Author: shyangell & MorningDawn
DISCLAIMER: All the fictional characters appearing in this fanfiction story are not mine, they're J.K. Rowling's; and they are being used with the only purpose of personal entertainment.
This story has been FINALLY revised. THIS CHAPTER IS NEWLY BETAED.
CHAPTER 4
Sirius Black trough Lily Evan's eyes: a nightmare of a good student.
Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done. ( Linus Torvalds)
Sirius Black had had the inherent unchanging and demonic capacity to grate on Lily's nerves with unfailing efficiency. His cocky smirk and easy-going attitude made her alarms come off like a car alarm even when she wasn't seeing it. For a girl who prided herself of existing by the rulebook there was nothing worse than Sirius Black. Scratch that, actually there was something worse because James Potter existed, but that was a whole other can of worms.
Rules existed for a reason. Usually a good reason too. He had an utter disrespect for any kind of rules, written unwritten and everything in between. He liked to tiptoe over the line, prance around playing with fire. He acted like he was superior because he did. And it was definitely not impressive that in juggling metaphorical blowtorches he never got burnt. And other people would do well to remember that and stop stroking that monstrously narcissistic ego.
He took pride in it, like a badge of honour. Every time they did something, because she knew they did a lot of things they weren't meant to; he would smirk her way and tell her she looked perky. He said that to her. And she saw it on his face and his stance that he knew that another feat was added to the Marauders' legend and she didn't know what it was. She hated it.
The worst thing was, all this fooling around didn't seem to affect his academic performance unduly. She'd been relatively fine with all their primaddona act if they'd been miserably failing their grades. There was a bit of an idea of universal balance in the idea. If you screwed with people's lives, life screwed you right back. It would have made sense that after so many escapades in the middle of the night, lame discussions about quidditch and taking time to make other people's life hell, we'll that they didn't have time for much else.
Sirius Black earned himself uncountable detentions. More than any other person she knew (she was not counting Potter!). He did never show remorse over whatever he'd done, and didn't that say something about a person's morals? Instead he moaned detentions were boring. And still he was a top grade student. He didn't listen in class. He passed notes or talked with Potter instead. He never took notes either. Instead he stared straight ahead, eyes glazed daydreaming, if he was ever capable of something so innocent. Sometimes he'd been staring through the classroom's windows a whole hour.
But when asked a question in class, he would still know the right answer. And wasn't that just plain detestable? He could and would repeat point by point whatever McGonagall had been explaining. Or whatever she had still to explain. It had happened once, and McGonagall had not been amused.
"Mr. Black. If you are so bored and knowledgeable on the matter at hand, would you please be so kind as to come up and explain it yourself?" And he had; point per point with flourish demonstration at the end.
Lily was convinced Remus told him the answers half the time. It was nigh-impossible to be listening at the same time you were constructing paper aircrafts ("It's a phoenix!") with parchment scraps. She also had concluded a long time ago that they must be systematically copying their homework. How could kind studious Remus, be friends with Potter and Black was a fathomless mystery.
Lily had been, by her own standards, in light of their respective behaviour and attitude, the better man (or woman). She put a lot of work into her studies, behaved as she should and strived to be ever better. Teachers showed appreciation and was regarded, even if it amused her, as a goody-two-shoes. Sirius Black never did anything that was not lounge around in dramatic expression of his endless boredom. It should have showed, but it didn't. Maybe if he'd shown one ounce of ambition or purpose they should've been scared of him.
But as it is you couldn't. The greatest ambition he had was to manage to break into the Three broomsticks after hours. By the time seventh year rolled around, lots of water had passed under the bridge. Their relationship, while it could not be defined in terms of friendship, it could be defined by mutual amused tolerance. Sirius existed with the sole purpose of bringing a bit of drama and histrionics into their life, to have them laugh at him, at others and at each other with a free consciousness. And wasn't that what they all needed?
Maybe if pressed, she'd say he'd had become a sort of annoying older brother. Coming from Lily, you had to remember that her sister was Petunia.
Seated in their corner of the common room, he was completing his homework sitting sideways on a fluffy armchair, busy with the final touches on an essay that was due the next five minutes. She of course was just waiting for James in typical fashion. She mused how doing everything last minute could possibly work for Sirius.
