Chapter Text
Sirius watched the clock tick slowly towards 1. It was third period but felt like the fifth. Wednesdays were always like that. He watched the students go through the three stages of maths; actually doing the work; pretending to do the work; just straight up messing about like they weren’t counting down the days till their mock GCSEs. The wind battered against the windows, but it wasn’t raining, meaning that students would still have to sit outside at lunch. What was worse, doing exercises 1a through 9j or standing out in a freezing British December for 45 minutes. Sirius drew his attention back to the year 7 test he was supposed to be marking. The girl had gotten the right answer… but looking at the labyrinth of workings he couldn’t tell if she had reached it through divine intervention or witchcraft. He should check with her next lesson.
A muted cheer brought him out of his head. The group of kids that had given themselves away guiltily grabbed their pencils and began looking at the book with comically quizzical, hardworking frowns. All except one. The tall one with a streak of blue in his blond hair – which he had been told to remove 5 times by the head of year. He stood on a chair leaning out of the highest window, aiming a paper airplane at the open window of the nearest building. He wandered if this had been set up before the lesson or if it was just a really lucky opportunity. Either way, the luck had run out.
“Teddy you can stay behind for 10 minutes after class” He tried not to sound as bored as his students.
“Can do sir” The kid snapped finger guns at him to a round of sniggers from his friends.
“Make that 15, and get off the chair.”
Teddy jumped back into his seat, grabbing his pen and scribbling answers. Sirius had no issue with his work, the kid was smart, and Sirius secretly hoped he would choose to take maths at A level. He just wished he was less disruptive to the other kids who, admittedly needed this revision session.
When Sirius had first started in September, the head of maths had given him a cheeky wink, the kind 50 year old woman give to 26 year old men, and said
“Ooh, you’ve got Teddy, good luck”
Not something a new teacher wants to hear before his first class at a new school. Still, he was worse when he was Teddys age. When he went to a fancy boarding school, and had mummy issues, and access to too much money. Still, he thought his teachers found him and his friends at least a little bit amusing, and he had a level of respect for his teachers. Teddy was grating. He knew which buttons to press, he knew how to get even the most quiet, good natured kids wrapped up in his schemes. And it’s hard to dish out equal detentions to a whole group when one of the poor girls roped in had never even had so much as a verbal warning on her uniform, and was bawling her eyes out.
Despite that, he had a feeling that had Teddy gone to Hogwarts a decade earlier, they would have been very good friends. And he kind of wanted to go to the other block to see if they had actually gotten the paper airplane through the window. He could ask. But he would never give that smug blue haired menace the satisfaction.
The bell rang and everyone shuffled out to stand in the cold and eat their sandwiches. Everyone except Sirius and Teddy. Who stayed at their respective desks. Sirius continued to mark papers, Teddy rested his head on his bag and pretended to sleep. When that didn’t get a rise out of Sirius, he tried a different tactic.
“Any fun Christmas plans Mr Black?”
He should really tell Teddy not to talk, the whole point of detention was to be silent and boring, but he felt like he was being punished as well, and the tests were starting to make less and less sense.
“Marking your mocks.”
“Pretty sure that’s not fun, even for you”
“You don’t know me at all, marking GCSE papers is just the cheap version of spending a night at the Ritz” He couldn’t have said it more dryly if he was in the Sahara desert.
“No family or anything?” Sirius felt his body involuntarily stiffen. He hoped Teddy didn’t see. Showing weakness to a 16 year old was the equivalent of bleeding in piranha infested waters.
He looked up from the tests to hold Teddies gaze “Detention is meant to be silent”
He didn’t have anything to thank his mother for. But if he was feeling gracious, he had to admit that cold, cruel stare came in handy now and then. No one talked back to Walburga Black. Very soon after he started teaching, the students gave him the same respect.
Teddy rested his head on his hands for the remaining time. At 1:15 on the dot, both he and Teddy stood to go have their own lunches.
The staff room wasn’t much better, every other maths teacher was at least 15 years older than him. all were married, or had long term partners, and kids. Ranging from tiny toddlers who were learning new words, or growing new teeth every week. To men his age who were getting married, buying a new car, or being promoted to chief superior better-than-everyone tippity-top manager. And here he was. Lowest paid teacher at a London state school that consistently got “Good” on their Ofsted reports for every single category.
Deciding to teach, had been as much of a shock for him as it had been for everyone around him. His best friend James had thought he was back on drugs again. Lily had begged him to just take a year of, use the trust fund to “Heal” while backpacking round Europe. The University careers officer had asked if he had really thought about his decision. The answer was yes, sort of. He hadn’t thought about the career that much, but he had thought about the advantages of having a low profile job, doing something he enjoyed, far away from everyone. Far away from them. The other option was carpentry and no one trusted Sirius with a saw ever since the incident in Year 10 DT that got him kicked off the course. So teaching maths it was.
He found he quite liked it. The kids were mostly alright, he enjoyed lecturing and explaining and breaking down complex equations. He enjoyed seeing kids find their own love of maths, the gentle rhythm of solving a problem. Having a defined right and wrong answer. Being able to track your work and identify any errors and knowing how to fix them. The only uncertainty he had to deal with was in statistics and he could handle that. No matter what happened at home. No matter the mood Walburga was in, or the changes of heart she had, numbers were always the same. Numbers didn’t pretend to love you until it got what it wanted. Numbers didn’t use family as a leverage. It didn’t lie, or cheat or betray you. They didn’t leave you bleeding. They didn’t leave you for dead.
Now, the talk of the break room was Christmas, he tried to hide his displeasure. He could probably go to the Potters over Christmas. James had asked enough times. But Harry had just been born, it felt wrong to intrude on James and Lilys first Christmas together as a family. And honestly, he wanted to forget Christmas this year. More specifically, he wanted to forget Regulus. Forget he ever had a brother. Forget he ever had a family. Pretend it was just him, on an island, where he can’t be touched, or hurt. You can’t lose anything if you have nothing to lose.
***
He finally left the school at 5. As he rounded the corner to the bus stop he saw his bus pull away, no point running for it only to look like an idiot. Instead of standing still and freezing, he decided to start walking to the next bus stop along the road and catch the bus from there, at least the blood would keep moving in his extremities.
Just as he reached the next bus stop, a young man was sticking a brightly coloured flier to the post board. He peered over the man’s shoulder to read it. Some kind of Christmas themed bash at a gay club in town. He been there a few times, it was alright. If you kept your standards were low and pregamed appropriately. The party was that night, 10 till 4.
“Bit late to be putting fliers up now.”
The young man turned around and gave the nosy stranger an exaggerated look up and down. Sirius didn’t mind the judging. Even in the wind his hair remained perfectly styled in a messy bun with two expertly plucked strands tucked behind his ears. Both his leather jacket and leather shoes were high quality and real. He was an inch shy of six foot but he made up for it with a well bred posture. And well, if this kid thought that was a sneer then he was Ebenezer Scrooge.
The kids face softened into a lazy smirk.
“They were put up ages ago but people keep tearing them down, can’t think what for”
“Maybe it’s the half-naked gay Santa?” Sirius proposed. The guy tapped his chin in a faux intellectual manner,
“Hmm, you might have a point, there are somethings not even the liberal suburbs are ready for”
Sirius laughed, then stuck his hand out for the bus now rounding the corner. A flier was shoved under his nose.
“Oh no I don’t need one thanks”
“Yeah you do, see you tonight” he gave a comical salute and walked off to the next lamppost.
Sirius stood dumbfounded for a moment at the sheer confidence of that move. Remembering a time when he would have done the same thing with a cheeky wink, maybe even written his number on a strangers hand. The bus pulled up, he took one last look at the flier before shoving it in his pocket.
Maybe he was still that person.