QLFC. Captain of the Wimbourne Wasps. Round 5 - The Mystery Boxes.
CAPTAIN: You must choose to write either the word prompt, setting prompt, or object prompt. I chose word prompt - School from the Hogwarts box.
Blackinnion!AU. In which instead of James and Lily getting the Heads positions, Marlene and Sirius get the badges.
The summer holidays were finally over, and the new seventh years were about to start their last year at Hogwarts.
Marlene was nervously waiting to find out who she would be partnered with in the headship. She hadn't been able to believe it when the school owl had arrived with the letter, telling her she'd been made Head Girl. She'd celebrated by doing a little dance around her bedroom. Her parents had told her they were proud of her; meanwhile, her little brother had taken this as an opportunity to tease her endlessly. Not that she particularly cared—Adam was an annoying little brat, so it was nothing she wasn't used to.
Finally, she was at King's Cross, on her way to Platform Nine and Three Quarters for her second to last time. She wouldn't be spending the Christmas holidays at home; she planned to stay at Hogwarts and study for her N.E.W.T's.
The letter had said that the Heads had a carriage to themselves at the front of the train, where they were to get to know each other better to be able to work as a cohesive unit. When Marlene pulled the door open, she came to a nasty surprise.
Sirius was spending the summer being a lazy git. As usual, he was with James at his parents' place. Both of them had completely forgotten about their Hogwarts letters, so when they arrived, Sirius was surprised to find that his was heavier than normal.
"What the hell?" said Sirius after reading his letter, a look of total incredulity marring his handsome features.
"What's up, Padfoot?" asked James, frowning at the face Sirius was pulling.
"I've been made Head Boy," said Sirius in a strangled whisper.
Upon hearing this, James fell about in hysterics. Sirius, Head Boy? The thought of it got funnier by the minute.
"Oh, shut up, you git! What the hell was Dumbledore thinking?" Sirius was in a state of total shock. Had Dumbledore forgotten that he, Sirius, had almost killed a student literally months before? He knew the Headmaster was all about second chances, but had he gone completely mental? Or, worse still, was this some sort of punishment? He was going to have to try and get a meeting with the Headmaster once term started to find out exactly why he would give the Head Boy position to someone as idiotic as himself.
Sirius' annoyance made James all the more raucous, so much so that both Mr and Mrs Potter came charging into their den to see what had gotten their son so hysterical. Silently, Sirius handed Mrs Potter his letter. The badge in his right hand felt like a dead weight.
"Well done, Sirius. I'm incredibly proud of you," said Mrs Potter, a huge smile on her face.
Mr Potter choked back a laugh; he could see James' point of view. He knew how lazy Sirius was, and how he liked to flaunt any rules or regulations. Finally, the funny side caught him and Mr Potter dissolved into laughter.
"That's it—don't mind me and my misery," said Sirius in a bitter tone.
That only caused James and Mr Potter to laugh all the harder.
"Come along, Sirius, dear, let's go to the kitchen and get a slice of pie to celebrate. These two can follow when they've calmed down."
After that day, Sirius refused to talk about the Head Boy badge until the night before they were packing up their trunks, ready to go to King's Cross in the morning.
"Prongs, do you think I can do this? I mean, be Head Boy?" asked Sirius nervously. He was biting his lip; he was that nervous.
James stared at his best friend for a moment, then decided to be tactful instead of being a complete ass.
"Sirius, you've got this, mate. Just means you'll have to be a good boy for a change," said James, a small smirk gracing his lips. "No more flaunting authority."
Sirius groaned.
"Sirius Orion Black, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be somewhere up the back of the train, being an annoying little gnome?" asked Marlene in vexation. The last thing she needed right now was Sirius annoying her. It was then that she noticed the shining badge pinned to the front of his robes. "YOU?"
"Me," said Sirius. He seemed less than pleased to find out that his co-head was Marlene McKinnon.
"How the fucking hell did you ever get the badge? What in Merlin's name was Dumbledore thinking? Is he fucking crazy?" fumed Marlene, her eyes narrowed and her arms crossed across her chest. "Are you doing this as a wind-up? Did you steal that badge from the real Head Boy? Because if I find out you have, I'm going to hex you into the middle of next week!"
Sirius sprang to his feet. He looked angry. It was at that moment that Marlene realised she'd messed up.
"I got the badge; Dumbledore picked me," said Sirius, poking himself in the chest with such voracity it must have hurt. "So, like me, you're going to have to live with it."
