Chapter Text
Minerva McGonagall is a straightforward woman.
She’s the transfiguration professor, the head of Gryffindor, and a damn good teacher.
Minerva McGonagall doesn’t like troublemakers, especially those with malicious intent. So when she sees the name Sirius Black appear on the list of incoming students, she inadvertently groans and massages her temples. She already has her fill of unnecessarily frustrating Slytherin students antagonising her Gryffindors, but Sirius Black?
She’s already heard of the boy. His elder cousins have mentioned him in passing before, speaking of his prodigal skill for magic and how he’s the pride and joy of the Black family, their new heir. His magic is apparently already incredibly potent, able to fix small items with a wave of his hand, no words or wand needed.
He is truly worthy to be the heir to the Black family fortune and legacy.
The boy hasn’t even stepped one foot in Hogwarts and he’s already doing what many grown witches and wizards struggle with for years. It’s a terrifying thought when she remembers that he’s a Black.
She prepares herself for the next seven years.
—
Sirius Black is a mosaic.
He’s a million shards of glass pieced together with gold trimmings. He’s a piece of art, meant to always be seen and never be heard.
Sirius Black was afraid of the dark as a child. When his mother was particularly upset with him, she would lock him in the cellar for a few hours, leaving him with nothing but silence and his terrors. He would cry and beg for her to let him out, but the door was thick and made of steel, so nobody heard his screams. The dark crept up on him then, when he knew no one was coming to save him.
He cried for his mother, the way children are meant to.
She never came.
It was the house elf who opened the door for him when his mother decided he needed to be presentable for the dinner party she was holding.
He pieced himself together nicely and spent the evening trembling under fine dress robes made of the best quality material while smiling politely for the guests.
When the day finally came that he left Grimmauld Place for the first time, he had felt terrified. Hogwarts was new, a huge change in his tiny preteen world. He didn’t want to go to Hogwarts despite his knowing that he didn’t want to stay at the aptly named Grimmauld Place.
He wished for apathy, for nothing, to stop feeling the chilling terror that somehow burned the tips of his fingers and made his legs quake. Instead, he was left feeling afraid and unsure and confused by the world.
Children cry for their mothers when scared.
He hates himself for it. He hates himself for the tears and the pain and the fear and the instinctual longing for a mother’s warm and comforting embrace.
Walburga was always icy cold. She was frosty with both of her children from a young age. Surprising as it is to many, Sirius was Walburga’s favourite child, at least until he was sorted into Gryffindor upon his arrival at Hogwarts. Being the favourite meant little other than her attention, which was never particularly fun for Sirius. Regulus was raised as a backup of sorts, and when the time came for him to be of use, he most certainly was.
Sirius has an old memory, worn with time, of his father holding a glass of brandy. The man let Sirius taste just a sip, and then chuckled affectionately when Sirius had cringed away from the taste.
He’d ruffled Sirius’ hair in amusement and that was the closest they’d ever been.
The warmest moment they’d ever had.
His mother was always the same woman she is now. Where Orion was once a deeply tired but otherwise smiling man, Walburga was stern and temperamental.
Orion lost himself to depression and abandoned his children. He drank to fill the hole in his chest and perhaps he’d even somehow forgotten that he’d ever had kids.
At the very least, Sirius has that one memory to share with his father. One that he can look back on without thinking of the dark coldness creeping up on him. It’s something he keeps embarrassingly close to his heart.
He hates his father, not as much as he hates his mother, but still enough for it to be called hate. Even so, he holds onto that memory tightly, because the thought of it is warm and sunny in his mind when the world is cold and sharp to his body.
Sirius has no happy memories of his mother, but he still cries for her when he is scared.
That’s what children do.
And he is just a child.
He wants his mother.
—
As she ushers in the new students and delivers the standard speech, McGonagall looks around at the students. She can see a few that she already recognizes.
