Chapter Twenty Nine: Abide the change of time
The New Year did little to alleviate Sirius's melancholy. January was tinged with Greyback's upcoming trial at the Ministry of Magic, for which Sirius was to be a key witness. Sirius had thought that Greyback should be taken to Azkaban straight away, but ironically, new laws had made imprisonment without trial illegal. Hermione had been pivotal in its introduction; they'd named it Padfoot's Law. He wasn't sure he liked it.
A trial had meant returning to the Ministry and if there was anything he really didn't want to do, it was to return to the Ministry. It held so much; Greyback and the memory of that night, the Minister and his ticket to freedom, and the veil- and his only way home.
Minister Shacklebolt knew what had happened to Sirius, and he was working on a solution. The offer of total freedom was almost in reach, dancing against his fingertips and at any moment, he would be able to reach forward and take it.
But he didn't want it.
One year ago he would have grabbed at it with both hands. He would have seized the opportunity to once again chase down the steps of Grimmauld Place and soar as high as he could without the fear of falling. Even just a few weeks ago, he had wanted nothing more than for everything to finally be out in the open, and for his secret to be revealed- but as the time came closer to outing the truth, he wanted to shrink away and hide as Stubby Boardman forever.
He'd spent so much of his life being told what to do. His first taste of independence and freedom, aged sixteen, had been the hours after escaping his family home. He'd turned to James- naturally- and James took him in and held him up and showed him the way.
He hadn't been free for fourteen years. He didn't want to be able to wander through the streets, he didn't want to be able to go wherever he chose. But hadn't he wished not long ago that he was more like nine year old Sirius? Sirius who had tied wings to his back and soared beside the sun and had gone delirious with the taste of freedom? Hadn't he stood outside Grimmauld Place and wondered where his sense of adventure had gone- where Icarus had gone?
Icarus had drowned, overcome with the heady excitement and fallen to his death, meeting his fate in the icy depths of the deep sea.
Now Sirius found that he liked the rigid structure of the walls that told him what to do, that kept him in, that kept him safe. Before it had always been James that held him up and stood by him, pointed him in the right direction, but restraining him when he started to take things just a little too far. James, street-smart James, had always watched his back- who would watch it now?
Was that why he was terrified of freedom? Because he had never know freedom without James by his side? James was his crutch and his conscience, and now who would he turn to if he didn't know the way? It was the same reason as to why he had never tried to break out of Azkaban until he recognised Wormtail in the photograph- he didn't have a need to. He didn't have James waiting for him outside. He had no one to point him the right way.
He knew exactly what James would say; that the bars on our cage are of our own creation. That the only thing holding him back was Sirius himself.
But still, when he returned to the Ministry to bear witness, he'd adopted a disguise; a pair of glasses, a careful disfigurement charm and a quick walk. He relied on people's unassuming nature. He'd asked to be referred to as Mr Boardman. Sirius watched Greyback sentenced to a further two years in Azkaban, with correct rehabilitation and support when he was rereleased, and he knew he should have felt some kind of relief or happiness that for once the system had worked as it should have- that those who deserved it were given the correct punishments.
But he couldn't stop thinking about the truth in Greyback's words. He could understand Greyback, and that's what disturbed him. He'd had a strange feeling ever since he had fallen through the veil and it still hadn't gone away. He'd thought that after seven months, and after meeting Harry again, it would have gone and he'd have found his place, but something was still off. He still felt like he didn't fit. Perhaps that was why he liked the anonymous Stubby Boardman; it made it all feel like a game, like it wasn't really him. There was a place for Professor Boardman. There was not a place for Sirius Black.
When he had spoken with Minister Shacklebolt in his office after the trial, Sirius had managed to persuade him that they should wait until the end of the school year, at least, before they revealed the truth of his identity. Sirius thought it would be kinder to his students and there would be less backlash from the parents- at the revelation that a falsely convicted murderer was teaching their children, or just the fact they had kept it a secret, he wasn't sure- but in truth, Sirius just wasn't quite ready yet.
As he found himself wishing for time to slow down so that he could savour every moment of his anonymity, the dreaded end of school grew nearer, and time instead seemed to hurtle by, speeding past as if he was watching the blurred landscape through the windows of the Hogwarts Express.
