Brilliant

By Misanagi

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Gen

Characters: Sirius and McGonagall. Mentions of James and Remus

Rating: PG

Summary: McGonagall wants to know how Sirius and his friends became Animagi.

Words: 2000

"Take a seat, Mr. Black."

The room was just as he remembered it, and being seated in front of McGonagall's desk, with her looking down at him and calling his name with such suppressed exasperation brought back memories. He looked down at his hands, roughen through the years, and focused on those calluses that hadn't been caused by Akzaban or during the war but long before that by polishing silver, scrubbing the dungeon floors and plowing the ground with no magic for seven continuous years.

He tried to give McGonagall a sheepish smile, knowing full well that it probably didn't work as well if you weren't sixteen, with smudges on your cheeks and wearing Gryffindor robes. "Professor M."

"Sirius, I told you years ago, I'm no longer your teacher, there's no need to call me that."

He and James had never managed to call her Minerva, not when she had scolded them so many times. Calling her anything but Professor had seemed wrong so they had settled for this more casual form of address they had been using between themselves for years but had never before the day they graduated said to her face. "Well, you did call me to your office and called me 'Mr. Black'… am I in trouble?"

Not that Sirius thought one could really get in trouble more than a decade after leaving school but this was McGonagall and everything was possible. He had been quite apprehensive when Dumbledore had told him after their short meeting that McGonagall wanted to see him and even though Sirius felt deep down that he would be leaving with detention after the meeting, everything was better than returning to Grimmauld Place.

"I'll refrain from expressing my thoughts on your troublemaking ability, Sirius, but that's not why I called you here." She didn't quite smile but she looked more at ease, at least as at ease as Minerva McGonagall was capable of looking.

"Getting lonely without students to scold during the summer?" Sirius teased, allowing himself to lean back on his seat.

"While the corridors are disturbingly quiet it is a bit of a reprieve."

"You probably miss us." Sirius grinned. "That's why we left you a little something to remember us by but the enchantments probably faded after all these years." He fixed his eyes on the cupboard. "We figured it would make you smile if the books starting to recite love poems to y—"

"That was you!" McGonagall was now sitting stiffly on the chair, her lips pursed and eyes sternly fixed on Sirius. "I should have recognized the style but it was seven years after you graduated and Stevens and Andrews had just been in detention the night before. I'm sure they deserved the detention anyway, if not for the book prank then for something else."

"So it did work!" Sirius beamed. "Remus said the enchantments wouldn't hold that long but then he sometimes forgot how stubborn we could be. James never doubted me for a second and of course he never second-guessed his Transfiguration work."

"Yes," McGonagall said gravely. "That's exactly what I want to speak with you about."

"Er.. the prank?" Sirius ventured, not quite liking the way she was scrutinizing him.

"Your Transfiguration work."

"Oh," Sirius said eloquently and shifted his eyes.

"Yes, oh." She waited silently for a moment. "Quite reckless of you to attempt such complicated magic unsupervised," she finally said in a disapproving tone, "and as underage wizards, no less."

"Well, we couldn't very well ask for help," Sirius spoke, not quite meeting McGonagall's eyes. "It was a tad illegal."

"Unregistered Animagi of legal age can face penalties up to three years in Azkaban. Underage ones would be subjected to immediate expulsion from school before they answer to charges at the ministry."

Sirius opened his mouth but McGonagall silenced him with a look. "Even with supervision some wizards' work has ended with terrible consequences, permanent consequences that include insanity, disfiguration and even death."

Sirius winced. "Yes, the books we consulted were very explicit about it. They had pictures."

"Apparently they weren't explicit enough because you fools tried it anyway."

"But we succeeded." He gave McGonagall a smart smile. Apparently it didn't work because the older woman was still frowning. "We did it for Remus," Sirius admitted. It helped and it was worth all the risks."

"We should have figured it out," she said softly. "The way his transformations didn't leave him incapacitated for days and the scars stopped appearing. Of course we could have never imagined underage wizards could manage such a feat."

"You seem to forget how brilliant we were," Sirius explained.

"Sadly, you put that brilliance to childish mischief," she said disapprovingly.

"And to becoming Animagi. Which, incidentally, lead to a bit more of mischief and unplanned pranks," Sirius remembered fondly.

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. "Such as…"

Sirius looked at her thoughtfully and then reminded himself that he was a grownup. She wouldn't give him detention now. The thought, strangely enough, made him feel more sadden than relieved. He forced himself to speak before he could find himself thinking about how everything had gone wrong, about regrets… "Well there was an incident while trying Marqueou's spells for mental focus and deep meditation."

The Transfiguration teacher frowned deeply. "Those spells are the theories of a mad man based on his observations on Flobberworms, of all things. They do not work."

"As we discovered soon enough." Sirius scratched the back of his head. "By then it was evident that the process was taking too long and we were willing to speed it up. Do you remember the explosion on the fourth floor by the boy's bathroom? Let's just say it wasn't exactly planned."

McGonagall looked unimpressed. "That wasn't the only explosion that year, if I remember correctly."

