Chapter Text
Sirius Black could be so sophisticated, so underhandedly polite, it was difficult to remember that he was a child. Minerva was still no good at disciplining students. It hadn’t been especially long ago that she was a student here; sixteen had been the zenith of adulthood and the teachers impossibly old. Now, she was a teacher and she wielded power over Sirius Black, who despite causing every kind of trouble, never started anything in her class and was always very kind to her. Minerva sometimes couldn’t help but feel it was pity which prevented him from being harder to manage.
But in the halls of Hogwarts, he was an unmitigated terror, something akin to a natural disaster. Minerva hoped she would never be passing by when Black turned Severus Snape’s scarf into something wriggling and angry, or when he decided to traverse the staircases with a Comet 67 enchanted to fly indoors. She would have to be stern, if she did meet him in one of these frequent moments of anarchy. She would have to take points from Gryffindor, or give him detention while his friend Potter was playing against Ravenclaw this weekend.
And then, Sirius Black would stop pitying her and start treating Transfiguration like all his other classes. A lark, a place to showboat in front of his friends and remind the teachers that he could leave whenever he wanted.
Minerva was not ready for the eye of Sauron to be turned on her, to borrow a reference from the Muggles.
(She’d read the books on the behest of an incredulous roommate in Muggle teaching college. It had taken her a weekend and a couple discreet twists of the Time Turner to finish, and now she couldn’t unsee Headmaster Dumbledore as Tom Bombadil.)
They were studying Animagi. It was a subject close to her heart, and turning into Greymalkin was an easy path to respect among Ravenclaws and the brainier Gryffindors. When she transformed back, to stunned applause, she saw Sirius Black considering her with rare focus. Unnerved, she turned to the blackboard and started scrawling neat notes.
“An Animagus has control over transformation, like a Metamorphmagus,” she said. “Unlike a Metamorphmagus, however, Animagi have just one changed form, and they do not choose it. I was not expecting that I would be a cat, for instance.”
“Perhaps it’s for the best, Professor,” Remus Lupin said. He was looking peakier than usual, as he did during a new moon, but he was in class and awake. This month must have been good to him. “I imagine some Animagi might have more troublesome forms, like insects or fish.”
“Yes, it would be quite a nasty shock to turn into a goldfish on land,” Minerva said. “There have been a great many incidents where prospective Animagi were not prepared for such an eventuality, and died or became grievously injured as a result. Safety is the main reason such a transformation is intensely regulated by the Ministry for Magic. With trained witnesses and proper preparation, even an Animagus whose changed form is very vulnerable can be safely guided back to human form. Now, with this in mind, why might someone choose to become an Animagus?”
“For fun,” Simons said. Minerva shrugged and wrote it on the board
“To be hidden?” Pettigrew suggested.
“Before the British regulations, that was very feasible for Animagi,” Minerva said. “For instance, there is the famous case of Belinda Benson at the turn of the century. As a lizard, she posed as her younger sister’s exotic pet for many years while she dodged unwanted suitors. However, now it would be very difficult to be unrecognized in a changed form. Animagi are registered and their names and forms are posted publicly. You can find me on that list.”
“But that assumes that every Animagus is registered,” said Black, and Minerva paused.
“That’s right,” she conceded. “Given the risks, which are well-known and documented, unregistered Animagi are speculated to be few and far-between.”
“Speculated?”
“The unregistered ones are by their very nature unquantified, Mr. Black,” Minerva said. “It is only a very powerful magic-user who can even make the transformation, so that narrows down the list of those who would break the law so they could have a secret animal form.”
“What’s the punishment, if you’re caught?” Black said.
“I imagine there is a fine or even a stint in Azkaban, Mr. Black,” Minerva said, lips pursing. “However, I am not a professor of civics. Perhaps Professor Binns can satisfy your curiosity on the particulars of wizarding law and restricted magics. May I return to my lesson?”
“Sorry, Professor,” Black said with that polite and guileless smile. Minerva resisted smiling back, and turned to the blackboard to write notes on theory.
After class, Minerva gathered the rolls of parchment about last week’s lesson on multiplication spells. Black’s was half the size of parchment she had asked for. She sighed, and put them in her book for marking. Professor Vector had given her a very good charm to decipher students’ handwriting, and she was eager to try it over a pint at the Three Broomsticks.
“You look tense,” Rosmerta said, and set down a little glass of something. Muggle whiskey, Minerva realized with some pleasure. She found the magicked effects of wizarding alcohol to be tiresome sometimes, and especially when she just needed a drink. Rosmerta was the rare bartender in their world who had the wisdom to keep reserves of Muggle spirits.
“Grading papers,” Minerva said. “Multiplication spells. And the practical is supposed to be next week, but if any of them don’t demonstrate the proper understanding in these, I have to reschedule.”
“Multiplication, eh? Watch this,” Rosmerta said, and pointed at the whiskey with her wand. It turned from a single to a double. Minerva smiled. “Well, professor, do I pass?”
“With flying colours,” Minerva said, and raised her glass in a toast to the marvelous bartender.