to find a potion that would instill mild paranoia in most people, though they figured in Sirius's case it would just make him a bit more cautious. It wasn't poisonous or addictive with prolonged usage either, instead causing latent paranoia, which Sirius pointed out might very well be a good thing. James just sighed and resigned himself to monthly brewing sessions in the basement with his brother for the remainder of their lives. Sirius on the other hand had managed to sneak back into the library of his childhood home on Grimmauld Place, finding and retrieving a book on bloodline theft. Since the process of Sirius getting Lily to conceive without actually touching her would be done by means similar to bloodline theft James could hardly disprove, though he was uncomfortable with the idea, as he had been raised to believe that bloodline theft was wrong and doing it to his brother doubly wrong, no matter how willing said brother was or the fact that it had been Sirius's idea in the first place. The book also detailed an adoption process that could pass both magical and goblin scrutiny, for House Black had of course tested and documented such things extensively in their rather murky past, which would allow James to take Lily's children as his own heirs rather than simply adopt them into the family. Sirius was adamant about not revealing anything to Lily, particularly after discovering that for the potion to work the man involved had to be capable of fathering children - he had hoped that with the potion James would be able to sire his own children, but despite the brilliance of Magic such a solution did not yet exist and neither man had the genius to invent it - but James had insisted. Had told her right after proposing in fact, so as to give her a chance to back out should she wish. Lily had been horrified by the knowledge, but soon her love, compassion, and thirst for knowledge had kicked in and she hugged her fiancé and demanded to be let in on their research. It had taken them a year to get everything right in between battles alongside the Order of the Phoenix, what with sorting out wills, custody, inheritance and so on as well as making sure the potion would work, but on the first of November a year after they graduated Lily drank the potion and a week later informed James and Sirius that they were going to be fathers. James did the blood adoption immediately: the ritual was a simple one often used in the middle ages to 'legitimise' children conceived through less than acceptable means. A proper paternity test would reveal Sirius Black to be the baby's father, but the child would look a bit like James and register to the goblins as a Potter as well as a Black. If the goblins got curious then James just had to point out that his mother was a Black. As James was the only Potter left, that would make the child his heir.