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Mr. Black


James learned very quickly the ramifications of Sirius having yelled at Minerva McGonagall were quite severe.

“Mr. Black,” McGonagall’s voice rang sharp from across the room, “You will put your feet on the floor, where they belong, right this instant, or I will give you a detention.” She turned from the chalkboard she was writing on and looked at Sirius with a stink eye.

Sirius, who had been leaning back in his chair and just about to put his feet up on the table like he usually did in Transfiguration, dropped forward so that the chair and his feet thumped against the floor. He stared up at McGonagall with a bit of an attitude and sucked on the end of the sugar quill he was using to pretend to take notes, his eyes never leaving McGonagall’s in a bit of a stare down.

McGonagall won the stare down and sniffed proudly before turning back to her job of writing their notes on the chalkboard.

James kept his eyes very carefully on the parchment before him because he could just feel Sirius trying to get him to look over and James just didn’t dare to because he couldn’t muster any sympathy of any kind of Sirius when he was treating McGonagall like that. There was no need to glare at her. Honestly, she’d let Sirius get away with far too much all this time and if she was simply going to start holding him to following the rules that everyone else in the castle had to adhere to then… well, really he couldn’t blame her for it. Sirius was perfectly capable of keeping his feet on the floor.

James looked to his left, where Lily Evans was sitting. She was bent forward over the desk, her eyes trained on her work, her hair a curtain of ginger. He scribbled her name - Lily - on a bit of parchment, flourishing the end of the Y in Lily to be a sketch of a lily flower, and wrote in a circle around it. Hi Evans - How are you, love? - J.P.

He glanced over at her when he’d finished his work of art and she was still looking at the parchment intently, her lips moving as she read over what she’d written, keeping up with McGonagall. He picked up his note and folded it carefully into a butterfly.

Sirius looked over, smirking, and watched as James used his wand to charm the note to flutter over to Lily and land gently on the edge of her textbook, fluttering its wings patiently.

She looked up and spotted it after several moments of James breathlessly waiting, and she blinked at it in surprise. It was a very good bit of magic - and it fluttered very life-like. She scooped it up from the book gently, glancing up at McGonagall, and then over and spotted James staring over from his table, Sirius leaning ‘round him to see, too.

She nodded at McGonagall for them to look forward and pay attention and James answered by motioning for her to open the butterfly.

“Mr. Black,” McGonagall’s voice rang out. “Are you paying attention?”

James and Sirius both simultaneously looked up - both had been looking at Lily Evans. “Yes, I am,” Sirius said.

“Funny, I thought I saw you looking over Potter’s shoulder just now,” McGonagall replied.

Sirius replied, his voice dripping with rebellious attitude, “You didn’t specify what it was you were wondering I was paying attention to, only if I was paying attention. And I was indeed paying attention.” Then, “I’m paying attention to this blossoming love affair occurring in the seats beside me.” He waved his hand at James and Lily.

Lily’s face turned scarlet. “This is not, a blossoming romance - I have a boyfriend, thank you,” she hissed.

“Do you find him as attractive as James?” Sirius asked, grinning.

James stepped on Sirius’s foot.

Lily looked quite annoyed.

McGonagall said, “Well, as you’re in my classroom and it is during a class period, you ought to be paying attention to me. Ten points from Gryffindor.”

“What the -- what??” Sirius said, perturbed, “James wasn’t paying attention, either!”

“Mr. Potter, pay attention,” she responded and turned back to her note-writing, her lips a tight line.

“Yes, Professor,” James said and he turned back to his parchment.

But Sirius wasn’t done. “But you took points for me not paying attention. What about Potter?”

“I haven’t had to speak to Mr. Potter repeatedly during this class period, have I?” McGonagall said. This was Sirius’s third offense, it was true. It had started with a question of where his school uniform was because he’d arrived to the class wearing his torn up jeans and a t-shirt that he’d turned inside out so that the tag stuck out at his neck and the image on the front was on the inside. (“It’s dirty on the front,” he’d explained, “I spilled soup on it yesterday but it doesn’t smell or anything…”)

Sirius shook his head, “Bloody hell,” he muttered, “I dunno why you’re being such a bi---”

The words did not even finish leaving his mouth.

