September, 1976
Professor McGonagall did not look forward to student audiences, as a general rule—not that she met with her students any more than was strictly necessary. She was a busy woman, teaching what was arguably the most difficult branch of magic that Hogwarts offered, so there was little time to socialize with her pupils—and anyway, the no-nonsense Head of Gryffindor House didn't think fraternizing with underaged witches and wizards did them much good. In this respect she differed from at least one notable colleague—but she had no regrets on that score. She might have fewer gifts sent to her than Horace Slughorn did, but she could be sure that when she saw an alumnus outside of school it was from affection for her that they were there, not to curry any favors.
When she did meet with students, it was to help them with her subject—or, regrettably, as was more often the case, to discipline them. Those conversations were the most unpleasant aspect of being an educator—a necessary evil—but something she had come to expect, especially with high-spirited Gryffindors under her charge.
And so she eyed the two neatly written pages of the letter lying atop the envelope on her desk with a feeling she was not used to vis-a-vis her students.
Anxiety. She was nervous.
After teaching in this school for nearly twenty years, she had believed she was well past firsts, but after reading—and rereading, and rereading the letter she'd received by tawny owl at breakfast that morning, Minerva McGonagall had to concede the uncomfortable conversation that lay before her would be the first of its kind.
She reached out to pick it up and pour over it again.
Are you a Gryffindor, or aren't you, Minerva?
A knock on the door startled her, and she hastily pushed the letter to the far end of her desk and dropped her hand into her lap.
"You may—come in," she said, weakly—her voice cracked. The Transfiguration professor cleared her throat and repeated, louder, "You may come in, Mr. Black."
The door opened, and a tall Gryffindor lad, now in his penultimate year of school, walked in and sat down in the chair in front of her desk.
This was the first time she'd seen him up close since the term had begun earlier that week, and so McGonagall allowed herself a moment to observe what changes two months away from Hogwarts had wrought.
He didn't look so different than he had at the end of summer term—apart from the long, nasty burn mark on his right cheek, the only thing marring an otherwise handsome face—but she felt a change, regardless. He was one of the boys from the sixth-year class who'd had his growth spurt the previous spring—when he'd come into the Great Hall for the Welcome Feast, chatting excitedly with his gang, she'd noted that Potter had at last caught up with his partner-in-crime in height, growing at least three inches over the holiday.
It wasn't a physical change, then—maybe it was the way he was holding himself, not posing for once, his back straight, body still, an expression suggestive of real curiosity as to why she'd called him into her office. Usually when she had him in that chair, he knew exactly why, and he often sported a rather cheeky grin over it.
There was no grinning now.
"You ought to have that looked at, Black," she said, breaking the silence. For a moment, he didn't seem to know what McGonagall meant, so she pointed to the spot on her own face.
"Oh—it's nothing, professor," he said, shrugging her off. "Just a scratch."
"If it's a 'scratch', Madame Pomfrey should be able to heal it in a minute," she remarked, dryly. He shrugged again and didn't answer her—to reply would be to admit that it was not a common, garden variety burn, and might provoke the obvious next question.
"I sort of fancy getting a scar," he said, smiling—and reminding his professor more of the boy she had had to be severe with so often the past five years. "Coming up with a new story every time a girl asks me how I got it."
And not one of them the truth, she thought—but decided to let the matter drop. Even if it was, as she suspected, related to the contents of the letter—it was a side dish, only, not the main course.
"Did you have a…good summer holiday?" she asked him, cautiously—testing the waters. They were uncharted, so she belt more comfortable pushing slowly off the dock.
"Er…yes," Black answered, frowning—he looked as though this was the oddest question that had ever been posed to him. Perhaps from her, it was—she had never so much as asked him to give her the time before now. "It was good. How was—was yours good?"
"Yes," she replied, shortly. "It was…quite pleasant."
"That's—I'm glad," He fiddled with his wand. "Did you…visit anywhere?"
"My brother lives in Cornwall. I spent a week there, with his family."
"Erm…sounds lovely."
She nodded. It had been lovely.
The conversation promptly withered on the vine and left the two of them to stare uncomfortably at one another over its sadly deceased husk.
She pursed her lips. For the first time in her teaching career, Minerva wished that she had some of Horace's talent for rapprochement. Certainly it would be helpful now, as she tried, with an ineptitude she had not realized she possessed, to ease her way to the real point. She had actually considered asking the rotund potions master to do this in her stead, but as he had already spoken to the other one…
Besides, Minerva had her pride—and her pride wouldn't allow her to admit that there was something he was better at than her—particularly when it came to managing Gryffindors.