Marlene stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment. She'd never heard him this angry before. She glanced at the badge, took a deep breath and let it go before she spoke again.
"I'm sorry, Sirius, I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just..." she said, trailing off.
"No one is more shocked than me, okay? I can tell you that. I honestly thought this would go to Remus," said Sirius with venom in his voice, indicating to the badge. A moment later, the feeling of anger in Sirius' gut started to dissipate. Truth was, he didn't even know why he'd gotten so damn angry. After all, he felt that the badge on his chest was nothing more than a curse. Was there maybe some small part of him that was actually proud? He had absolutely no clue. He was just as confused as the day his letter had arrived.
"I'm sorry, can we start over?" asked Marlene hopefully. She needed to clear the air before they got to Hogwarts; she was determined to work as a team. After all, they would have to learn together, as well as oversee the Gryffindor first years for at least a week to begin with.
"I guess we'd better. We've got to go and give a talk to the Prefects shortly, haven't we?" asked Sirius. Already, he was feeling the burden of responsibility weighing down on him, and he really didn't like it.
They'd been back at Hogwarts for a month now. It had been a learning curve for both Marlene and Sirius. Well, when Sirius decided to show up, that is. Not to mention that he was grossly late most of the time he did show up, and full of what he knew were bullshit excuses. He'd been berated more than once by Professor McGonagall in the first two weeks over his tardiness. Not that it had done much good—he would still be late most of the time; however, he had dropped the usual excuses.
One evening, after Prefect rounds had finished, Lily came back to the Gryffindor tower only to find Sirius sitting on the sofa, staring into space.
"Sirius?" said Lily as she sat down beside him. "Is everything okay?"
"Oh, hey, Lils. How was rounds?"
"Not too bad. I caught Johnathan Green of Ravenclaw sneaking out of the kitchens with an arm full of cupcakes, but other than that, it was a slow and quiet night. So, what's up with you? In all the years I've known you, I've never known you to be this quiet and thoughtful," said Lily before giving him a small smile.
"I'm still questioning why Dumbledore gave me the position of Head Boy," sighed Sirius. "Why me? Of all people in our year, why did he pick the biggest fuck-up to be Head Boy?"
Lily cocked her head to the side and looked at Sirius.
"Oh, I think you do know, Sirius. Troublemaker you may have been, but there are people who look up to you. Also, Dumbledore has his reasons; he must of seen something in you. Otherwise, there'd be no way in hell you'd have gotten that badge," said Lily before rising and giving Sirius another small smile.
He watched Lily thoughtfully for a moment. Why hadn't he spoken to her before about this? As usual, Lily Evans, brilliant, smart, clever Lily Evans and her knack for seeing things other people couldn't. Had Dumbledore really seen something in him? Was that why he was chosen over the likes of Remus? Or even Steven Daley of Hufflepuff? He wasn't entirely sure what exactly it could have been that dear old Dumbledore could have seen, but right now, Sirius had no desire to let the old man down. At this moment, Sirius resolved to prove not only to Dumbledore, but to himself as well that he could do this. No more moaning and griping; this was a special privilege that was given to one person per year only, and, for whatever reasons, this privilege had been given to him. He wasn't about to go down in Hogwarts' history as the Head Boy who fucked it all up.
By the second month, they'd both cracked it. Sirius was now on time for meetings, and things had gotten a lot better between him and Marlene. Sirius could handle himself if any of the Prefects decided to get uppity towards him—especially the seventh year Slytherins—which would happen at nearly every meeting that had been called. Marlene was incredibly proud of the fact that he hadn't hexed either of them, so far.
"Y'know, Sirius, I'm actually really proud of the way you're handling this whole Head Boy business. How in Merlin's name have you refrained from cursing Snape and Greengrass?"
"To tell you the truth, Mar, I have absolutely no idea! You have no clue how much I want to pull my wand on Snape especially. I swear to Merlin, if he sneers at me like that one more time, I'm going to..."
"No, you bloody well won't," said Marlene, cutting him off. "You're going to rise above and set an example. Now, if you please, can you sort out the next date for the Hogsmeade visit whilst I draw up the new Prefect patrol rota?"
Sirius rolled his eyes, grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and got on with the job at hand. Slyly, he glanced at Marlene.
"Say, Mar, fancy coming to Hogsmeade with me?" Sirius asked.
Marlene's quill stopped moving and she looked up at him incredulously.
"No, thank you," she said. "Get on with what you're supposed to be doing."
