An idea Lady Red had a while ago because she loves the movie so much.

Disclaimer; Lady Red does not own the text of The History Boys, nor the character ideas and personas.


Yorkshire, England, 1983


"Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye!" Sting Eucliffe mouthed the words to the song that thrummed through his headset, smiling brightly to the young children who were playing in the street. The walkman and tape heavy on his hip as he straddled the bicycle, and pushed himself off from the pavement beside his grandparent's house as he lifted a hand to wave to his grandmother in the front garden, the flowers perfect under her care, "Cheer-io, here I go on my way," The slight boy was oblivious to the world, to the birds overhead who sang, as he cycled along the main road fifty feet in front of the bus that travelled into town every half-chime, his head completely taken with the sweet voice of Gracie Fields, "Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye!" The blonde child made sure to nod his head towards the old woman making her way along the curving slope towards the shops, his own target the Catholic church, "Not a tear but a cheer, make it gay!" For a moment, Sting was unable to resist lifting his feet from the peddles as he rounded a corner, the bristle wind on his face leaving his skin cold with a sense of forlorn freedom, "Give me a smile I can keep for a while-" checking over his shoulder, Sting let the bicycle carry him across the road, hurriedly passing through on to the pavement, "In my heart while I'm away," As he stepped from the bicycle, his soft brown shoes dusting against the footpath, Sting slipped his fingers beneath the thin bars and carried it to sit against the old stone wall that guarded the Catholic church, "'Til we meet once again, you and I. Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye!" As he settled against the wall of the church grounds, Sting let his tongue press between his lips, eyes observing the houses that faced him with an odd sense of trepidation.

Within the church, a bald priest with a green stole spoke Mass to three people; an old woman; a middle-aged man; and a teenaged boy, all heads bowed and silence prevailing over the silence that overcame the street outside, "The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep in you hearts and minds," the man's crisp voice sounded through the church, his body swaying to speak to those who had chosen to attend Mass that fateful August morning, fully aware of just how many were missing, "In the knowledge and love of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord," at his pew the young lad lifted his clasped hands to his cherry lips and rubbed at the dry skin before letting his eyes glance upwards, the fingers untangling to cover his eyes in prayer, "And the blessing of God Almighty." The priest rose his hand, letting it fall controllably to the sign of the Cross, "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be upon you and remain with you this day and always." As his Mass came to a finish there was some exhaustion in the clergyman's voice, "Amen."

Sting turned as he heard the heavy doors close, and as he had done so he had removed the headset and leant lightly on the hot stone on which he had sat, "Will that do the trick, do you think?" The tenor of a voice had been almost worried as he had addressed the black-haired boy, a smart business man rushing past him on the footpath.

Rouge chose to turn and lift his yellow bicycle, voice deep as he carried it up the steps towards the road, "We're about to find out." With that being said, the two steady-fast friends made their way towards the school, mindlessly cycling along the middle of the wide road as only they could on the empty August day, blissfully ignorant to the woes of others, "Gray!" Rouge's voice was clear as they approached the back of the milk van, a raven haired boy stepping down enshrouded in a white smock, sighing as they other two dismounted, "Ready?"

Gray hovered on the edge of the van, feet almost falling from the ledge, hands in his pockets as he, for a second, observed Rouge, "Ready." The voice was light, but with the air of giving up more than hope.

"Mum, please," Ren whined with a hand placed on an elder woman's arm as young children ran about them. Reaching out a tan arm in the August damp Ren held up a single finger towards his friends before they had the chance to abandon him, "Lads, wait," Gray compiled with his friend's wish before both Rouge and Sting stopped closer to the gates, "Just get in the car, mum," Ren pleaded with the pudgy woman who was already reopening the car door with a look to her husband on the other side. "I'll be back in five minutes." Approaching the others, feet shuffled over the dry asphalt quickly, Ren stood momentarily as the four stared at one another, his chest heaving with a sigh.

Rouge let out a small chuckle, his deep voice hitting their ears even before the twitch of his head towards the school set their motion, "Let's get it over with."

