The Marauders Year Five Part 2 #Wattys2017

You're Not My Mother

You're Not My Mother

Sirius stood in the corridor outside of Professor McGonagall's office, staring at the door as though it were an ominous creature, for several long minutes. He ran his hands over his sweater-vest, flattening it down and straightened his tie and drew a deep breath, then knocked.

"Come in, Mr. Black," McGonagall's voice rang crisp from within.

He pushed open the door and closed it behind him and walked across the room, putting his books down on the table in the corner, where she usually had them sit during detentions. The chairs there practically had James-and-Sirius-shaped grooves in the seats from all the time the boys had spent there. He didn't look at her, he stared instead at the textbook and parchment he'd dropped down and went to sit.

"Before you have your seat, come over here. We need to have a bit of a talk, Mr. Black."

Sirius walked over and stood before her desk, still refusing to look up, his eyes trained very carefully on the edge of the surface of her desk, his hands behind his back. He could feel her staring at him, waiting for him to look up, willing him to, even. He swallowed and pursed his lips, stubborn.

Finally, McGonagall sighed. "You are making this very hard Mr. Black."

He stared at his feet. "What am I making hard, Professor?" he asked in a monotone.

"Feeling sorry for you. Helping you. Your choice."

He didn't reply.

The seat behind the desk creaked as McGonagall stood up and she went over to the shelves that lined her wall and she picked up a black tea cup with white cross hatching along the edge with a deep saucer beneath it. She turned around and walked back to the desk and put the teacup down. "Do you think, Mr. Black, that I save every student's teacup?"

"No."

His was one of ten that sat on the shelves. He recognized James's blue deer pattern, Lily's rosebud pattern, and Remus's royal blue with gold filigree. The others he didn't know. There was a tartan patterned one, one with an opalescent sheen to it like a mother of pearl shell, and a cream coloured one with mint leaves all over it, and a near matching pair of silver tea cups with tiny gold hearts, and one that was plain white. She stared down at the black, crosshatched cup before her. "Mr. Black, I would not have enough room to save all of the teacups that my students make. I keep only the teacups I am given by the students that I most love." She ran her fingertips over the edge of the cup slowly. Her eyes traced the cup, then moved slowly up to look at Sirius again.

He didn't look up.

"Mr. Black."

Sirius closed his eyes.

"Young man, if you think I will put up with this sort of behavior from one of my boys --"

"You aren't my mother!" Sirius shouted suddenly, cutting into the middle of her sentence. "You aren't my mother." He repeated the words a bit more calmly.

McGonagall scowled, "That's right, I'm not!" she said, ruffled, "I am not your mother and you best be thanking your stars for that, Sirius Black, because if I were -- if -- if you were my son, you would not be going about acting the way that you are!"

He stared very, very hard at the desktop.

"Of course, if you were, you would have no reason to be," she ceeded.

This made Sirius look up.

"I've seen the Black family owl making deliveries, Mr. Black," McGonagall said, "And I have seen the correlation between the appearance of the owl and the days when you are most prolifically horrible." She paused, watching for any sign of a reaction from him, but his face never even so much as twitched. She said, "Sirius... what has she sent you?"