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June 1978
The last person Minerva McGonnagall expects to knock on her door on a cool summer night is perhaps not Sirius Black because he’s made it a habit over the years to come by her office at least once a fortnight, but he is certainly not very high on the list as of right now. Come to think of it, Minerva can’t remember the last time Sirius Black was in her office. He’s been remarkably well-behaved in the past couple of years.
“Mr Black,” she greets, looking him up and down to make sure he is not injured in some way. He looks very put together if a bit fidgety so her worries move on to his troublesome friends. “What’s the matter?”
“May I come in, Professor?” he asks, uncharacteristically soft, and the sheer surprise of it is enough to make her step aside.
He walks into the room, back straight, shoulders drawn up, every inch the Black heir he so despises to be. But when he sits down in the in front of her desk, he seems to become liquid, all long limbs and slumped shoulders.
“Have a biscuit,” she says, pushing forward the tin of biscuits she keeps on hand for her students, usually some very distinctive ones, like the one in front of her.
He shakes his head, looking distinctly pale, and she notices, not for the first time this year, the dark smudges underneath his eyes. “No, thank you, Professor.”
She hides her surprise and smoothly closes up the tin, then turns around to her kettle and boils the water in it. “Tea?” she asks, back still to her student.
“I—” He huffs a breath, then says, “Please.”
Minerva doesn’t ask what kind and how much sugar and if he wants milk, because he’s been in her office enough for her to know how exactly he drinks his tea and that he actually prefers coffee, anyway.
He stays silent and unmoving for the time she pours the tea into two cups, which is strange in and of itself, but he doesn’t even say anything when one of the cups slips from its saucer and she barely manages to flick her wand in time to catch it before it spills its contents onto the floor.
Safe to say, Minerva is quite worried now.
Only when she hands him his cup of tea—black, two spoons of sugar, no milk—does he murmur, “Thank you.” He deposits the saucer on the desk and hugs the cup with both hands, blowing softly into the tea to make it cool down faster, his eyes downcast.
Minerva does put down the saucer as well, but she grips the cup by the handle instead and brings it to her lips. She prefers her tea hot. “What’s the matter, Mr Black?” she asks again, patiently, but she doesn’t miss the way his fingers tighten around his cup at the use of his last name. “Sirius,” she amends gently, and he does look up at that, his grey eyes startling. “I can’t help you if you don’t—”
“I’m getting the Dark Mark tomorrow,” Sirius says before she can finish, eyes like steel in their determination.
Out of all the things—Minerva hadn’t expected this, not one bit. She shrieks, but stifles it with a hand before it can fully escape, and the motion sends her tea flying all around.
Sirius seems to have been prepared. Quick as a flash, he has his wand in hand and flicks it, directing the tea back into the cup and the cup itself safely onto the saucer on the desk. He pockets his wand as soon as the cup rattles, and looks at Minerva with a rather sheepish glint in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Professor,” he says, looking like he doesn’t know what exactly he’s apologising for but meaning it all the same. She thinks it must be the first time since he was sorted into Gryffindor that he’s genuinely apologising to her. “I made a deal with my mother two years ago and if I don’t honour it—” He bites his lip, takes a sip of his tea. He clears his throat and when he continues his voice is stronger. “I’m not doing it because I choose to, but because I have no other choice, not if I want everyone I love to live. I know this won’t absolve me of anything I may do, being of sound mind—or, as much a Black can be—but I wanted somebody to know that in my heart—” He swallows, shaking his head, and doesn’t go on.
“May I ask why?” she asks, but she has an inkling anyway.
His Adam’s apple bobs. “You know why,” he says.
Of course she does. She’s seen Sirius this past two years, talking in hushed tones with Regulus, a boy of slighter build but by no means any less talent than his older brother, the strain in their frighteningly straight postures obvious as they exchanged words. And she’s seen the Marauders, her foolish boys, less troublesome and more tight-knit than ever but with inevitable cracks growing between them, what with Sirius’s more—well, serious demeanour.
“And you’re willing to give up the life you’ve built here, with James, and Remus, and Peter, and the others, for this?”
He smiles, though it’s hardly a smile, and more of a grimace of self-deprecating amusement. “The life I’ve built here, Professor—it’s only an illusion, seven amazing years I got to have before I have to be who I was burdened with the day I was born. Perhaps if I had been brave enough two years ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.” He gives a one-shouldered shrug. “But I wasn’t. So now I will be what my mother expects of me, because that’s the deal we made—I get to finish Hogwarts, doing what I want, then I do as she sees fit and Reggie and my friends remain untouched by her hand.” He blinks, his grimace pulling up into what almost looks like a wry smirk. “I can be a good pureblood when I have my motivations.”
“Don’t be daft, Sirius,” she snaps. He flinches and she softens her voice. “You could choose differently, you could, the Potters would—”
“The Potters,” Sirius says over her with a strength that makes her forget he’s just spoken over her, “are good people, who have been beyond kind to me since the day they met me, but they are old and have enough on their plate as it is, and it would be a piss-poor thanks for their kindness to inflict Walburga Black’s wrath on them.” He puts down his cup and looks at her directly. “I have thought this through, Professor, more than you can imagine. No matter what I do, no matter how I rebel, someone will end up getting hurt. This option predicts only my hurting. This option allows me to protect Reggie and Jamie, Remus, Lily, and Peter. And their hatred, the destruction of my soul, is a small price to pay for it.”