"Aah-ah!" A blonde woman said as she made her way from the secretaries office, her purple manicured fingers pinching a crisp white sheet of results. 'Lucy, Lucy! Read it out!' Called the boys who flocked after her, each of them waiting for her to pin it to the deep blue noticeboard, all of the young men gathering at her back. 'Let us see!' One howled before she raised a brow and placed her finger at the first name on the list, one the brass thumbtacks were pushed into the cork notice, "Read out from the top." she instructed before one impatient lad called 'Just read it out!'.

"Three A's! I got three A's!" Sting turned towards his friends, Rouge clutching him before moving forward though Sting's voice could still be heard, "Three A's!"

"Jellal, what did you get, man?" Ren's lilting tones called through the crowd to another, answer lost in the crowd.

"Full house!" The blue haired man screamed as he jumped into the other's arms.

"Three A's! Three A's!" Gajeel called with a hoarse voice, a laugh somewhere in the mix as his hands squeezed Elfman's face between their palms, shaking the other's head back and forth. When released, Elfman moved closer to the paper that Lucy seemed intent on forcing flat despite protest.

"Told you you would!" Gray called with a whoop to Gajeel as the man kept screeching his 'Full house!', the raven haired boy pointing at the other as he spoke.

"Hey, what did you get?" Gajeel called with a jeer as Elfman approached the top of the step, the other's having fallen - or been pushed - down it in their joy, Jellal leaning over Gajeel's shoulder and the other's moving closer to listen.

"Er-um," Elfman stuttered at the top of the stairs, his foot falling down one as he spoke, "A and two B's." Immediately Elfman was dragged down in a swarm of hands to a cheering group of friends of spoke over one another and thumped each other on the back.

Sting was the only one to turn from the group, his head, and body, tilting as his face lit with joy, "Hey, it's Dragneel."

"Naaaatttss!" Called the group, Gray's light voice quipping through at the depressed look Natsu was putting into his swaggering step, "Nat, what happened?" As soon as the words passed the other's mouth, Natsu's hands rose from the leather pockets as he clenched them in a cheer.

Rouge's brow dipped for a moment as his thumb jerked up the stairs to the mass of lads looking for their results, "Are you not gonna look?"

"I got mine last night," Natsu's smooth voice spoke over the quiet group, and when they all turned to where his head led, Lucy turned as though she had heard her name. A bright smile lifting her cheeks as she saw Natsu before she disappeared into the masses on her way back to her office.

"I bet you did," Rouge laughed as an 'oooh' passed through the group.

"You jammy sod!" Gajeel laughed as he pushed Natsu, his mass moving as he leant on the other's arm.

"Fullbuster!" Was called over the crowd, silence prevailing for a moment as they watched the balding Headmaster edge along the wall with a stern expression on his face.

"Makarov," Ren mumbled into Gajeel's shoulder, the group watching as Gray shifted his shoulder and pulled at the cuffs on his smock.

As the Headmaster moved closer, "Fullbuster." fell sternly and with a whine from the old man's lips, Gray let the smile fall from his face as he looked up the steps to the old, and balding man in a heavily starched suit.

"Sir." Gray addressed, head proud from the straight blue collar of his white milkman's coat. Some confusion was passed from his lips, but nothing more was said as Rouge settled at his shoulder with curiosity and the other's huddled closer.

For a moment Headmaster Dreyar stood, eyes appraising the boy before his moustached lip curled as he spoke, "Why are you dressed as a milkman?"

Gray was quick to look down at his attire, hands moving from his pockets to straighten the lapels of the overcoat. "Working, Sir," Dark blue eyes raised to look at the stern Headmaster, shoulders pushing back as he explained, "For the 'olidays."