"Er, some of those were planned." Sirius gave her his best smile. "Admit it, Professor M, you miss us. Things are probably too quiet without us to brighten up your day."

"The Weasley twins seem happy enough to take up your less than exemplary legacy."

"Fine boys those," Sirius said with pride, even though he had yet to meet the famous duo. Harry, Ron and Hermione had told him enough about Fred and George to feel some kind if kinship with them. Besides, they had rescued the Map from Filch's clutches and that was more than enough for Sirius to like them. He leaned forward and spoke in a whisper, as if sharing a secret with the professor. "Good as they are and as much joy as they bring you and the rest of the school, we were of course better."

McGonagall adjusted her spectacles. "I refuse to comment of which group of pranksters has caused more havoc in this castle."

"We were better," Sirius said confidently but the professor ignored him.

"Incidents like those," continued McGonagall, ignoring the last bit of conversation, "are why wizards are required to register and have a mentor before attempting the transformation."

"And the books aren't very detailed," grumbled Sirius. "They don't give many pointers, it was more trial and error for us."

"Quite a lot of error without a mentor, I expect."

"A bit," Sirius admitted. "There were a few accidents…"

McGonagall fixed him with a hard look.

"Remember in fourth year when the entire castle woke up covered in fur? It wasn't a brilliant potion like most thought."

"Then, pray tell, what was it?"

"It was James." Sirius smiled sadly. Thinking of James always brought him that mixture of happiness and sadness. He glanced at the empty chair beside him, Prongs' chair.

"As ingenious as Mr. Potter was," McGonagall started, breaking Sirius' train of thought, "I'm not sure a castle-wide transfiguration spell was quite at his level in his fourth year."

"He was surprised as well and he did try to replicate it but he never could. It was an accident, a brilliant one, but an accident nonetheless. It happened the first time he tried to transform, which was admittedly better than the second."

McGonagall massaged her temples. "Do I want to know?"

"Probably not but I'll tell you anyway." Sirius could feel a bit of the sadness slipping away. It had been a while since he'd last thought of those days, of James, in a happy carefree way. Lately all thoughts of James were tainted by Peter's betrayal, by death. "After the first incident Remus suggested we should put a shield charm around James, both of us just to be sure."

"Remus was always the most sensible one of you."

"You would think so but he was the one who sneezed."

McGonagall's eyes widened. "In the middle of the process--"

"Distracting James, yes. And I'm sure you remember what a powerful wizard he was."

She nodded. "Not as explosive as you, thankfully."

"He was that day. Remus and I managed to hold our shield but the backlash had us with a headache for a week." Sirius winced remembering the thundering feeling that no hang over could ever even come close to matching. "James ended up unconscious for a day and lost three fingers."

"He what?" asked McGonagall slowly.

"Lost three fingers," Sirius repeated, patiently. "Remus has a whole theory about how they disappeared into ether or non-being while James was changing. He wrote a paper about it in fifth year, I'm sure he'd show it to you if you ask."

McGonagall frowned. "I don't recall Pomfrey reporting any of you losing any fingers. Ears, noses, sprouting vines instead of arms, yes, but no missing fingers."

"That's because Remus grew them back." Sirius couldn't stop an amused smile from appearing on his face at the look of horror on McGonagall's. "We only went to the hospital wing when it was absolutely necessary."

"If the weekly reports were only the worst then I'm quite sure I don't want to know."

"Anyway, the first set of fingers Remus grew didn't quite work. They looked real enough but James couldn't move them at all." Sirius shrugged. "A month later Remus managed to do it right."

"That term James decided he wanted to become ambidextrous…" McGonagall said with dawning comprehension.

"Well, he didn't want anyone to know he couldn't even hold his wand properly."

"And you decided to become ambidextrous as well," she said, looking at Sirius.

"I wasn't about to let him make a fool of himself alone. Besides it turned out to be useful later on."

"You were always there for each other." The voice was barely a whisper and there was a pained look on her face. It hurt Sirius to remember how quickly everyone had forgotten how much he'd cared for James. "I'm sorry, Sirius."

Sirius shook his head. "That's not what we are talking about today."

She held his eyes for a moment and then nodded. "I recall seeing a tail on you one week," she commented, changing back the subject.

Sirius could feel the top of his ears warm. James had teased him mercilessly that week and the git had even charmed Patricia Bonnet's pet rat to follow him everywhere trying to catch the tail. "As I said, it was trial and error for us."

"And you succeeded in the end," she said, and there was a bit of pride in her yes.

"We were brilliant," Sirius said again but once more the sorrow, the pain of losing James, had taken a hold of him. He stood up slowly and gave his old teacher a nod. "Goodnight, Minerva."

He was almost at the door when her voice stopped him. He turned around and this time there was definitely pride in her eyes. "In all my years, there hasn't ever been a group of mischief makers quite like the Marauders. And though you lack modesty, Sirius, you are quite right to say that you were brilliant."

He closed the door with a small smile and walked down the empty corridors of Hogwarts, the place where the Marauders had once, long ago, managed to accomplish what others thought impossible.

Back then everything had truly been brilliant.

- The End -