HP -- Going for Broke
Title: Going for Broke
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Sirius Black
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,248
Warnings: language and teenagers
Summary: Andromeda Black faces a Sorting gone horribly wrong.
Author's Note: I arranged the time-space continuum to allow for various people to attend Hogwarts all at once. You know you like it.
GOING FOR BROKE
Sirius Black is a smart boy with some remarkably stupid tendencies, and he always has been. Andromeda Black, however, is a smart girl with some remarkably stupid relatives, Sirius being one of them.
She is smart enough to sense that one of the many invisible currents that runs and rumbles beneath the surface of the world is changing, and that it is visible in little things-things like Lucius Malfoy’s strut and the tilt of Bellatrix’s smirk. She doesn’t know yet whether to be afraid, but she is wary. Though they’re all a bunch of bastards and she hates them, it seems that it may be a good thing that she is stuck in Slytherin, in the middle of the nest of snakes. It means that she can see from the inside what others will have to observe from without, and it means that she will be better prepared when her wispy worries coalesce into something much worse.
It also means that she is in great danger, of course, but Andromeda is a Black, after all.
She watches the Sorting, an inkling stirring in her that everything is not all right. That everything is far from all right. And as Sirius swaggers hyperbolically over to the three-legged stool, as his bright, careless grin disappears under the brim of the ratty old hat, the stirring becomes a whispering that grows to a roar and then soars to a screaming crescendo as the Hat opens its slash of a mouth and sucks in a deep breath.
Andromeda has lost track of her fingers, and she rediscovers her right-hand ones clenched around her goblet so hard that her knuckles are whiter than sun-bleached bones strewn across a desert plain. It is an ominous analogy-appropriately so.
“GRYFFINDOR!” the Hat exults.
Silence falls like snow, thick and heavy, suffocating and insurmountable. The faintest of scuffing noises is audible as Sirius lifts the hat from his head, displacing a few dark little curls that immediately proceed to fall into his eyes, and then sets it back down on the stool.
With the kind of poise (or bravado) that only Sirius could have perfected by the age of eleven, he turns, faces the Gryffindor table, strolls over to it, and sits down on the bench. He swings his legs over, beams at the bewildered boys on either side of him, and picks up a fork.
It is only when he has seized the utensil that the Gryffindors give way to an explosion of joy. Half the table is on its feet whooping and shouting, the other half is applauding so hard that they risk breaking their fingers. The noise is cowing, but it is the livid silence of the Slytherins that deafens Andromeda. Bella looks like she has been hit by a bus, which-although Andromeda has occasionally wished that such an event would take place-bodes very, very ill for cousin Sirius.
When the feast is over-she doesn’t remember much of the rest of the Sorting, and it’s hardly important anyway-Andromeda manages to grab the shoulder of the quiet, scared-looking boy who’s now in Gryffindor as well. She shoves she note she has scribbled into his hand, pushes his fingers shut around it, and traps his wide hazel eyes with hers.
“Give this to Sirius,” she orders. He nods and flees.
The note reads, Staircase to your tower, nine o’clock sharp. Don’t be late, and she has drawn a star in place of a signature.
At nine-fifteen, Sirius saunters down the stairs and flops down on the bottom step next to her.
“Hiya, Andie,” he says cheerfully.
Andromeda spares him a slightly frosty look; outright glaring would only encourage him. “Don’t call me that.”
“Call you what, Andie?”
She frowns at him. “Look, this is-”
“-Sirius?” He grins broadly, and she wants to slap him. “I know,” he notes, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head. As he closes his eyes, he suddenly looks even younger, and Andromeda’s heart constricts like a squished accordion.
“It’s really not funny,” she tells him.
He opens his eyes, sits up, leans forward, sets his elbows on his knees, and chews on his lip a little. He looks like a chastised puppy. “Yeah,” he concedes. “It isn’t.”
She folds her hands primly. “What are you going to do?”
Sirius gnaws a little more insistently. “I’ve only really got two choices, haven’t I? Either I pretend this is the biggest outrage since Lucius Malfoy’s latest haircut, or I go for broke saying that Gryffindor is the shit.”
“Don’t say that word.”
“I’m eleven years old; I can say what I want.” There is a pause, and then he fills it, his voice softer still. “That’s really all I can do, isn’t it?”
Andromeda considers for a few long moments. Then, reluctantly, she nods. “Yes. It is.”
