Prompt: Orion teaching Sirius how to shave.
"Argh, fuck!"
The sharp shout from further down the hallway made Orion pause dead in his tracks. He looked behind him, towards the direction of the voice - which sounded suspiciously similar to that of his elder son, Sirius. A pained groan followed, echoing down the length of the hallway.
What the devil has he done now? Orion wondered to himself as he turned on his heels and marched towards the bathroom from which the sounds had come from.
"Sirius, what are you doing in there?" Orion demanded with a brisk knock on the door. He tried the handle and found it locked.
"Nothing" murmured an unconvincing voice from inside, followed by a sharp, pained hiss and clattering of something being dropped into the sink.
"That hardly seems likely" Orion remarked drily. "Open the door this instant"
"Just- go away!" Sirius snapped from the other side of the door.
Orion felt his irritation building, as it always did when his son chose to deliberately disobey an order - a far too common occurrence for his liking.
"If you do not open this door this instant, I will blast the lock open myself-" He withdrew his wand from his pocket to add emphasis to the threat he knew very well he would not have to follow through on. "- and I'll leave it for you to explain to your mother why the bathroom door is broken"
A frustrated, typically-teenage groan came from within the bathroom before the door lock finally clicked open and the door swung ajar.
Orion stared, wide-eyed at the sight before him. His sixteen-year-old son stood beside the sink with his palm clamped firmly over the left side of his face - a futile attempt to hide the steady trickle of blood sliding down his jaw and into the sink.
The collar of the new set of elegant robes, newly purchased by his mother and forced onto the boy amidst much arguing that morning, also bore several large, ugly blood stains.
"What in Salazar's name have you done, boy?" Orion gasped.
"Nothing!" Sirius shouted back - a ridiculously childish attempt to hide the truth as he attempted to turn his injured face away from his father's view.
"Come here"
Orion reached forward and firmly turned his son's face back towards him. The boy stubbornly kept his hand firmly clamped over his injured face, but the location of the wound gave enough of a hint for his father to work out what had happened.
Further confirming his suspicions, Orion glanced down at the sink to see his own ivory-handled cut-throat razor laying at the bottom of the basin, marked with smudged, red fingerprints.
"Ah... I see"
Orion had known this day was bound to arrive sooner or later. But his elder son had thus far proved to be as late a starter as Orion himself had been at that age, sporting barely enough facial hair to be noticeable, let alone worth shaving. But now, as he examined the side of Sirius's face that was not dripping with blood, Orion could see that his son had indeed finally reached the point in which a tidy-up was in order.
The boy had been home from school for the Christmas holidays for several days now - had this new development suddenly sprung up overnight or had Orion somehow failed to notice until now?
"You know, it is customary to seek advice from one more experienced before attempting such a thing for the first time" said Orion as he tilted his son's chin up to try and get a better view of the damage.
"I did" Sirius snapped with a scowl, pulling away from Orion's grip. "I asked James"
"I meant from one's father" Orion clarified. "Particularly since you've seen fit to help yourself to my razor"
"It's not that hard, I don't need help!"
"The evidence is overwhelmingly against you, my boy" Orion said wryly, glancing around critically at the blood-stained bathroom. "Come here, let me see what you've done"
Sirius, no doubt seeing the clear futility of disobeying, reluctantly stepped forward and allowed his father to pull his hand away from his face.
Orion stifled a sharp breath at the sight of the ugly gash across his son's jaw. The unforgiving razor blade had sliced deep into the boy's skin, the cut leaking a steady and constant ooze of blood which dripped into the sink below.
"Hold still" he ordered as Sirius instinctively tried to pull away at the sight of his father pulling out his wand.
"I can fix it myself" Sirius protested, weakly.
Orion raised an eyebrow.
"Somehow I doubt that" he said, tilting his son's chin up, gently but firmly. "And stop that petty scowling. You ought to be glad it was me who found you in such a state and not your mother"
Sirius squirmed awkwardly at the thought, his scowl fading.