She immediately notices a young boy who stands hunched in on himself like he’s afraid of everything and everyone. The boy looks meek and shy with large, painful-looking scars stretching across his young face. She realises that this is the werewolf boy that Dumbledore personally reached out to, Remus Lupin, son of Lyall Lupin and a muggle woman whose name she doesn’t know. Lyall Lupin had once been a rather public man, working with the Ministry of Magic against werewolves and promoting the restrictions of their rights. One day, roughly five or six years prior, entirely without warning, he quit his job, moved his family to Wales, and went radio silent. Looking at the boy’s extensive scarring and considering her knowledge about his lycanthropy, she can guess why.
She won’t deny, when she first heard that Dumbledore had admitted a werewolf student, she’d had her reservations. She was raised to fear werewolves, and prejudice is a hard thing to break free from. And yet, when she sees the boy’s tawny hair and hesitant hazel eyes, her heart almost definitely softens a bit. The respect and admiration in his gaze when he looks at her warms her a bit.
The jet black mess of hair that sticks every which way is instantly recognizable as James Potter, the son of Fleamont and Euphemia Potter. The grin on his face almost resembles a smirk and the glint in his eyes is reminiscent of his father. His light brown skin is certainly from his mother’s side of the family, as is the charming dimple on one side of his face. She can already tell he’s going to be a prankster and a Gryffindor, no hat required. The way he perks up with excitement when she mentions Gryffindor only cements her certainty. The corners of her lips tug upwards ever so slightly.
From the way Potter gently elbows Lupin’s arm and grins at him, they’ve already become friends. Lupin looks shy but so thoroughly excited to finally have a friend that McGonagall sincerely can’t dislike him. Another boy stands next to them. He’s short, with mousy, plump features. He’s not particularly unattractive, but Potter is an extremely good looking kid and even Lupin with all of his scars has very softly handsome features, so the boy looks awkward in comparison. Despite this, his chubby, round face looks sweet and his general body language looks friendly enough.
And then she sees him. He stands alone, but he doesn’t look lonely, rather more like an untouchable prince. His eyes are slate grey with long black eyelashes framing them, devoid of any visible emotion except cold, calculating cruelty. They’re entirely too similar to his cousin, Bellatrix Black, a young woman who McGonagall had the personal pleasure of teaching. His black hair is just a touch wavy and perfectly trimmed and styled, not a strand out of place. The faintly French features of his face are delicate and sharp at the same time, befitting an aristocrat of his status. He’s not particularly tall compared to his classmates, maybe just an inch above the average, but the proud way in which he holds himself makes other students eye him with jealousy, fear, and an unhealthy amount of awe. She makes eye contact with him and is almost surprised when he meets her gaze with an unwavering glare.
She doesn’t notice the way his fists clench and tremor by his side with centuries of expectations.
She sees what has been given to her, what has been offered to her, what is easy to see.
Minerva McGonagall does not see that Sirius Black is a very scared boy who fears his mother’s sharp gaze more than anything and detests the smell of his father’s favourite whiskey.
She sees Sirius Black, heir to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black.
—
By the time McGonagall reaches Black, only six students have been sorted, two Ravenclaws and four Hufflepuffs. The Abbots and the Baneweather’s have both pulled their children out. The fear rises in the air and curdles like sour milk, spoiling the excitement.
She sighs heavily with the weight only a teacher in wartime can have. Many families are too afraid of the quickly rising Dark Lord to send their children away from home. She can’t imagine how many improperly taught witches and wizards will be taking their N.E.W.T.s and O.W.L.s without any real preparation a few years from now.
“Black, Sirius!” McGonagall calls.
The entire Great Hall has been waiting eagerly to see whether Slytherin or Gryffindor will get a student first, as is the tradition, and the Gryffindor table groans a little with annoyance at the sound of his last name. The Slytherins smirk and lift their heads up at the name that’s basically royalty to them. They all know he’s going to be in Slytherin, so there’s no point in holding out hope. Everyone holds their breath to hear the answer they know is coming.