“Shit,” Sirius says, and this time, Andromeda does not scold him, because “Shit” pretty much sums it up.
“You’ll probably have to figure it out soon,” Andromeda warns him quietly. “Bella will have owled them by now.”
Sirius wrinkles his nose, a nose that belongs also to his mother, and to Regulus, and to Andromeda’s father as well-just as Sirius himself does. “She will have, won’t she? She looked ready to wring the necks of a few dozen hippogriffs earlier.”
Andromeda hears the note of defeat in her voice. “Dragons, today,” she corrects unenthusiastically.
They both smile a little, because they both need to.
“Oi, Black!” someone calls from the top of the stairway. They both turn, but it is the boy with the wild black hair and the glasses that slip down his nose, and he has two other boys in tow. The quiet one that Andromeda terrorized after the feast is looking at her, the smallest boy is looking at the leader, and the leader is looking at Sirius.
“I have been summoned,” Sirius informs Andromeda dramatically, as if she hasn’t been here the whole time. He is on his feet almost before she sees his knees bend, and it hurts to think that there are things in the world with the power to smother the blazing energy that makes up the core of him.
“Sirius,” she says, and he pauses in galloping up the stairs to look at her. She looks back, waiting for him to want to hear it. “Go for broke,” she tells him.
He hesitates, and then he grins, and then he goes back to galloping.
“Who’s that, your girlfriend?” the boy with the wild hair demands before they are quite out of earshot.
“Potter,” Sirius responds crisply, “that is my cousin, and if you insinuate such incestuous things again, I’ll have her teach me how to reduce you to a spot of soot on the carpet.”
A week passes, ample time for Bellatrix to send all the letters and strangle all the dragons she desires, and ample time for Sirius to make his decision. Andromeda is eating breakfast and scanning the Daily Prophet when she hears the doors to the Great Hall bang open, and she glances up.
Sirius waltzes in. He is wearing a red and gold striped scarf, tall socks of the same pattern (with his pants legs rolled up to display them, of course), a gold paper crown set with red paper gemstones, and a very gaudy gold pendant that someone has enchanted to flash “Heartbreaker” in red letters.
Well, shit, Andromeda thinks. He went.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Sirius Black
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,248
Warnings: language and teenagers
Summary: Andromeda Black faces a Sorting gone horribly wrong.
Author's Note: I arranged the time-space continuum to allow for various people to attend Hogwarts all at once. You know you like it.
GOING FOR BROKE
Sirius Black is a smart boy with some remarkably stupid tendencies, and he always has been. Andromeda Black, however, is a smart girl with some remarkably stupid relatives, Sirius being one of them.
She is smart enough to sense that one of the many invisible currents that runs and rumbles beneath the surface of the world is changing, and that it is visible in little things-things like Lucius Malfoy’s strut and the tilt of Bellatrix’s smirk. She doesn’t know yet whether to be afraid, but she is wary. Though they’re all a bunch of bastards and she hates them, it seems that it may be a good thing that she is stuck in Slytherin, in the middle of the nest of snakes. It means that she can see from the inside what others will have to observe from without, and it means that she will be better prepared when her wispy worries coalesce into something much worse.
It also means that she is in great danger, of course, but Andromeda is a Black, after all.
She watches the Sorting, an inkling stirring in her that everything is not all right. That everything is far from all right. And as Sirius swaggers hyperbolically over to the three-legged stool, as his bright, careless grin disappears under the brim of the ratty old hat, the stirring becomes a whispering that grows to a roar and then soars to a screaming crescendo as the Hat opens its slash of a mouth and sucks in a deep breath.
Andromeda has lost track of her fingers, and she rediscovers her right-hand ones clenched around her goblet so hard that her knuckles are whiter than sun-bleached bones strewn across a desert plain. It is an ominous analogy-appropriately so.
“GRYFFINDOR!” the Hat exults.
Silence falls like snow, thick and heavy, suffocating and insurmountable. The faintest of scuffing noises is audible as Sirius lifts the hat from his head, displacing a few dark little curls that immediately proceed to fall into his eyes, and then sets it back down on the stool.
With the kind of poise (or bravado) that only Sirius could have perfected by the age of eleven, he turns, faces the Gryffindor table, strolls over to it, and sits down on the bench. He swings his legs over, beams at the bewildered boys on either side of him, and picks up a fork.