“Detention. Tonight. Leave this classroom.”

Sirius looked surprised. “What?”

“You will attend detention tonight and we will go over the material you will miss for the remainder of the class. Go to your dormitory.”

Remus and Peter looked down from their seats at Sirius, Peter snickering quietly and Remus with wide eyes. Lily was biting her lips and James’s jaw had dropped. Sirius stared at McGonagall for a long moment, their eyes locked again in another stare-down and when McGonagall won again, Sirius stood up so fast his chair scraped on the floor with a loud sound and he said, “Fine! Fine. Deny me an education! DENY ME AN EDUCATION! I’ll just go be stupid the rest of my bleeding life and --”

“I am not denying you an education,” McGonagall snapped, “I am denying you the opportunity to sit in this classroom while treating the material I am presenting with utter disregard. I am finished with putting up with your attitude. We will cover the material in detentions for as long as it takes for you to give me the respect that I have earned. Now leave.”

Sirius grabbed his textbook and left.

“Now.” McGonagall cleared her throat, “Now.” She turned back to the board.

James looked at Remus who’s eyes were quite wary, and his face an expression that clearly said see, what’d I tell you? James wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. Sirius Black, anything but adoring toward his beloved Professor Minnie was possibly the most disturbing thing that James had yet encountered in this version of reality. He shifted in his seat as McGonagall carefully kept her back turned to them for quite some time, writing slowly, her voice cracked around the edges.

When he looked down at his notes, he found a folded up frog had hopped it’s way onto his desk and was sitting before him, expanding the pouch at his neck - inflating and deflating calmly, looking up at him with patience. James looked over at Lily, but she had her eyes trained on McGonagall. He unfolded the frog.

Potter - Don’t call me love. I’m alright. - L

James refolded the note into the frog again and slid it into his pocket, smirking to himself. It wasn’t much… but it was something.




“I DIDN’T EVEN DO ANYTHING!” Sirius shouted. It was that evening and he was storming about the dormitory, angry as a hornet. “YOU were looking at Evans, too. It wasn’t just me. This is SO fucking unfair! She’s been a nightmare to me ever since --” he stopped, couldn’t quite meet James’s eye for a second, then turned away and continued on storming about.

“Well, you were giving her quite a lot of attitude, mate,” James said, shrugging, “I mean, really.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, “Still. We both should have landed detention - and maybe Evans, too! We were all doing the same thing! And you only get a pay attention Potter and Evans doesn’t even get anything at all. Perfect Evans always being perfect.” He sighed.

“Well.” James shrugged. He didn’t want to argue about it. But he didn’t think Sirius was being very fair to Minnie, either. She had talked to him several times, in all fairness.

Sirius sighed heavily and tied his Gryffindor tie about his neck, then shrugged on his robes. McGonagall had made sure to pass along a note to Sirius reminding him of the detention and to arrive wearing proper school uniform attire or he would receive a second detention. Sirius turned around. “Fuck conformity. I’m being repressed. Society is demanding my soul.”

James said, “Well, look at you.”

“I don’t even give a damn I’m wearing my boots. If she has trouble with my boots then she can give me a second detention, I don’t even care. I hate those blasted shoes. They pinch my toes.” he glared at the nice shoes that he hadn’t worn in probably since third year when he’d gotten the boots.

“Probably because they wouldn’t even fit your feet anymore,” James teased.

“My feet are miraculously petite, Potter,” Sirius replied. “My toes require very little space to breathe and they still don’t fit in those fucking clown shoes.” He popped the collar of his oxford. “There. How do I look?”

“Like a repressed sixteen year old Hogwarts student, fighting for his rights in a society that demands his soul,” James replied. “Like you’re going to class, but you’re screaming fuck society in your heart.”

Sirius grinned, “Perfect.” He took up his parchment and textbooks and headed for the door. “I have the mirror in my pocket. If I’m gone too long, check on me, be sure she hasn’t transfigured me into a gnat and squashed me, will you?”

“Let me add it to my schedule…. 7 o’clock, check that Sirius isn’t a squashed gnat. Got it.”