The crowd of first years parts like a sea and the boy walks forward unflinchingly. He knows what house he’ll be in. It was decided for him far before his birth. He doesn’t look particularly happy, nervous, or even scared…
He looks apathetic as he walks in a death march.
McGonagall pushes away the quiet niggling feeling at the back of her mind. He’s probably just aware of what house he’s going to and is too distinguished to show his emotions in public.
He sits in a way that somehow makes him look dignified, despite the fact that he is sitting on a rickety, old stool that is probably being held up by halfhearted magic.
Everyone in the hall is expecting that the boy will be sorted in less than a second into Slytherin, just like his mother and father and all of his relatives, a true snake.
McGonagall places the hat on his perfect hair, ready to lift it up as soon as the hat exclaims that the boy is just like his family.
The hat does not immediately shout out “SLYTHERIN!”
In fact, it takes a very long time. The boy’s face twists and scowls even with his eyes closed, like he’s arguing with the hat.
At one minute, people start looking around with confusion.
At two minutes, the Slytherins begin glaring at anyone that looks at their table.
At three minutes, McGonagall looks up at Dumbledore as if to ask what to do, only to find that he is intently staring at the boy from behind his half-moon glasses with intrigue.
At four minutes, Sirius contorts his face into an enraged look, mouthing words to the hat with vigour.
At five minutes, the students are murmuring to each other, wondering why the first hat stall of the year is Sirius Black of all people.
At six minutes, the hat finally yells its answer.
“GRYFFINDOR!”
“…”
No one claps. No one moves. No one breathes.
A Black in Gryffindor?
Unheard of.
Quite a few people actually drop open their mouths as they gape at the new Gryffindor. Even McGonagall herself is too shocked to take the hat off, and she only does so when she is snapped out of her stupor by Dumbledore’s sudden clapping.
At the sound of the Headmaster’s approval of this decision, the first years start clapping, mostly muggleborns who don’t know the gravity of the situation. A few students from the Gryffindor table follow hesitantly, uncertain of whether they should be cheering and screaming that they stole the so-called Prince of Slytherin or groaning into their hands that they’re stuck with him. A handful of Ravenclaws actually holler as they cheer excitedly for the boy, glad to have finally found something interesting to watch during the sorting. The Hufflepuffs cheer happily as usual once they’ve recovered from the initial shock of Sirius Black being sorted into Gryffindor.
The Slytherins stare in shock for a moment before loudly shouting in rage, a few even standing up to yell. Lucius Malfoy turns his originally hopeful and now sternly disappointed face away from the front of the hall, facing his dish with silent fury. Narcissa Black shakes her head and sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. Andromeda Black smiles quietly to herself as she squeezes the binding of the book Sirius gave her in secret for last Christmas.
Even Sirius is staring at the ground in front of himself with wide eyes, his mouth slightly open as if he simply cannot believe that he is a Gryffindor.
The Blacks have always been in Slytherin.
Always.
McGonagall sees the frustration in his furrowed eyebrows, the confusion in his slate eyes, the anger in his fisted hands.
McGonagall does not see the tears that well up in his wide, fearful eyes.
She taps his shoulder, startling him slightly. When he looks up at her, she can see that the smug, haughty aura around him has crumbled. Those chilling grey eyes are no longer filled with malice and unwavering pride. She cannot read the look in his eyes.
He stands up and walks away from her and towards his table shakily.
The Gryffindor students quickly shuffle to make space for him. It’s not in the way of reverence that they do for students from prominently Gryffindor families, it’s in the way that they would for someone they fear and loathe. No one from Gryffindor wants to be next to him.
He sits down, and there’s no one next to him.
He’s alone again. He doesn’t look untouchable this time. He looks…
A light cough from the Headmaster shakes McGonagall out of her shock and she lifts the magic scroll of names once more to call out the next name.
“Bulstrode, Margaret!” McGonagall calls, and the sorting continues.
The prince has been dethroned.