The second term flew by. He had continued in his quest to prove McGonagall right, and was satisfied with his efforts when he found that as the Easter holidays approached, he had almost completely covered everything in the book and on the syllabus, and on the whole, the students had remembered it. The task for the final term would be exam revision, and of course, setting the exams themselves. He had tried to argue his case against the examinations, but McGonagall had refused to capitulate. He was to set the children exams, and he would have to mark them.
One Friday evening, Sirius found himself ditching the feast to enjoy the late sunlight gilding the west courtyard in gold. He sat on the stone step and rested his back on a pillar. It was the very first day of April and it was almost the Easter holidays. It had brought with it a peculiar atmosphere into the castle. He'd noticed that it had become quieter, more subdued recently. The students were not quite as buoyant, Teddy's hair was not quite as vibrant. The teachers didn't seem quite as enthusiastic, the attendance at his Stubby Club meetings had dropped slightly. The younger children walked through the castle with quiet reverence, as if it were sacred ground, whilst the older children pointed out secret passageways and hiding places and nodded respectfully. The fourth years were the most despondent.
Of course, he knew why. He had been filled in by Harry. The anniversary of the war was fast approaching, and to some it was still too relevant. Many of the students had lost relatives; aunts or uncles or cousins. And although he just couldn't understand, he hadn't been there and he just didn't know the extent of the devastation, he couldn't help but feel the effects of the melancholic air rubbing off on him- but whether it was the anniversary or the realisation that his secret was soon to be revealed, he wasn't sure. His heart was growing heavier, filling with the worry that this sense of purpose was drawing to a close, trickling in like water through the hole in a boat's hull, just a breath away from sinking.
He thought of how much change he had already seen in the school, in almost one year of teaching. The biggest change was in the students. His time at Hogwarts had been an unusual experience. He had watched the tiny first years arrive timid but eager- had it really been such a short time ago? Now they were almost unrecognisable; they were as bold as any other, and with the foundations of friendships that would last a lifetime. The second years had continued to grow, their friendships had strengthened, and they were challenging themselves. They were no longer the babies of the castle, and they had become more confident in themselves and their abilities. The third years had begun to develop rounded personalities and they had started to clash with each other. They were standing up for what they believed in and it was shaking their solid friendships. They were developing resilience and morals.
He could not think of the fourth years without thinking of Teddy. He had tried to distance himself a little from the boy, but it was not Teddy's parentage that drew him in, it was his friendliness and his sheer cheek. Sirius had noted how Teddy had mellowed, too. Whilst he got into petty fights, he did not seem to launch such aggressive attacks on Slytherins anymore, which was certainly an improvement.
The fifth years had begun the year uptight about their exams, and if anything, Sirius felt that they'd become worse. He wanted nothing more than to tell them all to stop worrying, but he had the feeling they wouldn't listen. Still, he reasoned, it would not be too long until their exams were over, and they could relax.
The sixth years, however, had grown tiresome. They were almost at the end of their schooling, they were getting sick of academia. Their interest had waned towards the final months, and even Sirius's invitations to the Stubby Club did little to inspire them. They knew that when they returned again in September they were at the final hurdle, and all the input, all their work and all their effort, the sleepless nights doing homework, the bickering with friends, the fallouts with teachers, was nearly at an end.
The seventh years, as they had proved so often throughout the year, were the most interesting. They had already been through six years of Hogwarts; they had learnt as much as they ever would, they had been everywhere in the school, they had been through the frictions of their friendships and had come out the other side as strong, resilient and eternal friends. They had arrived in September for their final school year, and Sirius met them for the first time in his Friday afternoon class as people. Not children, not students. They treated Sirius as a friend first, a teacher second. They were open-minded, confident and personable; brave, loyal, clever and determined. Each one of them possessed the best qualities of each of their houses, and the influence of Hogwarts was clear. But they had grown more subdued as the year progressed.
They were desperately looking for help. They weren't ready to leave behind the security of the school, they craved the rigid timetables, the cosy home, the constancy of friends. The listlessness of not knowing what to do next and where to go had set in. They worried about what would happen to them when they were sent out to battle the world alone, and the similarities between himself and the seventh years had not gone unnoticed by Sirius. He'd spent almost his whole life under someone else's orders.