It is only when he has seized the utensil that the Gryffindors give way to an explosion of joy. Half the table is on its feet whooping and shouting, the other half is applauding so hard that they risk breaking their fingers. The noise is cowing, but it is the livid silence of the Slytherins that deafens Andromeda. Bella looks like she has been hit by a bus, which-although Andromeda has occasionally wished that such an event would take place-bodes very, very ill for cousin Sirius.
When the feast is over-she doesn’t remember much of the rest of the Sorting, and it’s hardly important anyway-Andromeda manages to grab the shoulder of the quiet, scared-looking boy who’s now in Gryffindor as well. She shoves she note she has scribbled into his hand, pushes his fingers shut around it, and traps his wide hazel eyes with hers.
“Give this to Sirius,” she orders. He nods and flees.
The note reads, Staircase to your tower, nine o’clock sharp. Don’t be late, and she has drawn a star in place of a signature.
At nine-fifteen, Sirius saunters down the stairs and flops down on the bottom step next to her.
“Hiya, Andie,” he says cheerfully.
Andromeda spares him a slightly frosty look; outright glaring would only encourage him. “Don’t call me that.”
“Call you what, Andie?”
She frowns at him. “Look, this is-”
“-Sirius?” He grins broadly, and she wants to slap him. “I know,” he notes, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head. As he closes his eyes, he suddenly looks even younger, and Andromeda’s heart constricts like a squished accordion.
“It’s really not funny,” she tells him.
He opens his eyes, sits up, leans forward, sets his elbows on his knees, and chews on his lip a little. He looks like a chastised puppy. “Yeah,” he concedes. “It isn’t.”
She folds her hands primly. “What are you going to do?”
Sirius gnaws a little more insistently. “I’ve only really got two choices, haven’t I? Either I pretend this is the biggest outrage since Lucius Malfoy’s latest haircut, or I go for broke saying that Gryffindor is the shit.”
“Don’t say that word.”
“I’m eleven years old; I can say what I want.” There is a pause, and then he fills it, his voice softer still. “That’s really all I can do, isn’t it?”
Andromeda considers for a few long moments. Then, reluctantly, she nods. “Yes. It is.”
“Shit,” Sirius says, and this time, Andromeda does not scold him, because “Shit” pretty much sums it up.
“You’ll probably have to figure it out soon,” Andromeda warns him quietly. “Bella will have owled them by now.”
Sirius wrinkles his nose, a nose that belongs also to his mother, and to Regulus, and to Andromeda’s father as well-just as Sirius himself does. “She will have, won’t she? She looked ready to wring the necks of a few dozen hippogriffs earlier.”
Andromeda hears the note of defeat in her voice. “Dragons, today,” she corrects unenthusiastically.
They both smile a little, because they both need to.
“Oi, Black!” someone calls from the top of the stairway. They both turn, but it is the boy with the wild black hair and the glasses that slip down his nose, and he has two other boys in tow. The quiet one that Andromeda terrorized after the feast is looking at her, the smallest boy is looking at the leader, and the leader is looking at Sirius.
“I have been summoned,” Sirius informs Andromeda dramatically, as if she hasn’t been here the whole time. He is on his feet almost before she sees his knees bend, and it hurts to think that there are things in the world with the power to smother the blazing energy that makes up the core of him.
“Sirius,” she says, and he pauses in galloping up the stairs to look at her. She looks back, waiting for him to want to hear it. “Go for broke,” she tells him.
He hesitates, and then he grins, and then he goes back to galloping.
“Who’s that, your girlfriend?” the boy with the wild hair demands before they are quite out of earshot.
“Potter,” Sirius responds crisply, “that is my cousin, and if you insinuate such incestuous things again, I’ll have her teach me how to reduce you to a spot of soot on the carpet.”
A week passes, ample time for Bellatrix to send all the letters and strangle all the dragons she desires, and ample time for Sirius to make his decision. Andromeda is eating breakfast and scanning the Daily Prophet when she hears the doors to the Great Hall bang open, and she glances up.
Sirius waltzes in. He is wearing a red and gold striped scarf, tall socks of the same pattern (with his pants legs rolled up to display them, of course), a gold paper crown set with red paper gemstones, and a very gaudy gold pendant that someone has enchanted to flash “Heartbreaker” in red letters.
Well, shit, Andromeda thinks. He went.