[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Unnatural


Sirius sat in his usual detention chair in McGonagall’s office, pretending to study but really unable to concentrate. He shifted his weight and looked over at her. She was reading the Daily Prophet. It was very early Saturday detention - they’d only just left breakfast in the Great Hall - and Minnie was still drinking her tea, her glasses perched upon her nose.

“Minnnnnie,” groaned Sirius, and he rolled in the chair so that he was laying across it instead of sitting upon it, his back on the seat, head hanging over the side, staring up at McGonagall, his hair dangling down to the floor. “I’m bored.”

“That, Mr. Black, is precisely the purpose of detention,” she said crisply.

He stared up at her.

She lowered the newspaper and was surprised to see him laying there as he was and shook her head. “Mr. Black, sit up and do your homework!”

“My homework’s boring, Minnie.”

“What subject is it you are working on?”

“Herbology.”

Minnie was quiet a moment, then she sighed and put the paper down completely. “Perhaps being bored will teach you a lesson about levitating books in the library?”

“C’mon Minnie. Flying books! It was funny. And you saw Ollie Kent trying to catch them. Merlin’s tit, Min, he’s just so short… and when he climbed up on the table… and still couldn’t reach it…” Sirius was laughing.

McGonagall’s face stayed stoic.

“You know you want to laugh, Min.”

“You’ll watch your mouth in this office, young man,” she said sternly, and she looked down.

Sirius rolled on the chair again, this time so he was kneeling on it sideways, his boots hanging off the far side, and he stared at McGonagall as she stared down at the paper on her desk. Then, “Minnie, can I talk with you about something? It’s rather serious. And I’m not talking about myself, either. I mean it’s actually serious.”

She looked up. “What is it?”

“It’s James Potter.”

McGonagall looked wary. “What about James Potter?”

Sirius got up and walked over, accepting this question as invitation to go sit in the chair by her desk instead of the one in the corner designated for detentions. He threw himself into the plush chair and crossed his legs on the seat in a yogi position. “Darling, surely you’ve noticed his latest love affair with Meg Johnson?” he said the name as though it were poison.

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. “You’ve mentioned it,” she said. “In class,” she added pointedly.

Sirius nodded, “Good, well, then, you know how bloody unnatural it is.”

“Unnatural?” McGonagall asked.

“Yeah, sure. James Potter being with Meg Johnson.” Again with the poisonous name.

“I thought you got along well with Miss. Johnson?” McGonagall questioned.

“I do,” Sirius answered. “That’s not what’s got me upset about their… union. It’s just that… James doesn’t belong with Meg. I mean Meg’s grand. But she should be dating somebody else. And James should be dating Lily Evans.”

McGonagall stared at him.

“Don’t you agree, Professor?”

McGonagall’s face twitched. “How is this any of your business, Mr. Black? James Potter is perfectly capable of choosing who he does and does not date.”

“He’s an idiot, really, Minnie,” Sirius said, shaking his head, “A really blasted idiot. He doesn’t know what he wants. He’s too busy being prickled over everything that’s happened. You know Evans snogged him over summer?”

“Mr. Black, this is hardly an appropriate conversation to be holding with a teacher and --”

“She’s snogged him several times since, too. He slept in her room the night Odair went to Azkaban and --”

“Excuse me?” McGonagall looked appalled, “Mr. Black! I must insist that you stop talking about this right ---”

“ -- and now Evans thinks she’s a jinx and she’s going to like accidentally kill him or something --” Sirius was going on, oblivious to McGonagall’s spluttered protests.

“Mr. Black!” McGonagall finally spoke loud enough that Sirius stopped talking. She cleared her throat, “While it is hardly any of my business what sort of love messes the lot of you are in, and this especially seeing as it’s Mr. Potter’s private business and not even yours to be telling me about it… I must say that if you were to… to work on… changing things… then you’d need to go about making Mr. Potter and Miss. Evans spend a bit more time together.”

“But how? They barely speak to one another right now without one of the two of them getting all red in the face and stupid and running off.”

“I don’t know, Mr. Black,” McGonagall said with a sigh, “But seeing as you are… well… you, I am absolutely certain that you will figure something out.”

Sirius grinned, “I appreciate your confidence in my abilities.”

McGonagall eyed him. “Now get back to your homework.”

Sirius groaned, “Minnie! I thought we’d come to an understanding - plants suck and I don’t want to read about them!”