When he chose Aritmancy back in third year she'd wanted to laugh out loud. I mean surely, the most complex of all magical disciplines and Sirius Black could not work well. Aritmancy was full of rules, of rigid procedures and other such complexities. There was no room to manoeuvre the magic hat of intuition. She'd thought. Good, that'll teach him. Only that God must've been keen on punishing her for her pride. Sirius wasn't only good at Aritmancy, he was a natural. He swam though numbers and figures with liquid ease and saw doors when she only saw windows. The ease of the flow with which he manipulated wards and calculated quantities of unknown spells showed Sirius was practically genius. And Lily was not so good at it.
Lily had learned that envy was green. She'd never had reason to be envious of anyone before.
Still she'd promised herself she would not sell herself out and ask him to pair up with her, because she wasn't there for the marks. She was there to learn. Of course he would've never have left Remus to fend on his own; and Lupin reaped the benefits of their association. She remembers briefly thinking that maybe Remus was not as mad as she thought after all.
Considering that the day before the OWLs Potter and Black went flying on Hogwarts' grounds and took a dip in the lake to make the acquaintance of the Giant Squid, she'd again thought that they wouldn't do all that well at them. As it was their due, because they'd caused such a racket that Frank, studying for the NEWTs and close to being a wreck had almost had an apoplexy. And Lily was not known for it, but she was actually a bit of a busybody when no-one was looking. When next September the returned to school she had asked Remus about it.
Her sort-of-friend's resigned smile should have told her she was not going to find his answer fair. And she didn't. She was in a bad mood for a whole week.
Sirius didn't fail a single one of his OWLs. As far as she knew he passed with remarkable marks and had his pick for the future NEWTs. He got seven Outstanding marks, two Exceeds Expectations and an Acceptable. He was one of the few who had an outstanding mark on all his optional subjects. The fact that he'd had the common sense to not take Divination was surprising enough.
Lily was convinced that at this point the only reason he hadn't been expelled was because of his good marks. This only had given place to some long days of self-righteous annoyance. Damn, being smarter that average didn't make him above the rest. It didn't help that in that week Sirius and James painted the Slytherin table red.
James told her, years later, that to him who was his friend, and as surprising as Sirius was on a regular basis, his OWL marks hadn't been exactly surprising. Perhaps he'd been trying not to give a reason for his parents to kick him out. Once she knew him moderately well, she thought: maybe.
Sirius was a natural at DADA because his family was heavily into the Dark Arts, and leaned towards Voldemort-friendly attitudes. He knew that world and the way of thinking of Dark Wizards in his sleep. Knowledge, intimate knowledge of the subject, made perfection. Sirius got an Outstanding, allegedly because of a beautifully done Revulsion Jinx. Transfiguration was his favourite subject, as strange as that sounded. To Lily, Transfiguration was a discipline that tried to hand out guidelines to a series of basically intuitive processes at which you either were good at or you weren't. Countless to say she was rather mediocre at it, that's why she'd given it so much thought. Sirius managed to get an Outstanding for successfully vanishing both the octopus (invertebrate) and the parrot (vertebrate) in the practical. Lily's parrot left his beak behind.
It was a wonder he passed History of Magic (James failed it), because he consistently either slept through Professor Binn's classes or spent them completing the Prophet's Crossword Puzzle. She rationalized that Sirius was a Pureblood and he passed simply because he was more familiar with everything. He didn't study though, and she did; which is why she had an Outstanding. It made her feel very satisfied.
He managed an Exceeds Expectations in Astronomy. Really, not surprising even if he apparently lost his telescope back in second year, because it seemed to be his parents' obsession, with all the names. Considering his whole family was so absolutely obsessed with astronomy, as to name his children after constellations, it was small wonder. Really, she wasn't jealous, what was it good for after all.
Sirius hated Herbology. He said it was mind-numbingly boring and it stank. Sirius was absolutely irrational about his personal hygiene, and he spent half his days trying to wriggle out of touching anything in the greenhouses. Normally, students came out of greenhouse three smelling of compost and with dirt in unspeakable places. Sirius hated getting dirt under his aristocratic nails. He got an E, just for being magnanimous enough to deign himself to take the exam. It was more likely that it was because they had to take no practical.
