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Sorry Minnie


“C’mon Sirius, you can’t stay under there all day.” Remus tugged at the duvet on the bed. Sirius had pulled it up over his head and was holding it there as he lay, curled up, refusing to move. “Please.”

“I can,” Sirius said, “And I will. It’s my birthday, I can stay under the bloody blankets all day if I want to.”

“We’ve got classes, mate,” said James from across the room, where he was threading his tie under the collar of his oxford shirt. “Minnie and the lot will miss you.”

There wasn’t a reply from beneath the blankets.

“Sirius, please,” Remus begged.

Sirius lifted the blanket enough so his face stuck out from beneath it. “I refuse to leave this bed until my hair is back to regular.”

Remus sighed, “Sirius, that could take ye--” he stopped himself.

Sirius stared at Remus for a long moment. “Years? That’s what you were about to say, wasn’t it? That it could take years to regrow?” Sirius’s voice trembled. Then, “I’ll see you lot in 1982.” He pulled the blanket back down over his face.

“Sirius!” Remus whined and he grabbed at the blankets. “C’mon, you don’t turn 16 everyday… there’s presents and cake and ice cream and fun to have.”

Sirius shook his head and clutched the blanket all the tighter.

The door to the dormitory opened. James and Remus looked up, expecting Peter because he’d gone to get breakfast from the kitchens, but instead it was Professor McGonagall, and her face bore a worried expression upon it. Peter poked ‘round from behind her. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I… I ran into her and I had to tell her. Somebody had to know.”

Remus stared up her with pleading eyes.

“The three of you run along to breakfast,” she commanded, indicating Peter, James, and Remus. “Go on.”

“But Professor, Sirius is --” started James.

“Mr. Potter, I’m not going to ask you again,” Professor McGonagall said sternly, “Go and eat your breakfast.”

The three boys reluctantly turned away from the lump on Remus’s bed that was Sirius Black, and Minerva McGonagall watched as they went one by one down the stairs to the common room. She waited until she’d heard the portrait hole door swing closed again before she stepped into the boys’ messy dormitory and closed the door behind her. Carefully, McGonagall picked her way around the minefield of clothes and quidditch gear that covered the floor, her eyes flickering suspiciously over the still broken chair at Peter’s desk, and a few remaining kernels of popcorn strewn over the Sirius’s untouched bed (literally, he hadn’t laid on it even once this term).

She sat down carefully on the edge of Remus’s bed and reached up, taking hold of the duvet and pulled it down to reveal Sirius Black, lying beneath it, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, tears pouring over the bridge of his nose. His poor shorn head as even worse in morning light than it had looked the night before, and one of the places that the spell had cut too close on faced up, a patch of pale white scalp showing among the black frizz. There was a knick there, too, where the skin his scalp had scabbed over. His eyes were bruised, nose still caked with a bit of the dried blood that he’d refused to come out from under the duvet to let Remus clean up completely. He had his knees hugged up to his chest, curling in upon himself.

Professor McGonagall reached her hand out and gently ran her hand over Sirius’s head. He flinched, but she didn’t stop. Instead, she brought her hand ‘round to the front of his face and gently cupped his cheek, turning him to look up at her.

He kept his eyes closed.

“Sirius,” she whispered, “Look at me.”

He shook his head.

“Please,” she said.

Slowly, Sirius’s eyes opened.

McGonagall raised her wand and carefully traced Sirius’s nose with it, mending the broken cartilage within, setting it so that the shape of it would not be altered. She cleared away the blood from his nostril and upper lip. The bruising over his eyes would need to mend itself, though.

Sirius’s voice was thick, “I’m sorry, Minnie.”

“Whatever are you sorry for, Mr. Black?” she asked.

Sirius cast his eyes downward, “I was fighting… aren’t I in trouble?”

“No.”

Sirius looked up at her again.

“You are not in trouble for what’s happened, Mr. Black.”

Sirius closed his eyes again and more tears leaked out.