Thankfully Black put her out of her misery.
"You didn't call me in here to talk about my holiday, did you, professor?"
"No—no, I didn't." Relieved, she reverted to the usual brisk, formal tone of voice—and instantly saw he was more at ease with that than he had been by her attempt at chumminess. "I've—had a letter about you, Black."
His face twitched with alarm, perhaps—before settling into a smooth blank. That in and of itself told her he had an inkling of what was coming.
"Oh?" he asked, trying to appear only mildly curious. "From whom? About what?"
"It was from Euphemia Potter—about you."
His eyes widened in surprise.
"Mrs. Potter?" Black broke into a smile of relief—but then fresh worry overtook it. "Is everything alright—with her and Mr. P? Nothing's happened?"
McGonagall smiled, in spite of herself.
"She's perfectly well—you can be assured that if there was something amiss, I would be talking to your friend," He nodded, uncertainly. "She and her husband seem to be quite fond of you, Black."
His smile was tremulous.
"They're very good."
"Mrs. Potter's written," she continued, carefully. "About the…recent upheaval in your home situation."
He stayed very still.
"Is there anything you'd like to—discuss with me?"
Black's affection for Potter's parents vanished, replaced with a cool, somewhat haughty expression that she would have dearly liked to tell him she had once seen his father make at school.
"Not particularly," he said, blandly. "Listen, professor, I've got a very lengthy Charms essay I wanted to get cracking on, so I think I'd better be off."
Black started to rise from the chair, but one look from her froze him on the spot.
Well, here they went…she couldn't say she was surprised. He had never shown an inclination for being forthcoming before now, not about his behavior and certainly not about his home life. She raised her wand hand—free of the aforementioned—and pointed at the chair.
He fell back in it, the legs rocking back with his weight—they made an ugly squeak on the stone floor when they landed.
"Mr. Black, I assure you that I enjoy going down this road even less than you do—"
"I've got a perfect solution for you, then—" he shot back, expression turning ugly. "Don't. Don't bother. There's nothing at the end that'll be worth it, trust me."
"I'm afraid it's not that simple."
"Why not?" he said, arms shaking, his face flushed with anger. "What does it matter where I go during the hols? Why should you have to get involved with—" He waved his hand, wildly. "—All that."
"I shouldn't need to remind you you are still a student at this school, under my jurisdiction—not to mention sixteen."
He stood up again, really furious, hand clenched so hard around his wand that his knuckles were white.
"I'll be of age in two months—!"
"You weren't of age when you flew that broomstick from London to the West Country, Black," she snapped, losing her monumental Scottish temper. "And you aren't of age now. Put your wand away this instant."
He froze in place.
"She—she told you about that?" he asked, in a small voice, meekly sitting back down in the chair.
"Yes," McGonagall said, her voice returning to its normal, sensible level.
He stuck his wand in his pocket and, shoulders slumped, inched the chair away from her. The revelation that she knew the truth quite diminished him.
"What…else did she tell you?"
"Everything you told her, I expect—that is to say, not much at all." Her eyes flashed dangerously behind square spectacles. "I do know that it's over a hundred miles from London to Dorset, and if anyone should ever find out that an underaged wizard made the trip on a broom—it would be easier for that wizard's professor to help him with his Ministry hearing if she understood the particulars."
His eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"How would they find out unless the wizard's professor told them?"
"Perhaps she already has—or is considering it." He set his jaw. "She might be persuaded not to."
He gave her a long, penetrating look—as if trying to determine if her not-so-veiled threat was a bluff. At long last, he let out a sigh.
"Alright, fine," Black admitted, folding his arms in front of his chest. "As if you didn't already know, I've done a bunk."
He spoke with the crisp RP accent that all old pureblood families fastidiously taught their children, so when phrases like 'done a bunk' (no doubt picked up from Lupin or Pettigrew) came from his lips, it had an air of the faintly ridiculous about it.
"I take it that means—"
"I've run away from home."
She waited for more details—they were not forthcoming.
"What happened?" McGonagall asked, annoyed that it was turning out to be just as much like pulling Venomous Tentacula needles as she had thought it would. "What prompted your…flight?"
"What does that matter?"
"It would be helpful," she said, through gritted teeth. "In assessing your circumstances."
"And what is there to 'assess' about my circumstances, exactly?" he said, churlish.
"Whether they are temporary or permanent, for a start."
Black let out a hard laugh.
"No question it's permanent—and as for the reason," he snorted. "You don't really need much of an excuse to want to get away from them."
