Without Another Choice- Sirius Black

Intro

AUTHORS NOTE: SHE IS NOT TALKING ABOUT SUICIDE, SO IF THAT WAS WHAT IT SOUNDED LIKE, IM SO SORRY

America Potter had always known she would die young.

    Oh, not as a child. Young America had never had cause to ponder her own mortality. Her early years had been a young girl's perfection, right from the very day of her and James, her twin brother's birth.

   It was true that America was the heiress to an ancient and wealthy line of blood purity, but unlike most other aristocratic couples, Fleamont and Eumphamia Potter were very much in love, and they saw their children's birth not as the arrival of an heir, but rather that of a child.

    And so there were no parties, no fetes, no celebration other than that of mother and father staring in wonderment at their new baby twins.

    It was no secret that the Potters were young parents—Fleamont barely twenty and nineteen— Eumphamia falling pregnant a few months before the wedding, just weeks after they graduated from Hogwarts, much like her husband's parents who also got pregnant at nineteen, and produced their twins, America Luísa Potter, and James Fleamont Potter.

    But the pair was sensible, and they were strong, and they loved their kids with a fierceness and devotion that was rarely seen in their social circles. Much to her own mother's horror, Euphemia insisted upon nursing the twins herself, and Fleamont never subscribed to the prevailing attitude that fathers should neither see nor hear their children. He took the infants on long hikes across the fields, spoke to them of philosophy and poetry before James could possibly understand the words, and told them a bedtime story every night.

    They walked across fields and streams, and he told them of wondrous things, of perfect flowers and clear blue skies, of knights in shining armour and damsels in distress. Euphemia used to laugh when they returned all windblown and sun-kissed, and James would say,

    "See? Here is our damsel in distress. Clearly, we need to save her." And he then would throw himself into his mother's arms, giggling as he swore, he'd protect her from the fire-breathing dragon they'd seen just two miles down the road in the village.

    "Two miles down the road in the village?" Euphemia would breathe, keeping her voice carefully laden with horror. "Heaven above, what would I do without three strong soldiers to protect me?"

    "America's a girl," James would reply.

    America would cross her arms and narrowed her eyes at James. "James, women are not in need of your saving," she told him smoothly, her eyes narrowing while her Grandpa Henry watched in delight. "We are perfectly capable by ourselves." She glared at him. "And I can be a soldier too if I want to. I would make a much better one than you, that's for certain."

    Henry would grin and agree. "You might not have a sword right now, America, but your spirit is bigger than any man's."

    Henry Potter was the real hero to America's story. Henry was, quite simply, the very centre of America's world. He was tall, his shoulders were broad, and he could ride a horse as if he'd been born in the saddle. He always knew the answers to arithmetic questions (even when the tutor didn't), he saw no reason why his grandchildren should not have a treehouse (and then he went and built it himself), and his laugh was the sort that warmed a body from the inside out.

    Henry taught America how to ride a horse and a broom. He taught America how to read, write, decipher meanings in poems. He taught her to swim, hold her breath for seven minutes. He introduced her to poetry and literature, to languages and history, to math and potions, to Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts.