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The first day of school had never been a scary prospect for Sirius before. After torturous years of homeschooling, mostly conducted by specially selected tutors (specially selected for their penchant for cruelty and ill-humour), going hundreds of miles away to live in a bloody great castle seemed like a great idea. And it had been. Before the Hogwarts Express had even passed through the Lake District Sirius had known that.
He’d sat in a cramped train compartment with a chatty Indian boy who looked even richer than he was; a chubby blonde boy who looked at all of them in awe; a redhead who was so obviously Muggleborn it hurt (and made Sirius want to befriend her immediately); a skinny boy with greasy black hair and a nose three sizes too big (why his nanny hadn’t glamoured that away, Sirius would never understand); and a lanky kid with curly brown hair and scars on every inch of him, who’d been asleep for half the journey.
This time around, the journey wasn’t quite so fun, nor was Sirius as fearless.
This time, he was there as a teacher. The new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor. Merlin help him.
Sitting in the teacher’s compartment and wishing beyond everything that he could be sitting with Harry and his friends (he’d been explicitly banned from doing this by his darling godson), Sirius wondered how this had even happened.
It had to be Moony’s fault.
*
“I am not letting Harry go back to that bloody school.” Sirius hadn’t stopped pacing around his husband’s sick bed for the last two hours. “Not when any idiot could turn up to teach Defence.”
Remus didn’t reply, but that didn’t deter Sirius from continuing his rant.
“In five years at that school Harry’s been taught by: one - Voldemort in disguise; two - Gilderoy bloody Lockhart, who may I add, has only become smarter since that memory charm incident; three - you, and they were bloody lucky to have you, the bastards, and look what they ended up doing; four - a Death Eater in disguise; five - the only person in the world giving Voldemort a run for his money in the immorality stakes!”
“Hmm,” Remus hummed in the way Sirius knew meant he was holding back laughter. “It does make you wonder where they’ll be desperate enough to recruit from next. Azkaban, maybe?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Sirius was gearing up for another rant when he looked back at Remus. He was too calm, too unbothered. Sirius knew how strongly his husband felt about education; something didn’t add up. He was up to something, for sure. “You’re up to something.”
Remus smiled ironically and tilted his head so a perfect brown curl fell over his forehead. The dirty cheat.
“Up to something? Nope.”
“You liar!” Sirius laughed gleefully. He secretly loved it when Remus was sneaky. “What have you done?”
Remus smiled and went back to his book, “nothing, darling.”
“Tell me, tell me, tell me,” Sirius flopped across the bed and batted at the book until Remus laughed and hit him on the head with it. “Ow!”
“Check your wardrobe.”
Sirius did as he was told and opened the door on his side of their shared wardrobe. It took less than a second for him to see what was new. Remus’ tattered old briefcase was sitting on top of his designer robes. Sirius stared. The nametag winked up at him.
‘S.L-B.’
*
“You do realise this is all your fault?” Sirius didn’t know who his bitching was aimed at, and it didn’t really matter so long as somebody was listening.
“Please, enlighten me as to how this,” Remus gestured at the great pile of books and parchment that littered the library floor, “is my fault?”
“You had to go and be - oh, how did that letter put it? ‘The best teacher to grace that classroom in many years’ - and now I’m stuck trying to live up to that. Hence, this.”
Sirius looked around at the books and lesson plans around him for the first time in a few hours. Maybe he was getting carried away.
“Part of me thought I’d only have to teach Harry’s class.” Sirius sounded mournful at the loss of his naivety.
“Idiot.” Remus sat by him and pulled a third year lesson plan over. “They aren’t half bad -”
“No, but they’re not ‘Professor Lupin’ good either.” Sirius toppled sideways onto Remus’ shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want to go the Mad-Eye route and polyjuice yourself into me? You love teaching.”
“And I love being a free man more.” Remus kissed his hair and pushed him off his shoulder, back towards the books. “Although, could you imagine Umbridge’s face if we tricked her again?”
“Might be worth another stint in Azkaban.”
“Well, you escaped once - couldn’t be that hard to do it again.”
“Ooh,” Sirius’ laughter broke off as he sat up with a bolt. “I have an idea.”
“I hope to god the idea isn’t doing a lesson on how to escape high security prisons.” Remus stared at him. Sirius didn’t move a muscle, but somehow he’d been made. Remus groaned. “Pads, you cannot be serious.”
“Just for the sixth and seventh years.” Sirius said, “and not ‘how to escape Azkaban’, more ‘how to send distress signals’ and the like.”
Remus didn’t look convinced.
“Moony, they might need it.” Neither of them wanted to think about the ever worsening news from the outside. They spent hours upon hours in Order meetings now, and they’d vowed to leave talk of the War out of the house as much as they could. “Half of these kids will be caught up in the War, one way or another.”
“Minerva won’t allow it.”
“Minnie’s a realist,” Sirius countered. “She’ll want the students as prepared as possible. Plus, if I don’t teach them, I’m sure Harry and his merry army will have no qualms in setting up another secret society.”
“Just,” Remus paused and sighed, suddenly looking much too world-weary. “Don’t freak the students out.”
“If my very presence doesn’t do that first, then I’m sure my lessons won’t.”
“You’re impossible,” Remus breathed out a laugh. “Anyway, I came to fetch you - dinner’s ready.”
*
It was the middle of Harry’s summer holidays when Sirius made the journey up to Hogsmeade to see Minnie. He’d accepted the formal offer of the Defence position a month before, just one week after the Battle at the Department of Mysteries, but now was the time he had to prove he was serious about the role. More than anything, Sirius wanted it to go well. He hadn’t had a job since his escape, and before that he’d been an Auror and never imagined himself as anything else.
Accepting this job wasn’t just a ploy to keep Harry safe, it was a way to prove that he was back, that he could still do good, that he had a future. And he wasn’t going to throw that away.
So, he arrived in Hogsmeade half an hour early with half a tonne of lesson plans in his husband’s old briefcase. He wasn’t nervous. He felt like he had when he and James had been allocated a tricky case that everyone wanted to work. He felt excited, responsible, adult.
He knocked on Minnie’s red door.
It opened thirty seconds later to Minnie, looking as lovely as ever in some light summer robes.
“Professor Lupin-Black,” she had a gleam in her eyes that looked suspiciously close to tears (not that Sirius would be stupid enough to point that out). “Come in.”
“Professor,” Sirius nodded as he entered her cottage.
It was small and cosy and not particularly neat. There were photographs everywhere - Sirius noticed one from his and Remus’ wedding had pride of place on the mantel - and a number of portraits too. The most striking of which was huge and hung over the fireplace. It was of a handsome man, probably around Sirius’ age, who had dark hair and dark eyes which seemed to track Sirius’ every move. Even as he took the portrait in, the subject brought two fingers to his eyes then pointed them out the frame, straight at Sirius. It was the universal ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’ gesture.
“Oh, leave it Monty.” Minnie tutted, and the man in the portrait whistled, the very picture of feigned innocence. She turned back to Sirius, “don’t mind him.”
“Who is he?” Sirius had never known much about Minnie’s private life. First, she’d been his teacher, then they’d been co-conspirators in the Order, then he’d been locked away. There hadn’t been much time for pleasantries and small talk.
“My late husband,” Minnie gazed at the portrait, “we’d only been married six years when he died.”
“Oh,” Sirius was all too familiar with loss, but he still didn’t know what to say. ‘Sorry’ wasn’t enough, it was never enough. “He was very handsome.”
Minnie cracked a smile, then began to laugh in earnest at the now preening Monty.
“He was.” They looked at the portrait for a beat longer. “Enough of that. Show me your lesson plans.”
“Right.”
They moved into the adjoining dining room and Sirius lay the briefcase down on the table before pulling out his first folder.
“Let’s start with the first years…”
*
Sirius was jolted back to the present as the train took a turn at speed, knocking him from his daydreams of home and into the smudged glass of the train.
There weren’t many other professors taking the Express up to school. It was mainly the teachers who’d drawn the short straw at the end of term meeting and had to be there to chaperone. This year, Sirius was sharing the compartment with Professors Flitwick, Sprout, and Hooch, with Madame Pomfrey there as well. After the fiasco with the dementors on the train, Sirius was relieved she was there (and that his presence didn’t necessitate dementors anymore - he’d had enough of those for a lifetime).
“How’s Remus doing, love?” Pomona Sprout leant over from her seat next to Sirius. She’d not been at Hogwarts when he was - in Hogwarts terms she was still a pretty new teacher with her mere eight years tenure - but she’d obviously become attached to Remus in the year they spent as colleagues.
“Getting stronger every day, thank you.” Sirius said, “and I’m sure he’ll recover more quickly with Harry and I out from under his feet.”
Flitwick lifted his bespectacled head their way and laughed, the same tinkling laugh Sirius remembered from his Charms classes.
“That godson of yours is trouble,” Flitwick had a gleam in his eyes, “a chip off the old block. Why, I thought he was James the first time I saw him!”
“Nah,” Sirius grinned back. It was still a novelty, being able to speak about James and Lily like this, without fear nor pain. “He’s much more like Lily.’
“Well he inherited his father’s talent for flying, that’s for sure.” Hooch said in her matter of fact way. “Never seen anything quite like it.”
“Oh, the way he outflew that dragon!” Sprout cooed, “marvellous.”
“Idiotic, is what it was.” Pomfrey tutted. “A dragon on the school grounds. He was fourteen!”
“I think we can agree that Harry is a more troublesome student than I ever was,” Sirius didn’t like to think about the Triwizard Tournament if he could at all help it.
“Oh no,” Flitwick shuffled back in his seat, his legs barely past the edge of it. “You were much worse.”
“A complete nightmare,” Pomfrey sniffed, “the trouble you and James used to get into - Merlin knows how you weren’t expelled.”
“Hey! It was Remus too,” Sirius had no compunctions about throwing his husband under the bus.
“Remus was a sweetheart then and he’s a sweetheart now.”
“I can’t believe this!” Sirius was laughing freely now. “He’s got you all wrapped around his little finger. This is amazing!”
“Well, if you’re as good a teacher as he was then you’ll have us on side too.” Sprout said.
“What if I’m not?”
“We’ll put your office in the dungeons next to Snape’s.’
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try us.”
Sirius didn’t want to. He very much wanted the cosy Defence office. He already had plans to remove every last trace of pink, lace, bows, and kittens and replace it all with warm sofas and photos of his family. Especially that photo from the wedding of he and Minnie transforming into animagi and back. He had big plans to put that up with a permanent sticking charm. Perhaps he’d even hang it in the Great Hall.
*
“He’s not going to be happy about this you know.” Remus said as they followed the path through the gardens down to the quidditch pitch.
The day was beautiful, with a cloudless blue sky and just enough sun to be warmed by it without being dried into a scrap piece of parchment. It was also the day that Harry would find out his godfather was following him to school on account of the morbid danger that seemed to linger on him like a bad cologne.
So, quidditch was to be played. A Seeker’s match to start the day was a surefire way to make any Potter happy. Sirius just hoped it would be enough.
“Obviously,” Sirius gestured at his quidditch robes, “hence the whole quidditch thing.”
“Like you need an excuse to play.”
“Thought you liked me in my sports gear,” Sirius’ eyes gleamed, “said I looked - what did you say? Fucking delectable.”
“Fucking detestable, I think you’d find.”
“Not what you said last -”
“LALALA,” Harry speed walked past them, hands over his ears and shouting at the top of his lungs. “I don’t want to hear it!”
“He’s such a teenager,” Sirius said. Unlike most parents or guardians, he meant it as a good thing.
“Thank god for that.” Remus sat down on the sun warmed grass at the edge of the pitch. “Have fun.”
Sirius leant down to kiss him, mostly just to hear Harry groan at them again. It worked like a charm.
“Parental figures aren’t supposed to be this touchy-feely,” Harry shouted down at them from his position in the sky.
“Get over it!” Sirius called back, mounted his broom, and kicked off into the air. “And release the snitch!”
The golden snitch paused in the air between them for a fleeting second before it was off, zooming across the pitch with no regard for its would-be captors. Harry bolted after it, his red and gold robes streaming behind him.
Sirius was by no means a bad flyer, and although he’d been a fair beater in his prime, he still put on a good show in a Seeker’s game. A regular Seeker’s game, that was. Playing against Harry wasn’t at all regular. In fact, it was like pitting a leopard against a cheetah - they looked about the same, but only one of them would ever beat the other.
Harry, predictably, caught the snitch. Sirius wished he could say that Harry plucked it straight from under his nose, but really he’d been at least one Hagrid’s length away.
Harry laughed jubilantly and tossed the snitch in his palm, just like his father had.
“Best of three, old man?”
“I’m thirty four!”
“Liar,” Remus shouted from his space on the grass, “you’re thirty five.”
Sirius had no comeback for that. He flipped his husband the bird instead.
“Come on then!” He snatched the snitch from Harry’s palm and chucked it dizzyingly high in the sky, “best of three.”
Sirius managed to catch it the second time, but only because Buckbeak decided to join in the fun by getting totally in Harry’s way. His luck didn’t hold out for the third game however, and it was with a lot of taunting that the three of them began the walk back up to the house.
“It will be nice to see more of your quidditch games next year,” Sirius grinned. The urge to purse his lips and whistle like a crook from one of Lily’s old Muggle films was incredibly strong.
“Especially if the Captain badge is on its way to you, as it should be.” Remus ruffled Harry’s hair, “Captain Potter the Second.”
“Stop,” Harry mumbled, his brown cheeks darkening with a blush. “I probably won’t get it.”
“‘Course you will, don’t be daft.” Sirius ignored Harry’s eye roll. “Potter prodigies not being made Captain just doesn’t happen. Minnie would sooner eat hippogriff dung than make someone else Captain.”
Remus snorted despite the air of maturity he was trying to project and Sirius grinned, triumphant.
“I can’t wait to watch Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup again,” Sirius said meaningfully. If Harry didn’t pick up on the hint, he’d honestly have to scream.
“We might not win.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Remus laughed. “Harry, my stupid husband is trying, and failing, to hint that he has some big news.”
“What?” Harry stared at him and narrowed his eyes. “You haven’t bought me another new broom have you? Because I told you, the Firebolt is perfect -”
“Nope,” Sirius popped the ‘p’ obnoxiously.
“If you’ve bought my way to being captain Sirius, I’ll be so mad.”
“Think outside the quidditch pitch.”
“Why else would you see all my games -” Harry cut himself off. His eyes widened comically. “You didn’t.”
“In all fairness, it wasn’t my idea.” Sirius pointed a finger right in Remus’ face, “it was his.”
“Moony!” Harry looked like he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Why! Why would you do this to me?”
“It was our only option.” Remus said mock-gravely. “It will be hard, Harry, but we’ll get through this together.”
“Rude. I’m going to be a great prof-”
“Nope, don’t say it.” Harry was grinning, his eyes and nose crinkling with mirth. “If I don’t hear it out loud then it can’t hurt me.”
“I’m your new teacher Harry!” Sirius bellowed as loudly as he could. Remus, bless him, held Harry’s hands by his sides so he couldn’t block his ears.
Harry laughed as he twisted in Remus’ arms, easily throwing him off.
“For real?” He panted, wiping the sheen of sweat from his forehead. “This isn’t some kind of joke?”
“Totally real.” Sirius patted him on the back, “I hope you’re not mad.”
“Mad?”
“You know, that I’m following you to school.”
“No, it’s good. But no special treatment in classes. And definitely no calling me Prongslet in front of anyone.”
“But you love being Prongslet.” Sirius knew he shouldn’t feel sad at Harry outgrowing nicknames, but well - he was. It felt like losing a link to Harry’s childhood that he’d never really had in the first place.
“I do, but -” Harry ran his hands through his hair and sighed, “it’s a bit embarrassing.”
“Ah,” Remus said, with a barely restrained laugh, “you don’t want him to say it in front of any girls.”
“Oh my god,” Harry blushed.
“I can’t believe this,” Sirius gasped, “he’s all grown up, Moony! He’ll be asking for the Potter wedding bands soon.”
“I hate you both,” Harry jumped on his broom and flew off, leaving Sirius and Remus laughing in his wake. “See you later, Professor.”
Sirius pulled a face. That sounded odd.
“Takes a while to get used to,” Remus said. He sounded oddly mournful, and when Sirius looked over, he had that sad look in his eye he got whenever he thought about the twelve years that separated them. “Being Professor Lupin instead of Uncle Moony, like it should have been.”
Remus shook his head as if to dislodge the maudlin mood he’d cast over himself.
“Moony -” Sirius started, but he didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence. How to respond to twelve years of absence that weren’t any of their faults.
“Well,” Remus squeezed his hand. “There’s one difference at least - you’ll be Professor Lupin-Black instead.”
“And the whole school will wish they had the other Professor Lupin-Black.” Sirius nudged Moony’s shoulder and got a smile.
“Damn right,” Remus said.
*
“What do you think my signature professor look should be?”
“Siri. It is seven o’clock in the morning.”
“Yes, and?” Sirius poked at Remus until he was slapped away. “This is important.”
“I don’t even know what you’re on about.”
“My look, Moony! My style. The aura I need to exude to be the best teacher I can be.”
Remus huffed out a sleepy laugh and turned over, opening one amber eye a fraction. Sirius took it as permission to go on.
“You see, every teacher has one. Minnie’s is ‘strong and silent’ - she walks into the classroom in her long dark robes and big hat and everyone knows straight away that she’s not to be messed with. Yours, I can only imagine, was ‘soft and approachable’. The tattered clothes which marked you as normal and kind, the fact that everything you owned was knitwear, not to mention the cute curls and pretty eyes, “Sirius winked, “they all put a label on you that said ‘down to earth and nice’ before you’d even opened your mouth to teach.”
“Flatterer,” Remus was pink around the cheeks as he shuffled closer under the duvet to press a kiss to Sirius’ shoulder.
“And on the other side, you have Snivellus. The black robes that he never changes, the greasy hair, and the damp dungeon classroom. Typical ‘cruel lunatic’ teacher archetype.”
Remus laughed, “you know the robes are specially designed to flare out when he walks? It’s called the ‘bat wing special.’”
“Merlin,” Sirius laughed, “how does he keep getting worse?”
“Why don’t you copy his style to piss him off? You’d pull off those stpid robes a thousand times better.”
“Of course I would,” Sirius grinned, “but no. I need my own style. I can’t go around copying others. And especially not you. I’ll be compared to you enough as it is.”
“Oh, but you’d look so cute in a knitted sweater vest.”
“You’re mean in the morning.”
“Payback for waking me up,” Remus yawned.
“If I can’t be all ‘soft and approachable’ like you, then I’ll be the opposite.”
“‘Hard and unapproachable’? Solid plan, Siri. Absolutely foolproof.”
“No, you prat. What about ‘cool and rebellious’?”
“Mmm,” Remus yawned again and closed his eyes, turning his face back into his pillow. “At least we wouldn’t have to go shopping.”
“Great - that’s that sorted then.” Sirius smacked a kiss on Remus’ cheek which went unacknowledged, then jumped out of bed. “Breakfast?”
Remus was already asleep again.
*
The train began to slow. The windows had done nothing but reflect his own excited face for the past two hours, the skies outside too pitch black for anything else.
Sirius hated the waiting. He wanted to be at the school now , wanted to introduce himself to the students, wanted to set his office up then floo home to Moony. The slow descent into Hogsmeade Station seemed to last forever.
“Go on, love.” Sprout patted his arm in a matronly manner. “I’ll round up any stragglers, you grab a carriage and head on up.”
Sirius didn’t need to be told twice. He grabbed the trunks he’d packed the day before and squirmed in his spot in front of the doors until they finally opened.
The cool Scottish air hit him all at once. Arriving at this station had always meant good things. The first breath of cold air had seemed to Sirius like an exorcism of the pain he held within himself during holidays at Grimmauld Place. After he’d run away to live with James and the Potters this journey had still retained its magic. It was the first time he’d been able to see Moony after six weeks apart, after all.
Sirius waited impatiently for the first of the carriages to pull up to the station, then jumped into one with Professor Hooch and Madame Pomfrey.
“Your excitement is making me feel old,” Hooch let her head fall back against the wooden boards of the carriage and let out a long groan. “It’ll be hours until I can piss off back home.”
“But think of all the food! And the Sorting, I always loved guessing people’s houses. Me and James got pretty good at it, you know, used to shout our guesses before the hat.”
“Good Gideon,” Hooch’s eyes rolled so far back Sirius was afraid they’d never make their way back around. “Please, please, do not do that this year. I think my brain would actually leak out of my head and into my shepherd’s pie if I had to sit through something that made the Sorting even more unbearable.”
“Don’t mind Rolanda,” Pomfrey fussed over some of her knitting. It looked like she was making bandages. “She’s always like this at the start of term.”
“Oh, piss off.”
Sirius shrugged. He didn’t really care about the other professors. In his mind he was already sitting at Minnie’s right hand with Gryffindor table stretched out in front of him, from a perspective he never thought he’d see it from (bar the time he and James had snuck up there early one morning before breakfast. That time, the detention Minnie gave them had actually stuck, as did the blisters he got from writing lines for two hours.)
The wheels trundled across the newly muddied grass and onto the cobbled pathway that led to the school’s entrance. The thestrals’ hooves barely made a sound on the stone, and Sirius couldn’t judge the distance accurately without the sound. He was leaning forward to stare out the window impatiently when he was jolted back against the seat as they halted suddenly.
Without waiting, Sirius jumped from the carriage and walked through the open doors of Hogwarts.
He breathed in and settled his shoulders, pureblood mannerisms from years before settling around him as easy as breathing. A five hour train journey hadn’t rumpled his embroidered robes, red - of course - nor pulled a hair out of place in his chosen half-up half-down hairstyle. Moony had said he looked like a ‘handsome prat’, which was practically songs of praise from him.
Seeing the Great Hall empty of any students was odd, although not as odd as the appraising looks the other teachers were shooting him. Dumbledore stood from his place at the centre of the table and raised his hands in welcome.
“Ah, our newest Professor,” his voice was rougher than it had been at the Order meeting just the week before, “please, take your seat.”
Sirius walked up to the table. It would be fairly awkward to walk its entire length then around again, just to get to the second seat from Dumbledore, so after eyeing it up for a minute, Sirius just hopped straight over.
“The show begins,” Snivellus drawled from his space on the other side of Dumbledore. Good - at least Sirius wouldn’t have to smell the grease reeking off of him from that far away. “Our new resident showboat.”
“Do piss off, Severus.” Sirius used his most refined voice. He settled himself in his chair, his robes artfully draped around him, and nodded and smiled at the other professors on his side of the table.
“Boys,” Dumbledore said, although he sounded like he wanted to laugh. Thankfully, he didn’t have time to say much more before the students started to file into the room.
There was no rhyme or reason to the groups that filtered in. Large clumps of students who seemed to make up many different houses and years came in at once and demonstratively said goodbye before walking to their house tables. There were seventh years who looked worried already; sixth years who strutted in like they owned the place; couples who’d spent the summer apart and walked in hand in hand; second years with the confidence of not being the youngest anymore. One of the last groups to walk in were the very people Sirius had been searching for, but they were one person short.
Ron’s tall frame towered above the others, but even as the group dispersed he couldn’t see a Harry shaped student hidden behind any of them. His heart started to beat uncomfortably fast and he shifted in his seat. Surely someone else had to notice.
But no one had. The professors were talking and laughing with each other, the students were all wrapped up in themselves, or, Sirius noticed, staring at him - but no one had noticed that Harry was missing.
His eyes sought out the only other people he trusted in the room - Ron and Hermione. They were looking as worried as he felt, and mercifully they looked his way. Ron shrugged and Hermione bit her lip and shook her head. The message was clear - Harry wasn’t with them and they didn’t know where he was.
Sirius stood up and the eyes that weren’t on him before now snapped to his face. He couldn’t even enjoy the attention.
“Albus,” Sirius said urgently and leant over to him. “Harry’s not here.”
Snape’s head whipped around at his words. He scanned the room as well and cursed under his breath. “Neither is Draco.”
Dumbledore’s long eyebrows furrowed and he nodded, “go and find them.”
Sirius had to resist the urge to argue against having Snape as a partner in crime. It felt vaguely dirty.
They were barely four steps out of the castle when they saw Draco run nimbly up the steps. He hadn’t a platinum hair out of place, his pale hands elegantly placed in his pockets, not a care in the world.
“Draco, you’re late.” Snape drawled, although his whole posture had relaxed at the sight of the Malfoy kid. “Explain.”
“Sorry, Professor. Forgot a book on the train,” he gestured at a thick tome held under one arm.
Snape grunted and turned to walk back into the castle with him. Typical.
Sirius ran towards Hogsmeade Station. The journey only took five minutes at a run, but the train normally left every thirty minutes from the station and it had been at least fifteen since he’d got off it.
He huffed a sigh of relief when he saw the train was still there, although it was more of a pant - he wasn’t as fit as he used to be.
Jumping through the closest door, Sirius brandished his wand. “ Hominum revelio.”
Something glowed silver a few compartments down.
The silver of the spell settled over a shape on the ground which was invisible to the naked eye, but looked suspiciously godson-shaped.
“New record, Harry,” Sirius joked as he leant down to take the cloak off him. The joke died on his lips as he saw Harry’s bloodied face and frozen pain. “Shit.”
A flash of light later had Harry unfrozen and another had his nose back together with a sickening crunch.
“What happened?”
“Draco bloody Malfoy,” Harry glowered.
“What did he do?”
“I was eavesdropping and he saw me. Thought it would be funny to send me on a train back to London.”
“Merlin.“ Sirius dusted his shoulders off and cleaned the blood from Harry’s face until he was shaken off. “Come on, we’ll be late. I’ll deal with the brat later.”
“Sorry,” Harry stared at the floor glumly as they started the walk back up to the castle. “I know you wanted to make a good first impression.”
“Ah, what’s a better first impression for a rebel teacher than showing up late with the Chosen One?”
Harry snorted.
They were back to the castle in ten minutes.
“Right, ready to head in there?”
“Yeah,” Harry said. He hadn’t changed into his robes, but at least the Muggle clothes he wore fit properly. “I’ve not got blood on my face still, have I?”
“No,” Sirius chuckled and ruffled Harry’s hair as they walked into the Great Hall.
The chatter of the students immediately stopped, but Sirius didn’t let it bother him. He patted Harry’s head once then shoved him gently towards the Gryffindor table and headed back to his own seat, hopping over the table as he had done before.
“Nice of you to join us,” Minnie tutted, but more quietly said, “is he okay?”
Sirius nodded surreptitiously and waited for the chatter to start back up before allowing himself to relax fully in his seat.
“Run in with the Malfoy kid. He was under the cloak on the train.”
Minnie’s face pinched dramatically, but any consequences would have to wait until after the feast. Sirius couldn’t help but glare at the platinum haired bastard at the Slytherin table. He was already gloating about it to his cronies, no doubt.
Dumbledore stood up and cleared his throat, forcing Sirius’ eyes away from Malfoy Junior.
“Before I begin my speech,” he said in his grave voice, “I’d like to take the time to introduce our newest member of staff. Sirius, if you would -”
Sirius smoothed his hands down his robes and stood. The hundreds of eyes on him at once was a little reminiscent of his trial, but at least these eyes were just a load of kids he had to teach. Merlin, he thought, he might actually prefer the eyes of the jury on him again.
“Professor Lupin-Black will bravely be taking over the position of Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts. Thank you for joining us.”
Sirius smiled and ran a hand through his hair. Half the students looked terrified and he’d not even made them write an essay yet.
“Thank you, Professor Dumbledore. I think it best I clear up a few things straight away - yes, I was a convicted murderer and served twelve years in Azkaban, but no, I was not guilty. Yes, I am married to a werewolf, and no, I am not as good a teacher as he is. And yes, I am from that Black family, but no, I am not clinically insane. I think that just about covers it.”
“Is it true you duelled You-Know-Who last summer?”
Sirius looked over at the Gryffindor table where, naturally, the shout had come from. A young boy with a huge grin was staring at him - Sirius recognised him as Fred and George’s friend, Lee Jordan.
“Yes,” Sirius grinned.
“Yes, thank you Professor.” Minnie’s voice was as sarcastic as ever, but her eyes were laughing. Sirius winked at her and the students laughed nervously. No doubt they’d never seen anyone tease her before.
“Lovely!” Dumbledore clapped his hands and carried on with his start of term notices. Sirius didn’t listen very much, too busy looking over at the Gryffindor table. Harry grinned at him and Hermione raised her goblet, Ron was still eating dessert but he managed a brief thumbs up.
Well, if he had their blessing then what could possibly go wrong?