A dullard could have guessed from the look she gave him that this answer wouldn't do. Professor McGonagall fixed him with her most searching glare, and when he glanced again at the door, the glint in her eyes dared him to even try it.
"Alright, if you insist," he said, finally. "I had a disagreement with my mother and—decided to leave. I'd been thinking about it for a long time, I planned to when I came of age, I just—went a few months early. That's all."
Black, in control of himself again, relayed these supposed events matter-of-factly, nonchalantly, as if the decision had been made with rational forethought, and not by the boy she knew had, on good authority, shown up on the Potters' doorstep—unannounced and soaked through from a torrential downpour south of Guildford—at half past four in the morning.
Her eyes lingered on the nasty curse burn. When he saw where she was looking, they made uncertain eye contact for a second before he blinked and looked away.
"Was it your mother who did that to you?" she asked, quietly.
Black recoiled, as if he'd been burned again.
"Of course not," he mumbled, staring moodily down at a hangnail on his thumb. "Don't be ridiculous."
"I think you're lying."
"Even if—even if she had," he sputtered, furiously, looking up at her. "It's all over now, and—why stir it up? It doesn't matter—"
"If you've left your parents' house because your mother has taken to hexing you, it matters a great deal," she said, slowly, as if speaking to one soft in the head. "Especially considering you have a younger brother still at home."
"Regulus has nothing to do with this. With any of it," he insisted, a touch of alarm in his voice, and Black sat up straighter, put his hands on her desk and leaned forward. "You can keep him well out of it."
"It's too late for that," she said, briskly. "As I've already informed Professor Slughorn, who spoke to the younger Mr. Black directly."
Black looked as though he'd swallowed a lemon.
"You did what?" he yelped. "Why the bloody hell would you do a thing like that?"
"Language," she scolded, and he suppressed a string of even fouler profanity and merely glowered at his professor. "And I felt it my responsibility to inform him as a colleague. If it's any comfort, your brother is apparently more reticent than even you—his head-of-house, with whom he usually gets along so well, could get nothing but monosyllable from the boy."
Black said nothing, instead screwing up his face in a look of intense and rather childish hostility. She restrained herself from asking if obstinacy had been taught to them by their parents, or was just something Regulus had picked up from years of observing his elder brother at close quarters.
"Perhaps if the four of us were to meet, along with the Headmaster—"
"No! Absolutely not."
He'd stood up again, and the horror on his face at the mere thought was so acute she was actually startled.
"What do you suggest, then?"
"Leaving well enough alone!" he cried.
As she watched him pace up and down in front of the desk, quite agitated, Professor McGonagall thought, wistfully, of the remedial Transfiguration classes she'd had to endure with Wembleton Withers, the worst student she'd ever had. Anything was better than this.
She cleared her throat and Black's head snapped to attention.
"Think of the position you've put me in. Not knowing the real reason for your departure—I am forced to assume the worst. Nothing need happen if one of you is honest," she paused, and then continued, more gently. "I rather hoped it would be you."
He stared down at her, his face now ashen, hands trembling.
"My mother has never touched a hair on Reg's head," he said, finally, voice dripping with a hard disdain she'd never heard from him. "So you can tell old Slughorn he needn't worry about his favorite pet Black."
"I won't put it quite that way," she said, tartly. "I notice you didn't include yourself in that assurance."
"I told you, it's nothing—and it's not as though I didn't earn it." He flung the chair back and sank into it again. "Besides—they're not the kind of people to break what they think belongs to them, my parents. That's not why I left."
She knew—as far as Walburga Black's disciplinary tactics were concerned, at least—she would get no more from him than that. Did it even occur to him that he was protecting his mother, or was it subconscious?
"Then why did you?" she pressed.
"Because…because I'd had enough—"
"That is not an answer, Black."
"Well, it's the only one you're getting, so unless you want to spend all afternoon sitting here—"
"—I am well prepared to do so!"
Minerva and her student stared daggers at each other. Breathing hard, it was as if they were two heavyweights competing for a title, each recovering in their respective corners of a muggle boxing ring.
"Why are you even doing this?" he demanded, breaking the silence that had done nothing to quail his anger—it had only stoked the flames of his gunpowder temper. "Nobody's put you up to it, I'm sure—certainly they haven't. It's not part of your job, to stick your nose in where you haven't been asked, and aren't wanted. I can tell it's a chore for you, and anyway, what does it really matter?"