"As a milkman?" The Headmaster asked incredulously, Gray's mouth opening slightly as he looked away abashedly from the old man. "After the holidays, you'll be coming back to try for Oxford and Cambridge," The Headmaster's head tilted forward as he explained in a lisping voice, the boys in front of him taken aback by the statement. "Your A-level results are the best we've ever had," Jellal shifted at the back of the group, sharing a look with Sting as the old man prattled on, "And they demand that you return for an extra term to work for the examination to our ancient universities." No expression showed on the old man's face as he switched his gaze from child to child, "One more term, boys," Despite his never changing face, there was something akin to pride in the Headmaster's eyes as he breathed deeply, "One more push." As the next words left his mouth, Headmaster Dreyar's fingers played a tune against his thigh, "In the meantime, try and do something-" For a moment, Dreyar's eyes rested on Gray with contempt, "-Fitting."

"I'm in a bookshop, Sir." Sting immediately offered, his fingers caught on the wires of his headset.

"Good, good." Dreyar's head nodded as a false smile twisted his moustache, betraying just how little he cared.

"I'm on the bins, Sir." Jellal said as his body rocked side to side, his body turned so he was looking to Dreyar with a side-eye.

"I'm a bouncer, Sir." Gajeel followed with, his arms bending as he called the words proudly.

"Lavatory attendant, Sir." Ren said before Dreyar's head twitched and the Headmaster turned to walk away.

"Gigolo, Sir." Natsu called, the other's sniggering at the word when the Headmaster turned to glare before pushing his way through those still looking for results.

"Congratulations, my boys!" Porlyusica called as she walked forward from a classroom, her pale cotton cardigan swirling around her.

"Miss Greentrees!" The group called, Porlyusica's hands entangling with Natsu's as they held them in the air with a cheer.

"Three A's! Three A's!" Gajeel called with a grin as Jellal hugged the woman tight and Natsu slipped an arm around her waist as he brought her into the group. As the group once more turned towards the stairs, their cheers once more roused when they saw the heavy man who stood at the top with open arms.

"So, we shall be meeting again after all." Bob leant forward, his nose wrinkling under his glasses as he spoke to his onlookers.

"Yes, Sir." The boys answered, Porlyusica's hands resting on Sting and Elfman's shoulders.

"At school you don't get parole," Bob twittered, his clean voice laughing as his round face reddened. "Good behaviour just brings a longer sentence." With a sympathetic twitch of his head, Bob continued to laugh, "Ah, you poor boys."

"See you next term, Sir!" Gajeel called with an arm in the air, the group sweeping him away as they moved to the doors that lead them to the August heat.

Ren turned once to call out, "Thank you, Miss!"

"'The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,'" Bob looked down to Porlyusica as she stood beside him to watch their boys run down the hall, "'What perils past, what crosses to ensue,'" For a moment, Bob stopped to breathe '"Would shut the book and sit him down and die.'" Porlyusica looked up to Bob as he finished the mourning words, their eyes meeting as he spoke his own words. "Congratulations, Porlyusica. You must be very pleased." The two bowed heads at one another, Bob's heavy chin wrinkling as he smiled.


On the first day of term, Monday the third of September, the eight Oxbridge candidates arrived at school amongst the masses wearing their black suits, white shirts, and black, white, and blue ties. Many of the children were conversing with teachers, and when Bob entered the school on his motorbike the Oxbridge boys chased him as he called "Morning!" to them, Gajeel pretending to worship him as he passed.

When the eight boys settled in Porlyusica's history classroom they shuffled through their books and pens as she spoke, "You are entitled, though only for five minutes, Dragneel," Natsu rose his head as his hands stopped moving, looking to Rouge with mild offense, the other boy removing his long coat with a snort, "To feel pleased with yourselves. No one has done as well." Porylusica opened her leather bag, wrinkled hands moving to find articles within the satchel, "Not in English, not in science," For a moment her voice was loud as she spoke, then became muffled when she looked down to remove a folder, "Not even, dare I say it," The woman's red eyes settled on Sting as her pink hair swished, "In media studies." Porlyusica ran her patterned nails over the nametag on the cardboard folder, "And you alone are up for Oxford and Cambridge," With this the woman settled down in her hardback chair, hair brushing against the blackboard, "So, to work." As she looked out the boy still shuffled about their work items - magazines, file blocks, pens, and pencil cases, "First essay this term will be the Church on the eve of the Reformation."