McGonagall sighed. “Mr. Black, I --” But what McGonagall had to say about the whether plants sucked or not was never to be known for at that moment there came a persistent clicking upon her window and she turned in surprise to see a tawny screech owl in the window, pecking at the glass rather frantically.

A look of concern went across her face as she stood up and yanked the window open, letting the bird into the room, along with a gust of frigid cold air and a sweep of swirling snow. Sirius watched the bird land upon McGonagall’s desk, his wings wet from snow, soaking the Prophet, smearing the moving photos and the inky words as droplets fell from his feathers. McGonagall hurriedly took the parchment from his beak and said, “Go and have a seat by the fire to dry off and I’ll give you your treats when you’re warmed.” The owl fluttered away and perched itself on the hearth.

She stared at the parchment in her hand, at the wax seal bearing the press of a signet ring - two M’s stacked together. “Malcolm?” she whispered, and she used her wand to open the wax seal.

Sirius, intrigued, watched, craning his neck, trying to see as she unrolled the parchment and stared down at the words on the page. He couldn’t read it, she held it at an angle that kept him from being able to, but he could see her cheeks draining of their colour, could see the lines in her face deepening and her eyes dilating with worry.

“No,” she whispered.

“What is it?” Sirius asked.

“You’re dismissed, Mr. Black.”

“What?”

“Get out of here.”

Sirius stared at her. “But my detention? The flying books? Oliver Kent jumping on the table?”

“I said that you are dismissed!” McGonagall snapped.

Sirius’s eyes went wide. “Yes m’am.”

He stood up and went to collect his things from the table, picking up his leather jacket and stacking his books to put them in his bag… but even as he did it, he looked over his shoulder and he saw the most horrific thing that he had seen in all of his life.

Minerva McGonagall was crying.

He dropped his bag onto the floor with a thump and he ran - he did not walk - to her, right around the desk and he pulled her into a hug. “Oh bloody hell, don’t do this, don’t cry. What’s the matter darling Minnie?” His voice threatened to break as he spoke, the very thought of Minerva McGonagall crying made Sirius want to cry. It broke his heart into a thousand and two pieces.

McGonagall was shaking and for the first - and probably the only time in her entire life - she let down her wall to a student and she hugged Sirius back.

Sirius could feel the fight had gone out of her and it made him want to be strong, to protect her, and it was so weird feeling because he’d never felt like this before about anybody - except perhaps Remus Lupin, but even that was different, and he could feel all his muscles tightening, ready to fight whoever and whatever it was that had hurt her like this. Somebody would pay for the anguish she was displaying. He hated it. He hated whoever it was. And he wanted her better. He wanted to fix her. Minnie wasn’t breakable. This wasn’t okay. He felt sick. He stroked her hair. “Don’t cry.”

McGonagall pulled away suddenly, her senses coming to her - somewhat, anyway - and she said, “I have to go.”

“What?” Sirius raised an eyebrow.

“I must go!” she shouted. She stood up and she went to the fireplace, grabbed her jar of floo powder, then cursed and put it back on the shelf, her hands shaking, “No, father would never have allowed -- of course -- no connection… the floo won’t do… bloody hell. I - I have to -- to Hogsmeade, yes, I can disapparate from Hogsmeade and --”

“Disapparate?” Sirius looked concerned. They’d only just learned about how dangerous disapparation could be when you were in an altered state of mind and the way Minnie was acting… something was very, very wrong and she was delirious, nearly, her eyes wild as she grabbed up her shawl the Marauders had given her for her birthday, and her cloak and grabbing her pointed hat from a chair in the corner where she’d left it, tying the sash of it ‘round her chin as she prepared to go. “In your condition? You’ll splinch for sure… Minnie… Where are you going?” He caught her in the door before she could run out.

McGonagall tried to buck him off her but she was weakened by her distress and Sirius had grown rather strong over the summer, a man much more than a boy now, and he easily kept her in place. “I have to go! It’s Dou. He needs me. He’s - Malcolm says he’s dying and --” tears poured down her face.

Sirius hadn’t the faintest idea what in hell she was talking about. What he knew was that Minerva McGonagall needed help and he, Sirius Black, owed her.

“You can’t be disapparating like this,” he said.

“Please,” she whimpered, “I have to go to Faere Dhu.”

Sirius thought for a moment. “Then I will take you to Faere Dhu,” and he reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and he pulled out the tiny motorbike.