She let this extraordinary speech hang in the air for a moment, and then, wordlessly, she pulled the letter from the corner of the desk. Not looking at him, she read aloud from the middle of the first page:
"'—It's hardly my place to write you, Minerva, but I'm convinced no one else will—is it wrong that I should feel the need to be his advocate, when he's had such a rough time? I only hope you'll be patient with Sirius this term. For as much as he's been happy with us the past two weeks, I know him to be a far more sensitive boy than he lets on. We are delighted to have him, but I worry. Sirius won't tell us anything more about what happened. When he warned me not to owl them because I'd be likely to get a curse back, at first I thought he was joking—but he didn't laugh. You will talk to him, won't you? I know the boys both tease you, but they're only high-spirited—I believe Sirius is quite fond of you, and I think an ear from his favorite professor would do him a world of good.'"
When she finished, Minerva neatly refolded the note and tossed it back on her desk. Black, glassy-eyed, face pink, stared at something over her left shoulder, looking more abashed than she had ever seen him. He gave off the distinct impression—it had come, unbidden, to her mind, and she could not shake it—of a labrador with his tail between his legs.
"I hope you didn't shout at Euphemia Potter about—how was it you put it?" she asked, dryly. "'Sticking her nose in where she isn't wanted'?"
"That was—bang out of line." He shifted his gaze from the stone wall behind her shoulder to the broach pinned to her hat. "I'm sorry, Professor McGonagall."
Black's hangdog look was a surprising balm to her own temper.
"I accept your apology. I look forward to you making up for your abominable rudeness in your detention tomorrow night." He groaned. "What an honor it is to play host to your first of the year."
Sirius pulled a face, chastened—but there was a smile lurking beneath.
"Do you have any other bombs to drop on me?" he asked, contritely.
Considering the momentary lull of peace, she heartily regretted that her father's ironclad morals, fastidiously cultivated, should now demand she tell him the truth.
"I've written to your parents."
"Well, that was a waste of parchment."
She'd expected him to make another scene, but he only laughed.
"Should I be on the lookout for a curse in the post, Black?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.
"She wouldn't dare, not with you—" He answered, tone suggesting that he would be amused if his mother tried it. "It's just…you know they won't read it."
"These matters are not always so open and shut, Black."
"No, you don't understand!" he said, frustrated, running a hand through his hair. "By now she'll already have taken me off the—I couldn't—" his voice broke. "I couldn't return to Grimmauld Place, even I wanted to."
"I'm certain that's not true—"
"It is, believe me. I'm never setting foot in that house again, do you understand?" he cut her off, angrily. "I'm never going back. Never."
Black spoke with an absolute certainty—the kind you only had once, before life knocked it out of you. Hadn't she been just as certain when Dougal McGregor had gotten down on one knee and asked her to make him the happiest farmer in Caithness? All it had taken was one sleepless night to poison her certainty, muddy the waters of that pure spring of conviction. When she had risen from bed and gone to break the engagement that had given her that fleeting rush of euphoria, never to be repeated—she was a wiser woman.
Making a choice was as much shutting the door as opening it—Minerva knew that now.
He didn't.
"Never is a very long time," she said to him, evenly. "And you, forgive me, are very young. You may not always feel exactly the way you do now—about any of this."
"I know my feelings won't change." His eyes gleamed with intensity. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."
Minerva saw the change clearly in that moment.
It was as if the unseen weight had been lifted, and, free from that, buoyancy had raised him up. He was on cloud nine, and the only thing keeping him from rising high above them all were people like her who knew better, who knew that he would not be able to cut the strings of the past so easily. No one could.
He had what he thought was freedom, and she was trying to take it away.
"And anyway, I thought you'd be pleased. Now that I'm not going to be inheriting a mountain-high pile of gold, I'm going to have to buckle down and actually work."
That he would bring up their disastrous career session of the previous term was somehow the most unlikely turn of all.
"I have a feeling for you, academic 'buckling down' may be more a symbolic gesture than a reality."
He smirked.
"You saw my OWL results, then, did you?"
Seven "Outstandings" and two "Exceeds Expectations", and she'd seen neither hide nor hair of him in the library all last year.
"I did indeed," she said, dryly. "I would alter your expression, Black, if you want the congratulations you obviously feel you so richly deserve."
His smile drooped.
"Oh, come on—a 'good job' wouldn't go amiss for my Transfiguration marks." Feeling bold, he nudged her across the desk. "That was the whole reason I pulled it off, the prospect of you giving me a compliment."
"Oh, really—!" She rolled her eyes. "As if I ever had even the slightest doubt you'd get full marks in Transfiguration. You and Potter are miles ahead of my NEWT class and you know it."
He put both hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair, the cut on his face making him look even more cocksure than usual.
"Do you want a second detention?" The legs dropped to the ground with a loud clunk. "Or have you just grown very fond of these chats of ours?"