Gajeel scoffed as he lounged in his chair, moving forward as he spoke with a scowl, "Not again, Miss."

"This is Oxford and Cambridge!" Porlyusica called with a loud voice, moving forward to look passed Sting at the boy who sat behind him, "You don't just need to know it, you need to know it backwards, Redfox." Porylusica looked about the boys as she moved a wooden block on the table with ease, to lift the pencil behind it, "Facts, facts, facts." With this being said her boys lifted the first page of the file block to write upon, a sigh shivering through them.

Later that day, the Headmaster sat across from Porlyusica and spoke with a wrinkled brow. "They're clever, but they're crass," As he spoke these words, Porylusica observed him in a very unimpressed manner, looking down at him as much as she dared to, "And were it Bristol or York, I'd have no worries." Dreyar looked away and frowned with a peeling lip as he sneered the words, "But Oxford and Cambridge?" When the words left his mouth it seemed as though the man shivered with joy, happy that such at thing had happened at his inconsequential school, "We need a strategy, Porlyusica," Dreyar leant towards the woman, his eyebrows rising and falling as he spoke in his low tones with wide eyes, "A game plan."

Porylusica was quiet for a moment, eyes dull as she responded, "They know their stuff."

"But they lack flair!" Dreyar called in a high tone, Porylusica's eyes narrowing, "Culture they can get from Hector." Something in the man's tone hinted that such a thing was not what he wanted, shoulder's curving in, "Eeuh, the history from you, but-" Dreyar sighed as his eyes rose to the school shield in the corner of the room, "I'm thinking aloud now." There was sadness to the tone, almost a sense of denial as the thoughts of failure filled him, "Is there something else?" Porylusica's brows rose as Dreyar's attention was called away to the skirted rump of Lucy as she entered his office with a small package of paper, "Think charm, think polish. Think-" Dreyar stopped speaking for a moment to watch Lucy leave the room, Porylusica's sight following after him with surprise and disgust, "Renaissance man." As Dreyar lifted the papers Lucy had left him his whole face contorted into something ugly as he leered with a side-eye at the door, "Leave it with me, Porlyusica, leave it with me."

"Yes, Headmaster." Porlyusica said as she made her way quickly to the door, as though it were an undesirable place she was in.

A large, bulked man stood in the door in a maroon tracksuit his arms folded after having knocked on the architrave, "Clive." Dreyar put the paper down, his small fingers still clutching, "Ah, yes." Letting the paper fall completely, Dreyar moved from his table with finesse and approached the teacher with a heavy brow, "An innovation to the timetable." Gildarts rose a brow, looking into the beady eyes of the Headmaster, "P.E."

"Yes, Headmaster." Gildart's head moved to the side, the Headmaster's breath repulsive. The man did not understand what the Headmaster wished, as physical education was already on the timetable, but it was his duty to respond.

"For the Oxbridge set." Dreyar let his lips curl as the other narrowed his eyes, "'Surely not', you say." Dreyar leant closer to the other, sneering, "But why not?" Dreyar moved his hands and head wildly as he spoke, his moustache quivering as he whispered, "This is the biggest hurdle of their lives and I want them-" Dreyar's voice became gritty as he placed his hand on the doorknob to the hall, lips pursed as he thought, "Galvanized."

"Galvanized." Gildarts nodded his head, a smile on his face, "Yes, Headmaster." He quipped as the Headmaster opened the door to let him leave. Before following after him, Dreyar let his eyes linger on Lucy in the adjoining office until she looked away uncomfortably.