McGonagall reached up with her shaking thumb and swept the tears of his cheeks. He flinched from her touch, and she looked down at him with concern. “Mr. Black... I’m not going to hurt you…”

“Sorry Minnie,” he whispered again. Then, because he wanted her to know it wasn’t her fault he was flinching and reacting poorly to her gentleness, he whispered, “My mum used to --” he stopped. “I would’ve been in trouble for crying… for being weak.”

McGonagall felt a pang go through her heart and she had to gather herself a moment to keep her voice from breaking when next she spoke. Carefully, she said, “I am not your mother, Mr. Black, and it is perfectly acceptable to cry. A horrible violation has occurred. You’re in a good deal of pain… Crying is not a weakness, Mr. Black. Your tears cleanse you, make you stronger. They heal.” She put her palm on his shoulder and leaned down to look at him, “Do not ever be ashamed to cry, my dear boy.”

“Even over… over hair?” he asked.

“Your hair meant a great deal to you,” she said gently, “You are not crying over the hair itself, but over how it made you feel. You’re crying because of the harsh way in which it was taken away. You are not weak, Mr. Black.”

He looked up at her. “Can you grow it back?” he asked hopefully. Remus had tried - so had James and Peter - but it hadn’t grown even the smallest bit.

Professor McGonagall shook her head sadly. “It’s been cursed off… it must grow back naturally.”

Sirius closed his eyes again. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this,” he whispered. “I don’t want my Moony to see me like this. He’ll stop loving me. He’ll think I’m ugly.

McGonagall’s voice shook, “Your Moony will not stop loving you.”

Sirius couldn’t help it - a chuckle escaped him at the sound of McGonagall calling Remus Moony. Calling Remus his Moony, no less. He peeked up at her, the tiniest bit of a smile playing about over his lips.

“With or without your hair, that charming little smile of yours lights up your face. You have too good a heart to ever be ugly, Mr. Black.”

He sat up suddenly and wrapped his arms around her, letting her wrap hers around him, too, and she patted his back as he squeezed her tight.

“Now, Mr. Black,” McGonagall said, “I need for you to tell me exactly what happened so that I can see to it the correct people involved are punished for their deeds.”

Sirius let his arms drop from around her and he hugged his knees to his chest, and he started to tell her everything that happened, from the moment he entered the boys toilet until the moment she’d come through the door just now, leaving nothing out. When he was finished, she nodded without commenting, and she said, “Now, Mr. Black, you need to run along to your class, and I need to go and speak with the Headmaster about all this.”

Sirius ran a hand over the back of his head slowly, nervously.

McGonagall hesitated, then looked about the room and spotted Sirius’s Gryffindor tie hanging over the back of his desk chair, a knotted mess of wrinkles from being tied up in his hair instead of ‘round his neck so many times… She waved her wand at it and the tie floated over to her and she caught it from the air, waved her wand again and it spun, transfiguring into a hat - a stocking cap of Gryffindor stripes. She held it out to him.

Sirius took the hat from her hand and a smile inched it’s way across his face. “But Minnie, I won’t be able to wear my tie about my neck now.”

“We both know you ever wear your tie anyway,” she answered, trying to sound stern, but her lips twitched and she said, “Now put your uniform on and get to class, Mr. Black, I won’t be talking the Prewetts out of giving you detention if you’re late!”

They both knew she would.

McGonagall turned and walked swiftly to the door. She was about to leave when she paused and looked back. “Mr. Black.”

“Yes, Minnie?”

She stared at him as he looked up at her. “If you ever need… to talk…”

He nodded, understanding.

“Well, my office door is always open for you.” She turned again.

“Professor?” he called.

She looked back around the door frame.

“Thank you.”

Her lip twitched and she disappeared.

Sirius pulled on the stocking cap and stood up, pulling his oxford and vest from his trunk, and paused to look in the mirror once he was dressed. His jaw seemed squarer than it ever had before, his eyes darker grey… It was odd, not looking like himself even to himself, but the cap at least kept the ugliness of the shorn hair covered, and he felt a little less self-conscious at the sight of himself… He reached for his long Gryffindor scarf and wound it about his neck a few turns in place of his tie in Minnie’s honor.