"Holy Circe, Marls, I was joking."
Dropping his head, he got on with creating the flyer for the next Hogsmeade visit on Halloween. Once he was done, he quickly duplicated it a few times so it could be pinned to the Common Room notice boards.
"Right, are you ready to go on patrol?" asked Marlene twenty minutes later.
"As I'll ever be," replied Sirius. He was beginning to wonder if Dumbledore would let him resign his position. He was missing spending time with James, Remus and Peter. They hadn't pulled a prank as of yet, which he was itching to start planning.
Though, he did have to laugh at the amount of couples he'd busted whilst on patrol and caught them in the middle of a heavy make out session. He'd quite enjoyed seeing them turn beet red whilst stuttering apologies and promises that it would never happen again. In most cases, he would let it go and wave them on, unless they happened to be Slytherins; if they were Slytherins, he would make them do lines just to annoy them, and he hoped that Marlene didn't find out about it. Otherwise, he would get a lecture about abuse of power. Not that the Slytherin Prefects were much better; quite often, he'd get complaints from the other houses, saying that they seemed to be targeting Gryffindors the most.
So, at the next Prefect meeting, Sirius brought the subject up.
"From what I hear, Black, you aren't much better," said Snape.
"What's that supposed to mean, Snivellus?"
"Oh, I've heard all about you giving any Slytherins lines if they're out after curfew, but then letting any other house go on their merry way as if they've done nothing wrong," replied Snape, a smirk gracing his sallow features.
"Sirius, is this true?" barked Marlene. She was keeping her fingers crossed that Snape was stirring the cauldron again, and that Sirius hadn't actually been doing that.
"Of course I haven't!" lied Sirius. He tried to hold Marlene's gaze and not give his stupid self away.
Marlene seemed to scrutinize him for the longest time before accepting what Sirius had said. She took it with a rather large pinch of salt, but she couldn't tell if he was lying or not.
"In the future, I must reiterate, any student caught out of their Common Rooms after curfew must be brought to the Heads' office and given lines. You all know the rules," snapped Marlene, her patience at an all time low. "Dismissed, all of you."
Only after everyone but herself and Sirius had gone did Marlene speak again.
"Sirius, I really hope you were telling me the truth just now. I'm hoping you didn't lie to save your own skin; otherwise, I'm going to be very disappointed."
"I promise you, Marls, I'm not lying. Snape just has it in for me," said Sirius smoothly, a grin covering his face.
"Okay, come on, it's time we got back to the Common Room. I still have my Charms homework to do," said Marlene before a sudden cough exploded out of her.
It was the week before Christmas, and both Heads were supposed to be helping to supervise the decoration of the castle. Only problem was, Marlene was down with a very bad bout of flu that was keeping her in the Hospital Wing. So, Sirius was running himself ragged, trying to keep on top of all the paperwork, the Prefects, patrols and supervision of the first years. The worst bit, though, was trying to get Peeves to stop throwing stink pellets at people passing by. In the end, Sirius had to call in Professor McGonagall to help to stop the retched poltergeist from stinking up the place—as funny as Sirius had found it.
Marlene was discharged from the Hospital Wing the day before the Christmas holidays were due to begin. Instead of heading straight to the Common Room, she headed to the Heads' office instead. When she walked in, she found Sirius passed out on a desk, snoring his head off. She stopped a moment to observe him. His head was on his right arm, his left curled towards his chest. He was slumped forward in his seat, and Marlene could only imagine the pain his back would be in when she woke him up.
"Sirius? Sirius?" said Marlene as she shook him gently.
"Hm?"
"Sirius, wake up. You've fallen asleep in the Heads' office," said Marlene.
A moment later, Sirius was awake and running his fingers through his hair, trying to push it off his forehead before glancing at his co-head.
"Oh, hey, Marls, good to see you right side up," said Sirius as he stretched and yawned.
"Have things been that bad?" asked Marlene with a guilty tone.
"It's been busy without you, that's for sure. But I've got everything done. The new patrol rota is done, I've made the new flyer for Hogsmeade at the end of January, everything, Marls," said Sirius with a tired but accomplished grin.
"Well I've got to say, Sirius, you've truly surprised me. I think Dumbledore knew what he was doing when he gave you that badge. This has been the making of you, Sirius," said Marlene in a heartfelt tone he'd never heard before.
Sirius felt tears sting the corner of his eyes, and a slight blush creep across his cheeks. Maybe the old man did know what he was doing, after all.