"I never left Hogwarts, really." He had told them, taking the caps off bottles of Butterbeers and passing them around his small class of seventh years. "I can't give you much advice, there. But I remember my friend telling me something once. He said that leaving is just the next adventure. Go out there and try to change the world. You've done Hogwarts, so what's next?" He handed out the last bottle, and sat crossed legged on the floor with the students. "Imagine if, tomorrow, you get given a time turner. Do you think you'd use it?" It was the same question he had been asked by James Potter on their final evening at Hogwarts. Then, however, their beverages had been far stronger than a few Butterbeers and they weren't sat on a dusty classroom floor. He had been terrified of what lay on the other side of the doors, and only James was able to point him the right way. Now he needed James more than ever.
"How far would you go back?" James tried to steady his hand as he lifted his glass to take a sip of his drink. He slumped sideways into Sirius's shoulder, letting out an involuntary laugh and grinning inanely. The two of them were in the Gryffindor common room, slouched on the cosiest couch in front of the fire and staring into the dying embers. Had James been more in control of his senses, he would have crouched beside it and stoked it with the poker, but their alcohol-induced state had left them with little interest in the fire. They had been there all afternoon, and long into the evening. As the common room had emptied when the inhabitants left for bed, they had stayed, and now the late evening had ticked over into early morning without their notice.
"Mate, let's be honest. We don't really have that much choice." Sirius pointed out, much better at handling his alcohol than James. "How far would I go back? About seventeen years. Let's go back to being a baby, eating mush, sleeping all day, weeing myself, and crying when Kreacher's mum changed my nappy."
James snorted, squirting his drink across Sirius's shoulder. "Come off it. You know what I mean."
"Nah, I'd meet myself, wouldn't I?"
"You sound like Moony. Stop being picky."
"You're asking me, if I could do it all over again, would I?"
"Yeah, that's it. If you could go back to standing on Platform 9 ¾, waiting to board the Hogwarts Express for the first time, if you had everything ahead of you- the boat ride across the lake, the first glimpse of Hogwarts, the sorting, all the spells and the exams, everything, all seven years- if you could begin the adventure again, would you?"
"Yes."
"Why are you bothered about leaving so much?" James slurred, and looked round at Sirius. Sirius feigned confusion. "It's just our next adventure! But McGonagall won't be there to tell us off, we won't get detentions, we won't have to sneak around. We've spent seven years at Hogwarts, why'd you want to spend any longer here? Let's get out into the real world!"
"Because it's dark out there, James." It was the first time in a long time that Sirius hadn't used his friend's nickname. "And I'm a Black. And as soon as I leave, he'll be after me. You-Know-Who. I might not talk to my family any more, but I've heard the rumours. My cousin Bellatrix has joined him, and Narcissa's getting married to that Malfoy and he's desperate to join. Even my brother- my little brother- he reckons he's going to join him, the idiot! He'll get himself killed. And I know we hate saying it-" James opened his mouth to protest when he knew what Sirius was going to say, "No, James. Listen. We have to stick with Remus. You-Know-Who is offering werewolves complete equality- what has Remus always wanted?"
"He won't join!"
"I know he won't, but that won't stop You-Know-Who trying! And you don't say no to You-Know-Who,"
"Dumbledore says we should say his name,"
"It doesn't make any difference what we call him, he's still going to kill us if we refuse to join him. I'm a Black, and Remus is a werewolf. We're prime candidates. Times are dark, James, and the future is dark."
"We need the dark. We'd never see the stars without it."
He pushed James into the couch. The last dregs in his glass splashed out and dripped onto the upholstery. "Give over. I never said that."
"Yes you did. I remember."
"You've made that up. I didn't say it,"
"You did."
"I wouldn't say something as soft as that."
James heaved himself up and leant forward on the sofa. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Dumbledore's told me about this secret organisation. I'm going to join."
Sirius scoffed. "Dumbledore's not as wonderful as you make out."
"It's an organisation that fights Voldemort." Replied James. "They'll protect you, Sirius. I'll join, I want to join, I want to fight."
"You're eighteen. You think you can change the world?"
"We can try."