Minerva is left speechless for a second. She has to admit she didn’t expect such an impassioned speech, delivered with such determined force, but then again, Sirius Black always has had a flair for dramatics.
“I—you realise what this entails?” she asks.
“I do.” He clears his throat. “It will hardly be a surprise for the wizarding world, Professor. I am a Black, after all—my soul is as dark as my name.” He pauses, the upturn of his lips almost reminiscent now—he must be enjoying using the joke he’s used so many times already. He sobers only moments later, saying quietly, “But I was hoping it might help you, too.”
Minerva raises a brow. “How will having one of the most gifted students of his age on the side of You-Know-Who help us?” she asks, taking a sip of her tea to calm her nerves.
He doesn’t even react to the hidden compliment, which tells her that the world truly is turning on its axis.
“I know about the Order,” he says calmly. “I won’t join—I have no desire to be a double agent, or a triple agent, as it happens—but I want to…” He licks his lips, placing his elbows on his knees as he leans forward, his hair framing his face—so, so young he is, she realises suddenly. “I would like to pass information to you, whatever I find out that will help you win this war.”
Minerva straightens. “If you want to spy for the Order, Sirius, you should talk to Albus. I am not a part of—it,” she says.
“No.” His answer comes almost too quickly, enough so that she looks at him over the rim of her spectacles. “I don’t trust Professor Dumbledore,” he explains, wringing his hands together. “Not enough to do this with him.” His eyes are almost imperceptibly wide now, grey and earnest, as if willing her, pleading with her, to understand. “But I trust you. And I know you would never—” He doesn’t finish his thought and Minerva thinks that is for the better so when she feels something pricking in her eyes.
She quickly swallows another mouthful of hot tea and smooths down a wrinkle on the leg of her night robes. When she looks back up at Sirius, he’s biting the inside of his cheek. She gives one nod, curt and quick, and says, “Very well.”
He doesn’t exactly brighten but there’s a new ease to his movements as he sips his tea. “Thank you, Professor.”
They drink their tea in silence for the next few minutes, until Minerva dares to ask, “When will you tell James and the others?”
He shrugs. “I won’t. They’ll find out eventually, but until then—I don’t know, I’ll make them hate me.” He huffs a breath of air that might be able to pass as laughter if it weren’t for the way it breaks. “They’ll probably think she has me under Imperius or something.”
“You’re being braver than any Gryffindor I’ve ever met.”
He offers her a small smile. “Thank you, Professor, but perhaps save that for the time after I manage to pull this off.”
They are silent again.
Sirius leans back suddenly, all vulnerability gone from his face, replaced by sky-high confidence, giving her one of his signature lopsided grins and there he is, this brave, troublemaker of a boy she’s known this past seven years. Her heart aches with the thought of that bright boy dying. “So how hard will it be to pretend to hate me if you see me out there?”
One week, later she watches as he throws up his pointed hat, roaring in joyous laughter along with the rest of his class, the words they’re shouting at each other lost in the applause of the spectators and the students themselves.
She sees him grab Lily around the waist, spinning her round and round as her dark red hair streams behind her, then draw in Marlene and Dorcas with each hand as they stumble into him and embrace him each on one side. She sees him reach Peter next, digging his knuckles into the shorter boy’s scalp with a wide grin and laughingly step away as Peter bats at him. He runs right into Remus and as he grabs him, one hand fisting in the back of Remus’s robes and the other cupping the back of his neck, Minerva feels the need to look away, to give them privacy, even if they’re embracing so emotionally in the middle of a crowd.
When she looks back, he’s already found James, their arms around each other as they jump up and down, the colour of their hair almost identical, the grins on their faces almost duplicates of each other’s, and her insides ache because they could’ve been brothers, they could have been, they could have—
But Sirius’s real brother comes along then, slow and unsure, but with a small smile on his face, and Sirius steps forward to catch his forearm with his hand, briefly pressing their foreheads together. He says something to him, something even she can guess is beyond private, but before Regulus can reply, Hagrid calls for the graduates to go to the boats. Regulus breaks away and goes back up to the castle without another glance, leaving Sirius to pick up his hat along with his classmates.
Minerva, along with all the other Professors, walks the graduates to the lake and stands a few steps away from its bank as they start to climb into the boats, Lily wandering towards Marlene, Dorcas and Mary to let the four boys clamber into one boat together.
It is heart-breaking to think that in just a few days, or perhaps even hours, Sirius will be as alien to them as Severus Snape a few boats away is.
As if sensing her thoughts, Sirius Black looks back at her and grins. “Alright there, Professor?” he shouts. “You won’t miss me too much, will you?”
She doesn’t have it in herself to hold back a small smile. “I think I’ll manage just fine.”
He favours her with another grin and then he’s jostled back as the boats disembark to glide over to the Hogsmeade station. He nearly topples over into Remus, but regains his balance, turning his now much softer smile on the other boy.
They’re nearly in the middle of the Black Lake, when he looks back again, this time no hint of laughter in his face. Their eyes meet, both expressions carefully impassive, but Minerva doesn’t think she imagines the tremble in his body as he lifts his hand—is that the arm that’s been Marked, she wonders, or is it the other one—and tips his hat ever-so-slightly towards her.
Minerva watches toward them until Albus takes her by the elbow and gently leads her inside. “They’ll be just fine, Minerva,” he says, blue eyes gentle as he pats her hand.
She presses her lips together and closes her eyes, thinking back to that night, imagining those grey eyes staring up at their owner’s namesake in the night sky, blank and unseeing.