Sirius of course, just like her, had no problem at all getting an O in Charms. He'd been doing supervised underage magic since he was five. Most of those charms they were being taught every day where as natural to him as breathing, routine. She actually wondered what exactly he would do if he lost his wand.
Sirius, who spoke French and another four languages, was a natural at them. His parents had been adamant of the need to know English plus French, Spanish, German and Latin. Most prized books and documents were still written in any combination of the above. Magical Runes, with the routine translations and the theory on the field of runes applied to practical spells meshed well with his more adventurous personality. Of course he showed them all up getting another O. Of course he got an O in Aritmancy. And Magical Creatures, which he took more as a amusement (and because the other option was Divination and that way lay crystal balls) had allowed him to get another easy O. Personally, Lily thought he'd been better served if he'd taken Muggle Studies.
He wasn't as gifted as herself or Snape in Potions, and that would ever be her point in pride. But he was fairly good, and while not inventively creative he was very efficient and got consistent results. His Outstanding mark, was a bit surprising, but it all depended upon where you set the mark. Privately she was glad Sirius was fairly good at Potions because she knew he had helped Remus a lot with it. Poor Remus hated potions, and if she remembered correctly barely got the A.
In fact, he was proficient enough at potions that Slughorn invited him into the Slug Club. That was something else that had been very annoying. Slughorn moaned and lamented about what a pity it was That Sirius was not in Slytherin like the rest of his family. Slughorn spoke like a collector. Collectors love rarities, and Sirius the Gryffindor was one. She could tell Sirius didn't like it. He always tried to wriggle out of the invitations. She had the vague impression that having to socialize wasn't his cup of tea, even if he could do it flawlessly. It was possible he got himself into detention to have a good excuse for missing the Club's parties.
He did not like people; he considered that they were vacuous and mostly stupid. Sirius enjoyed confounding people and flooding them with so many words people agreed with him just to hear him shut up. Well she discovered that before then, of course. That last Christmas, Sirius and Lily had a few words about James, of course. Lily was very much starting to like James, but she wouldn't admit it. And Sirius had her feeling all guilty after that, when James asked her out for the umpteenth time that same day she said yes.
When in seventh year she started dating James, it came with a bonus. She found herself readily adopted by the Marauder's gang. She started to know the boys better. Sometimes she even studied with them. It was pleasant to discover that Sirius could actually have a pleasant conversation.
Giving Sirius the Evil Eye for a few months had the desired effect of prompting him to study. Later, they even convinced him to do a bit of studying in common. And no, she wasn't that insistent just so she could get him to help her with her Aritmancy homework.
Sirius proved to be a box of surprises. A thick distorting mist separated the cheery, arrogant, silly Padfoot from a much more serious, mature and self-confident Sirius. Sirius was one of those people who seen up close won a whole new human dimension; and instead of showing their weaknesses it allowed you to see their true strengths.
She could afford to look down on his antics before, but this new Sirius, as she discovered, shouldn't be undervalued. It could cost you so much in the likes of dignity. Suddenly he didn't seem such an incoherent persona. In fact he did make quite much more sense.
Sirius was quite methodical, in what suited him. True that he wasn't methodical about his studying schedule (she found out he often studied in the wee hours of the morning because he suffered insomnia), but James was frankly worse.
But the capacity for ordering thoughts and important things was patent as soon as you had an insight on his thought processes. She had the surprise of her life when he took his stack of notes of Ancient Runes, and found them all marked and alphabetically classified by themes.
Remus (who was the closest to a Sirius-expert you could get anywhere) had to patiently explain to her that Sirius was a dangerously and inconstantly obsessive person. Once the mood took him he could work on something tirelessly until he got bored. If he got in his head something was in irreparable disorder, he wouldn't stop till it was up to his standards. The only problem was that he got easily bored. And that made him terribly inconstant; the things that arrived into his possession after this Prussian re-arrangement would accumulate until he had another fit. This was the same obsession with personal hygiene that drove him to shower at least twice a day and have his nails manicured systematically. But periodical crisis regarding his belongings, were ten times worse and a hundred times less frequent.
Ant the handwriting he had. Well she'd never seen handwriting like that in her life. Her look must've been truly comical, because that was how she envisioned that Professor Dumbledore writing, not Sirius!
