The Marauders Year Five Part 2 #Wattys2017

It Isn't Up To Me

It Isn't Up To Me

Sirius was laying on his bed in the dormitory, the pamphlet McGonagall had given out earlier in the term on the pillow beside him, open but crumbled, as though he'd torn it up and then magicked it back together again. He stared blankly across the room, unseeing, his eyes glazed over...

This was how James found him when, after the exam was finished, he ran back to Gryffindor tower nearly as fast as he'd run down the stairs earlier. He'd turned about after he had finished his paper to see Sirius, but the chair four behind James Potter had been empty and his heart had sunk clear to the floor. Now, he stood, tentative, at the foot of Sirius's bed, his hand on the post, staring at Sirius, trying to decide what to say.

Sirius blinked slowly.

"It'll be alright, mate," James said.

Sirius sat up abruptly, grabbing the pamphlet from his pillow and shoving it into James's hands. "THERE IS NOTHING ON IT THAT DOESN'T REQUIRE TRANSFIGURATION!" he said, his voice angry, "THERE'S NOTHING ON IT! NOTHING! THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO! I AM A HOPELESS FUCKING FAILURE AND I -- I AM LITERALLY - LITERALLY JAMES - NOW GOOD FOR NOTHING."

James looked taken aback by the shouting. "I - I'm sorry."

Sirius turned back to the bed and fell back into the pillows. "I shouldn't even bother coming back next term. What the fuck is the point? If I don't have a Transfiguration O.W.L. Probably can't even become a shopboy without Transfiguration with my luck. I'm so fucked."

James put the pamphlet down and sat on the edge of his bed, "Tell Professor McGonagall what happened, she'd let you--"

"She can't, James. Ministry regulations. She was the one that sealed the bloody door. She hates me now, besides," Sirius added. "She probably sealed the door when she heard me coming. She's probably downstairs having herself a party. She never has to teach fucking Sirius Black again. She's free of me. Probably smashing my tea cup in joy."

James frowned.

Sirius grabbed a pillow and leaned into it... letting out a scream into the fibers of it.

Downstairs, in the parlor off the Great Hall, Minerva McGonagall was screaming, too.

"YOU'LL DENY A BOY AN EDUCATION BECAUSE HE SLEPT IN? WHAT SORT OF EDUCATION SYSTEM IS IT THAT A BOY CAN'T MAKE A MISTAKE? HE IS SIXTEEN YEARS OLD, SIXTEEN! AND YOU'LL LET HIS LIFE - HIS CAREER - BE RUINED BECAUSE HE COULDN'T GET OUT OF BED ON TIME?!"

The ministry official, Podmore Huxley, stared up at her, "The rules are the rules, Miss. McGonagall, there are reasons that we have them..."

"RULES ARE MEANT TO BE BROKEN!" McGonagall shouted, "THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS TO BE MADE! HE HAS DREAMS, SIR! HE WANTS TO BE A HEALER!"

A second official spoke up after clearing her throat quietly. "A healer? A boy who cannot make an examination time?" there came a little chit-chit of laughter. "If the boy had the motivation it takes to be in any of the training programs he is interested in, he would have been up early enough to attend the examination in the first place. Isn't that right, Mr. Huxley?"

"Well said, Dolores," said Podmore Huxley, wiping his glasses with a little cloth he'd pulled from his pocket. He looked at McGonagall, "These rules are in place to keep students from shirking off their responsibilities. They are to keep them in line, to teach them morals and good practices that they shall need in the real world. If this boy -- Sirius Black, you say his name is? -- cannot be bothered to get the proper sleep to sit an examination -- well, that isn't the sort of person you wish to have administering your healthcare at Mungo's, is it?" he chuckled and returned his glasses to his face.