Bob walked about the room of nine desks, arranged in three rows of three, with a grim look settled on his face, voice slow as he gripped the tightly rolled magazine in his hands, "In the timetable, our esteemed Headmaster has given these periods the dubious title of 'general studies'," Bob let go of the roll at one end and widened his arms as he stopped to look at the pupils who still faced the front of the room, "I will let you into a little secret, boys," A satisfied smile filled his chubby face as his voice lowered. "There is no such thing as general studies." Beside the man Gray lowered his head marginally and looked across the aisle at Jellal, the boy twirling a pen above his page, "General studies is a waste of time." With his face plain once more Bob moved forward, Jellal glancing up as the teacher walked passed, "Knowledge is not general, it is specific!" Each syllable was pronounced as Bob leant momentarily in the face of Elfman as he passed, "And nothing to do with getting on," His voice was light as he passed Sting's desk, the paper lightly tapping the table as he moved towards the front of the room where all his posters were stuck, "But remember, open quotation marks," A happy smile passed his lips as his hands twirled beside him when he had stopped at the front of the room and turned, "'All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use', close quotation marks." Bob leant over the front of the desk Ren shared with Sting, looking the boy in the eyes, "Who said, Akatsuki?" Ren brought his hand to his lips and mumbled, fingers rising to touch the pencil behind his ear. "Redfox? Fullbuster; Dragneel?" Bob sighed as he moved through the desks, arms by his side as all the pupils murmured amongst one another, "'Loveliest of trees, the cherry now-'"

"A Housman, Sir." Gajeel called as the class called their assent to the recognition of the words, Natsu raised his hands to fix his blazer as Rouge fell back in his seat beside him.

"'AE Housman', Sir." Bob said as he stopped and turned behind Gajeel where he sat sharing a desk with Gray.

"Wasn't he a nancy, Sir?" Gajeel asked whilst looking up at the mass of a teacher before him.

"Foul, festering, grubby-minded little trollop." Bob thumped the roll of paper against Gajeel's head in reprimand, "Do not use that word."

Gray poked Gajeel in his side as the other turned to laugh up at their favourite teacher, "But you use it, Sir!"

"I do, Sir, I know." Bob's head bobbed as though he were a pigeon, the words fast on his tongue, "But I am far gone in age and decrepitude," Both lips pressed against one another as he looked at Gajeel over his glasses.

Natsu looked up at Bob from the other side of the aisle, "Er, you're not supposed to hit us, sir." The boy's brow furrowed with concern, "We could report you."

As Bob moved away with a whine of "I know, I know" the pupil's of the classroom began the calls that had carried through from the many years before. Bob moved behind Gajeel and Gray, walking from that aisle to the next.

Jellal reclined in his stiff wooden chair, left hand resting in his pocket as the other tapped the pen against his paper, "You should treat us with more respect." Jellal returned his gaze to the blackboard when Bob rounded the end of Gray's table, "We're scholarship candidates now, Sir," Jellal took his pen to his lips and set it between his teeth in a practiced motion, "We're all going in for Oxford and Cambridge." At those words, as though something had been set in motion, the other pupils turned to look at Bob.

The man sighed what seemed like a scoff, "Oxford and Cambridge! What for?" Bob's head turned as though startled and upset by the news.

"Old, Sir. Tried and tested." Gray sat straight his seat, speaking over his shoulder as a roaming arm pointed at Ren at the desk in front.

The teacher whined as he curled his lip and lifted his paper like a cane, "No! It's because other boys want to go there," Bob turned around to look at Gray, moving forward from where he had stood behind him, "It's the hot ticket, standing room only."

From behind him, Jellal looked up curiously at the back of the man's head, "Where did you go, Sir?"

Before answering the question in a husky voice, Bob lowered his hand to look into the corner of the room, "I went to Sheffield." Around the man, the pupils laughed in breathy voices and blew air from their lips in distaste, "I was happy!" Bob looked once more around the room, a small smile on his lips as he took his paper once more into hands and waved it, "'Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;'" A shuddering breath was pulled into his lungs as he spoke with roving hands, "'Enough her simple loveliness for me.' Keats."

Jellal frowned for a moment, eyes narrowing before he tilted his head back to look at the teacher who still stood at his shoulder, "We won't be examined on that, will we, Sir?"

"Keats?"

In a small voice, Jellal spoke, "Happiness." Bob hissed, and rose the paper to slap it down on the boy's head.