Letters and words flew perfectly smooth through the surface of the creamy parchment, characters neither too big nor too small. The elongated letters chased each other in perfect harmony, creating lines and lines of elegant straight calligraphy. Inkblots and ink smudges didn't exist; he seemed to possess a much quill that behaved far better than hers. Even writing on a rush he didn't mess it up. To her, who learnt to write with muggle pens, quills were the devil's right hand. And the only thing he'd said was; "Come on Red, if you'd filled as many parchment rolls on calligraphy as I have, you would be great at it too!"
Fact is, she did only see that type of handwriting once again. Regulus Black earned himself a detention for telling Professor Flitwick, very precisely, where could he put his swish-and-flick. She was the head Girl, and he had to watch him copy lines. But somehow, while that affected type of handwriting didn't seem to fit Sirius, it did fit his aloof brother rather well. Lily wondered sometimes which kind of teacher they had had.
As she waited she clutched in her hand her essay on Charms. That last week their final charms project has been issued, and they'd had to work together to solve Flitwick's Last-Year challenge. It had been that, a challenge. Theirs was about insubstantial wards and sealing spells. They've been told by Mary, rumours were nobody had ever opened all four locked boxes one inside of the other.
It had looked they had just drawn the short straw.
So far they'd managed three. She and Remus had charmed opened the first one, it had been tedious but you could methodically work your way through it. James had tricked opened the second, she still doesn't know if by sheer luck or brilliance. Either way she's quite proud of him, her James. They managed the third in a group effort: Siriu's skills in Aritmancy uncovered the trick in that one, and Remus finished the charms work. Apparently the trick was that the ward was not directly linked to the box but it had insubstantially floated around it. They'd spent an entire month working on the last one.
Sirius had been feeling a bit vexed, if all the frowning and finger-steeping was anything to go by. And as he was, in James' own words, a stubborn oaf; he just hadn't been willing to give up. He'd been glaring to the tiny box as if it had committed an unspeakable crime. Last evening, James had been upside-down in a Library chair, out of sight from Madam Pince, his head hanging over the edge while his legs rested on a bookcase. Remus and Lily had been despondently pouring through yet another Encyclopaedia of Magical Wards, and Sirius had been frowning and staring out the window into the heavy rain.
And that had been it until he'd suddenly stood, forcefully crossing the library's aisle to the shelves in front of them. He'd scanned the bookshelves with a glare so fierce that a stranger would most likely have thought him furious. Sirius retreated into his own world when he was thinking hard about something, sometimes verbalizing mental connections as they were being made. "Removal" He'd whispered "Magical markings, magical… no. Perhaps, indelible… that might help... No… magical codex…"
Both he and James had always been able to make great intuitive leaps, crossing all boundaries of logic. Lily, who just like Remus thought his way methodically through nearly everything, was slightly awed by the process and couldn't hope to imitate it. The sheer, focused concentration that Sirius was capable of at times like this was both fascinating and intimidating. And at that moment he'd been going through the shelves with what looked like carelessness but was actually meticulous attention to detail.
"Oh, damn it! Let's hope this works!" He'd exclaimed after a while. And he briskly he'd turned back to the table while placing the tip of his wand, long and slender, to the box's lock. After a while and in complete silence the box had clicked open. His smile had been smug in satisfaction.
She'd never ceased to be impressed by Sirius's seemingly instinctive ability to manipulate spells and charms to suit his own devices. She just was less jealous now than some years back. You had to learn to appreciate what you did have. James could do that too. Lily had wondered since probably middle of their seventh year if this apparently inborn grace was what the old families mean when they talked about pureblood superiority; if this is why they refused to allow the Decree For Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery to be enforced in their homes, if this is why they created houses that were more like fortresses with magic seeping out of every crack and fissure. God knows that although James' family was fairly normal they had more wards guarding the property limits than any muggle bank.
Sirius grew up in a place like that, like Hogwarts, with magic humming around him every moment of his life: disillusionment charms, protection spells, anti-muggle spells… All of these were basic components of his environment, a state of affairs that had continued all through Hogwarts and would continue with the heavily charmed and warded flat in London he'd recently bought with his uncle's inheritance.
It might not be blood that made the crucial difference, she thought, and put the idea away for a research paper in the future.