"'Course I am, professor."
She felt, with no small relief—that something of the air between them had cleared. He would never thank her for asking after him in her own clumsy way—she would not know what to say if he did—but at least, for this small moment, they had a modicum of mutual understanding.
Would that it were more than a moment.
"Now that you are to be a man of trade, seeking your fortune in the world," she remarked, ironically. "I take it you have some job in mind?"
"I want to fight dark wizards."
She blinked, slowly.
"Are you saying you wish to become an Auror?"
Sirius Black—the scion of a family with high-born aspirations and as murky a past as any, likely connections to You-Know-Who—Sirius Black, forever getting into trouble, breaking rules, nearly expelled last year—Sirius Black, clever, daring, reckless Black—an Auror?
Absurd, outlandish—very unlikely. And then she thought of old Alastor Moody.
He had the stomach for it, at least.
"Right, well—that's what I wanted to talk to you about," he said, with a lopsided smile. "I've been informed by reliable sources that you've got to do another two years of classes before the Ministry lets you—ah, loose."
"Your sources are correct."
"And there's no chance of an accelerated time table for that, is there?" he said, a hopeful lilt in his voice. "For the truly gifted, mind."
"Not that I'm aware of," she said, uneasily.
"Hm. That's tricky, devilishly tricky."
She folded her hands before her on the desk.
"To become an Auror is a very serious commitment, Black, and not for the faint of heart—but you certainly are on track for the NEWTs that would be required. You would then need to apply at the Ministry, be in the training program—I don't have the information in front of me, I think it's eighteen months—and then you'd have to pass field and written exams, not to mention a character test—"
"That'll all take too long!" He flapped his hands, dismissively. "I don't need four more years of school to learn to fight."
She suspected he didn't think he needed any more years of school.
Purpose. That was the other thing he had now that he hadn't before—a sense of purpose.
She felt uneasiness as she looked at her student—shining, glorious future reflected in his too-bright eyes. Purpose was all well and good, but purpose unchecked could go astray so easily, could become ambition or reckless stupidity—or something even more dangerous.
Minerva had long wished for him to make something of himself. Only now did it occur to her that she might not like what he chose.
"For someone with your abilities and determination, there may be…less conventional avenues for pursuing your—particular goals."
He sat up, interest peaked, and she regretted even the vague inference, for she could see that the wondrous promise of something illicit would be forever lodged in his brain.
Already he would have heard whispers of what Dumbledore was up to.
"I would advise you to investigate the requirements of the Auror training program thoroughly before you make any final decisions." He nodded—that old nod she recognized as perfunctory. She could tell he was already dismissing Auror training as a tedious bureaucratic roadblock that would only slow someone as clever as him down. "I would be glad to—write you a recommendation, if you should need it."
"You really mean that, Professor McGonagall?"
His look was too sly by half.
"Well, I'd consider it, anyway," she amended. "Didn't you have a terribly challenging Charms essay you needed to write, Mr. Black?"
Grinning, he stood up.
"Thanks for reminding me, professor." To her great chagrin, he swept her a bow—she supposed it was meant to be gallant, if one was being generous. Now she knew he was back to normal. "I'll see you in class on—Friday, then?"
"You'll see me in your detention tomorrow evening." He skidded to a halt three-quarters of the way to the door. "Back here in this office. You're going to assist me in grading the second-year term essays on switching spells."
"Really, professor?" He gave a revolted face. "Seems a bit extreme. I only told you not to stick your nose in it, it's not as if I said you should stick your wand—"
"—I suggest you hurry back to Gryffindor Tower, Black," she interrupted, sternly. "Before you're tempted to finish that sentence."
Flashing her another apologetic smile—eyes twinkling—he hurried out of the room.
Rubbing her temples, she folded up Euphemia Potter's letter and pulled open the lower drawer of her desk. Tucking it in a small file marked PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE, she shut the drawer again.
Well. That hadn't been so painful. Of course, it wasn't as though she'd been expecting a scene, tears—not from him.
But she had let him off the hook, hadn't she, for despite her threats, she had no intention of asking Dumbledore to intervene or even relaying this conversation, what Black had told her or what she read between the lines. She was sure the headmaster had an inkling already, he always knew more than he let on—but she wasn't going to send the Blacks up to his office to chat about it.
Black had done a fair bit to convince her of his case, in the end—he would weather it. He'd been right, he would be of age in two months. There came a certain point where there was nothing more she could do for them—for any of them.
Still…her efforts, however feeble, had the intended effect.
At the very least, Horace Slughorn couldn't have done better.