A/N: Hey guys! It's been a long time since I've uploaded anything on this site, but that's all changing! I've decided to go back and do revisions on this story, and honestly, I think it's so much better. So I hope some of you enjoy reading it for the first time, while others can enjoy revisiting it! Love you! And please REVIEW!
He was the young teacher at the school. In a school where both physically and mentally mature men were in short supply, he served as a viable center of many young ladies' fantasies. It wasn't his mannerisms, in particular, that attracted the hormonal masses, but rather his aloof attitude. Girls would go out of their way just to receive a single glance or approving mark from the frigid professor who they desired so much
But alas, it was all to no avail. Sirius Black had crossed many lines in his life but having a relationship with a student was one he knew he would never cross. He went out of his way not to be alone with female students or even stand too closely to them. If they inquired about anything other than the subject he taught he would quickly tell them that it was 'nothing that concerns them'. His intentions were admirable, but could come off as cold and disconnected, something that only drove the female population to him more. They each wanted to be the one lucky woman who would warm his heart of stone.
However, their concerns meant very little to Sirius. After such a long period of turmoil, he was finally finding himself falling back into a sense of normalcy. At thirty-five Sirius was the youngest teacher that had ever taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The position of Charms Teacher was highly coveted, and Sirius took pride in knowing that he truly was the best man for the job. Charms fit him well; not to stuffy and with just the right amount of fun.
Sirius sat in his classroom, silently pondering about all the events that had taken place that day. In his three years of teaching, he had never experienced an October this hot. He roughly undid his tie, and threw it on the desk, with a mixture of frustration and exasperation. Today had been bloody awful. They were going over the disarming charm, also known as Harry Potter's signature. After one student had pointed this out, an array of questions concerning Harry and the war were thrown upon him, forcing him to think about events that he would rather keep in the past.
It wasn't their fault really. It had been a war fought by their fathers. Many of them were too young to even remember. None of them had ever felt the fear that Voldemort inspired, or the crushing terror of being in battle. He had ended up dismissing the class early due to sheer irritation. The combination of unpleasant memories and the heat was enough to drive him insane. He quickly got to his feet, and opened the nearest window, feeling satisfied as a cool breeze blew across his face.
A breeze like that always brought Sirius back to his own days at Hogwarts. Things had been so much simpler back then. He had spent countless days just lounging around or goofing off, without any thoughts of evil or bitterness in his mind. He used to stroll along the lake, carefree, with whatever love interest he had that week. Everything was good, and in excess. Now, love was such a foreign concept to him.
The feeling passed and Sirius felt sick. He couldn't remain in the past. That's one of the reasons he had taken the job. He had to move on with his life. He had survived one war, a long stay in prison, come back from so-called death, and then survive another war. Then why couldn't he move on?
It felt as if he was in a constant state of stasis, where he was neither up nor down, but always just level. The love he used to feel always put him in a sort of high, something that he barely remembered. At thirty-five he thought he would be happily married or at least in love. But he and love had never seemed to cross each other's paths. But really it was for the better. He had wounds that could never be healed. What kind of person could live with him, live with his past?
"I want it." A female voice disturbed Sirius out of his thought process. He looked up startled to see a student that he vaguely recognized. In his regular state he would be able to tell you her name, but the heat seemed to cloud his mind and send him into and almost drunken state.
"Wha…What?" he sputtered on words still staring miraculously at this girl. She was very attractive he mused. But he quickly pushed the thought to the back of his mind. Students were not attractive. They were children.
"The internship; I want the internship." Her words were said slowly and articulately as if she were talking to someone who was particularly slow. And frankly she might as well have been. Her words were became muddled in his mind, and it took him several moments before he could even make the simplest sense out of them.
His first instinct was to be relieved. For the briefest of moments, he thought that he had been speaking aloud, and that this beautiful young student was simply answering his question. If the sheer embarrassment was not enough to send shivers down his spine, the thought of her responding in that manner did. She let out a curt cough, which suddenly snapped him out of that train of thought. He pushed it to the back of his mind quickly. It was all too dangerous to think about, even in the hypothetical sense.
"Right, right, the internship." Sirius shuffled papers around his desk, trying to make it look like he had been in the middle of actual work. It wasn't exactly a necessary precaution, but for some reason he did not want this haughty student looking down upon him. "I know I have the form here somewhere."
"No need." She pulled a crisp neat piece of paper from the bag she was clutching. He gave it a quick look over. The name immediately clicked into his head and for a minute he felt embarrassed for initially forgetting it.
"Yes, of course. Viola Davis. I suppose your parents were fans of Shakespeare." He was almost shocked at himself, when he sent out this slight pleasantry, but his shock turned into indignation when he saw he scowl in response.
"Very original." Her words came out as harsh and Sirius was a little taken aback. He didn't think he had ever heard this girl say two words before in his life, and here she was smarting back to him. He was the adult in the situation, and yet she made him feel as if he was a child who had been caught saying a curse word. Her unexpected appearance was beginning to drive the final nail in the coffin that was this terrible day. Pushing back his instinct to respond back, he glanced down at her paper again.
"You're only seventeen?" The phrase sounded much more condescending than he had intended, but he found that he was having a hard regretting it, after the way that she had spoken to him earlier. "You are aware that this internship was created with graduated students in mind? Last year's recipient was nineteen."
"Well, the application said that seventeen was the cut off age, and that graduation was not required. Was it wrong?" She said, crossing her arms across her chest in a defensive stance.