Orion traced his wand tip along the boy's cheek, just above the cut, stifling an amused smile at Sirius's failed attempt to suppress a grimace of pain as the healing spell did its work, knitting the skin back together without leaving so much as a hint of a scar.
With his son's face healed and both him and the bathroom cleaned of all trace of blood, Orion retrieved his razor from the sink and tapped it clean with his wand as well.
"Now-" he tapped the blade with his wand tip once more, casting a silent spell to dull the blade a little before holding it out to Sirius. "Let's try this again, shall we?"
Sirius silently took the blade, avoiding his father's gaze as he moved back in front of the mirror.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Orion asked as Sirius lifted the razor towards his face.
Sirius paused, puzzled.
Orion smiled in amusement as he tapped his wand against the side of the sink and a pot of shaving cream and brush appeared.
"Oh. Yeah" Sirius murmured lowly as he reached for the items, keeping his head down so as to hide his face from his father behind his hair.
"The Potter boy certainly wasn't a very reliable source if he neglected to advise you to properly prepare the area before attempting to shave it" Orion's voice was heavy with dislike.
Under normal circumstances, any critical mention of Sirius's school friends would spark an angry argument with the boy. But these were not normal circumstances the father and son had found themselves in.
Orion watched, bemused, as Sirius applied the cream with fumbling fingers. It was remarkable how his stubborn, headstrong son was reduced to a self-conscious mess under his father's watch.
"Slow down, slow down" Orion urged, reaching out to still his son's shaking hand as he over-enthusiastically raised the blade towards his face. "You'll only cut yourself again, attempting to go that fast"
Sirius pulled his hand free from his father's hold.
"I know how to do it" he protested stubbornly. "I just- slipped, last time"
Orion dealt his son a knowing look which caused the boy to look away.
"If you think I would believe that, then you are not quite as bright as your school reports would have me believe"
Sirius's gaze flickered at the mention of his school reports. Was this the first time the subject had been brought up without mentioning the many reports of bad behaviour that had marred his excellent marks?
Orion, standing behind his son in front of the mirror, placed his hand over Sirius's gripping the blade. The boy's shaking hand stilled in his father's grip.
"Now, apply the blade gently and slowly" Orion instructed, placing his other hand on Sirius's shoulder to help steady him.
In spite of his stubborn expression, Sirius's nerves were clear to see in the way his eyes anxiously followed the blade as he stroked it along the length of his cheek under his father's careful steering.
"There- You see?" said Orion as the first streak of clean-shaved and cut-free skin appeared in the blade's wake. "It is not that difficult a task - under proper direction"
Sirius wordlessly cleaned the blade under the tap, keeping his eyes low to avoid his father's gaze.
"Now, try it on your own"
Orion took a step backwards, folding his arms expectantly as he watched his son in the mirror.
Sirius's self-consciousness was clear to see. But, nevertheless, he raised the blade to his face again and delivered, a slow, clean stroke across his cheek - just as his father had taught him.
Orion nodded in approval.
"Good" he said. "I trust I can leave you to finish up in the knowledge that you're no longer at risk of slitting your own throat?"
Sirius flushed slightly at the comment but nodded.
"Yeah" he said plainly as he cleaned the blade under the tap.
There was a long pause - long enough for Orion to begin to wonder if he was going to have to remind his son of the importance of proper manners, before Sirius finally uttered a meek "Thanks"
Orion gave another approving nod.
"Your mother will be home in time for tea in an hour" he said, turning for the door. "Ensure you are presentable by then"
As he left the room and continued his original journey down the hallway, Orion felt an odd feeling stir inside him. It was a peculiar feeling of loss, triggered by the step his eldest boy had just taken towards no longer being a boy.
A bittersweet day indeed for any father.
Orion buried the feeling under the heavy weight of rational sensibility. It wouldn't do to get needlessly emotional over what was only natural and proper progression.