His irritation towards the girl grew even larger by the second. Her attitude held much to be desired, and she spoke to him as if she were the one in control. But then there was something else, something that he found himself doing unconsciously. No matter her attitude, he was the professor, and he was still very much in control. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to reprimand her. It was both very odd and terrifying. He tried to forget this fact, and forge on with the conversation as if nothing was off.
"No, no of course the application was right. I was just wondering why someone so young would want to take on such a large responsibility." He was finding it harder and harder to push her appearance to the back of his mind. She was beautiful. Her long dark hair fell loosely along her back at a slight wave. A glow surrounded her soft tan skin. He hadn't seen a woman that beautiful in a while. But she wasn't actually a woman, she was a student; maybe not a child as he had originally assumed, but still very much off limits.
"You do know what the internship requires right? You will be limiting yourself to this subject only. I'm assuming that because you did turn in an application that you are passing all of your classes." She nodded "You'll live in the same common room with me. You'll go through intense training, and spend your whole summer with me alone in a castle studying charms. I just don't see why someone so young would rather be doing that than hang out with their friends and be carefree while they have the chance."
"I'm not that young, and I have a long history of showing great responsibility. I'm a prefect, I've always gotten O's in all of my classes. As you can see, my teacher recommendations are top notch. And if I can say one thing for certain, I know that Charms is the only subject I ever want to study." Her determined look was too much for him, so instead of meeting her gaze, her continued to pursue her application. She was just to much, too young. Something in her gaze reminded him so much of the life that he once had, of the life he could never have again. He almost wandered off into his memories again when he heard her muttering slightly. "Not that you would even care."
"Excuse me?" Finally his voice got it's authoritative tone back, however he couldn't revel in that fact long, because the determined look on her face did not change.
"I don't mean to be disrespectful, or overly personal." He saw the sincerity in her eyes, but refused to believe it. So far, how had this girl not been disrespectful? "But it is a well known fact that you favor the boys of the girls." Sirius sputtered for a moment lost for words before it dawned on Viola what she might have said. "No, no, no, no! That wasn't what I meant at all! I was just saying that you're a bit sexist not that you swing the other way or anything. And now I just admitted to accusing you of being gay. This interview is just going very well isn't it?"
She shifted uncomfortably clutching her bag in a sign of distress. Sirius sat in his chair stunned. In the span of a minute he had been called gay, sexist, and made a previously ballsy seventeen year old student very uncomfortable. She stood there for a moment before lightly nodding her head and walked backwards. "Yeah, I think I'll go before I hurt my chances of getting the internship anymore than I already have." She turned on her heels and semi-sprinted towards the door.
This had all happened so fast. Sirius barely had time to register what had just happened. A beautiful woman, no a student, had just come into his classroom, spoke down to him, and then accused him of being a sexist. But that just couldn't be true. He respected women. Well, he had never gone out of his way to put females down. But he didn't rise them up, either. All those small moments that he deliberately avoided the female population came flooding back to him. If anything he was curious. Could there be something about himself that he himself had not noticed?
"How so?" he exclaimed in a voice just loud enough for her to hear. For a split second, he almost didn't want her to hear, but alas she froze in her tracks. Not turning around, she reluctantly spoke.
"Do you want me to be completely honest?"
"I wouldn't have it any other way. If I do indeed choose you for this internship, I need to trust you. I would expect you to be honest about everything, and that rule extends to now." He said, using the most authoritative voice her could muster. She visibly winced, but still turned around and walked back to his desk.
"Ok. You don't look at us or touch us. When we ask questions you dismiss us as if we were not worth your time. But if a boy asks a question about anything, relative to the subject of discussion or not, your give them a pat on the back a praise them. If you see a group of girls in the corridor you make sure to go the opposite way or duck into a classroom so you think they don't see you, but they do." A bead of sweat dripped from her forehead, created by either the heat or her exasperation, but Sirius was too preoccupied to notice.
This girl had no idea what she was speaking about. She couldn't possibly understand his motives for doing such a thing, and even if she did, she greatly extravagated everything. It was true that he was known to skirt around the female population some, but he had always been very subtle, and before now, he even doubted that anyone noticed at all. He couldn't tell her this, though, that would be highly inappropriate. Instead he pulled on logic to help him.
"And what proof do you have of this? I must admit that I sometimes favor the boys but that's what happens with teachers who are men. I'm sure the girls get favored by the female teachers." She cocked an eyebrow and he knew he wasn't getting anywhere with that approach so he quickly changed course. "If you are so sure of yourself give me an example for me acting that way." He thought he really had her there. She could talk the talk but could she walk the walk. She put on a half smirk as if this is what she had been waiting to do this whole time.
"You've only picked one girl this entire year to answer a question in class and that was only after she got her hair chopped off and looked like a boy. When you realized your mistake you made her sit in the back of the room for the rest of the year so that you wouldn't make the same mistake twice." Sirius cringed. He remembered that girl and now regretted ever even looking her way. "And when you teach you tend to look at the back rose because those are the ones filled by the boys. But the main point is that you disregard us and I know that probably hurts my chances of getting this internship, but I want this more than I've wanted anything in my life. And I've worked harder than all the boys in this year. I deserve this." And with that she turned on her heal and left the classroom at a quick pace. Sirius put his face in his hands in exhaustion. Today was really turning out to be a bad day, he decided.