#Albus naturally already thought he was a failure my baby didn’t need that

[hexcurors]

Albus had stolen a small painting of Harry that used to hang in his office at the Ministry, and ever since, he had kept it hidden in his room so he could talk to the portrait. It was easier for him to open up to it than to his father. What Harry didn’t know was that Albus still thought about the argument they had. Harry’s harsh words, saying that sometimes he wished Albus wasn’t his son, still haunted and deeply hurt him.

One night, as Harry went about his usual routine of checking on his kids to make sure they were okay (a habit he had kept since they were babies, driven by his constant worry), he stopped by Albus’s room. He found the boy fast asleep on his bed, still in his casual clothes: jeans, socks, and the shirt he had worn all day, surrounded by the typical mess of a teenager. Albus always had a way of falling asleep just like that, wherever he landed, and it was usually either Harry or Ginny who stepped in to make him more comfortable for the night.

As Harry quietly cleaned up the mess, his eyes landed on something Albus clutched tightly against his chest. Gently, he moved to take a closer look, and that was when he saw it:

the small portrait of himself.

[hufflepuffmarlenemckinnon]

Dog meets Duckling

An Excerpt from my Novel-Length Fanfic The Dog and the Duckling

Summary: Sirius is assigned to mentor Marlene Mckinnon when she joins The Order of the Phoenix. His perceptions of Hufflepuff house are drastically changed, and so is his life.

Rated Teen mostly for language and innuendo.

A/N: So most everyone who follows me will have gathered that I headcanon Marlene as Duck animagus for a lot of the fic I write. I decided to put some of the backstory of that up on Tumblr in case anyone was curious. I’ll keep these blurbs listed in chronological order on my Fic Masterlist.  

August, 1980

“I need new friends.”

Sirius mumbled empty insults under his breath. His closest friends had left him in the lurch. Sure, they had a valid reason, what with their 6 day old baby and all...He didn’t really think that they should have planned their family with more consideration for him. But he couldn’t help feel annoyed at the new duties to The Order of the Phoenix he would pick up due to James Potter’s absence for the next 8 weeks.

He felt a smile coming on as he imagined little Harry giving them at least a tiny bit of hell.

James Potter was probably changing a nappy at the very moment that Sirius attempted to keep his eyes open while reading over files on the newly enlisted witch he’s be mentoring. James’s task would be more brief but certainly had a more unpleasant odor. The little parlor room The Order of the Phoenix rented at The Leaky Caldron was perhaps a bit musty from old furniture and neglect, but that was the worst of it.

Sirius has persistent doubts that he’d be a suitable mentor. He didn’t really understand why Dumbledore chose him to take up this slack.

He went over the possible reasons in his head. Because pointless mental conjecture was one of the long list of things that Sirius Black enjoyed more than paperwork.  

I suppose I was the next best thing?

He wasn’t. He knew this. The Potters were the sort of people that took naturally to leadership. They’d been head boy and girl during their 7th year at Hogwarts and they were both more patient and more responsible than most people in their early 20s. Sirius was a far cry from that description.

Two years out of Hogwarts, the goals he’d accomplished were less, “find a wife, buy a house, have a baby” and more “try not to be a gigantic twat to anyone today”.

He was fairly pleased with his progress in being less of a twat. He hadn’t been born to be a good or a kind person because certainly none of his family possessed those qualities. He didn’t even become aware that it was an option until he was 11 years old. His youthful attempts at catching up were often abject failures in real decency. He’d been a major twat a time or 50.

He really had gotten better. He didn’t feel like a decent person deep down, but it was certainly what he was aiming to be.

Sirius didn’t really do “responsible” though. He once bought new clothes because he was so rubbish at laundering spells, rather than practicing up on the aforementioned charms. It seemed reasonable to Sirius. He rode a flying motorbike and never found himself compelled to follow the rules in favor of having a good time.

He considered the possibility that Dumbledore was using this as some sort of mission to persuade him into behaving like more of a role model. The only flaw in that theory was that it assumed Dumbledore had reasons for all the things he did. Sometimes he just did things. No one knew why. Including Albus Dumbledore himself.

But reason or no reason, Sirius was stuck with the job and very soon he’d be face to face with his new mentee; Marlene McKinnon of Hufflepuff house, age 16. It was his his job to teach her how The Order works and let her follow him around, watching and learning,for the next month until she went back to Hogwarts.

She’d be entering 7th year. Sirius figured she must’ve gotten bored and restless during the summer or that perhaps her older sisters and brothers going off to fight in wars seemed exciting to someone that young. With four siblings in the order she’d be an obvious recruit after she finished 7th year.

He spotted the line on the file in front of him that stated Marlene wouldn’t even come of age until August 31st.  Generally, The Order wasn’t wild about taking under-age witches and wizards or even of age ones who were still at Hogwarts.

There were exceptions. Sirius found a pondering what made Marlene McKinnon exceptional more interesting than her file as well.

7th years were particularly vulnerable to recruiting from the Death Eaters. Having a 7th year spying for the order and keeping tabs on who had taken the mark and who was likely to to do so was a fairly useful thing for The Order. It had been done before.

But a McKinnon would be ghastly choice for this task.

The McKinnons were a well known wizarding family. All fervent supporters of Muggle Born equality and every one of them (now that their youngest had signed on) was Order affiliated. Sirius didn’t know their exact percentage of Magical ancestry and thought that sort of tedious detail was better saved for people who were vile enough to care. His mother probably would have known.

The McKinnon parents were a black Londoner witch and an Irish wizard. Their five children had slight variations of skin tones in the middle area between their parents. But every one of them had the same hair. It was instantly recognizable, as it was large. Heaps of ringlets that seemed to grow out rather than down. It wouldn’t be hard to spot a McKinnon in a crowd from a broomstick at a distance. Not a great quality for a spy.

So when the girl showed up 20 minutes early with a smile as broad as Hagrid’s shoulders, he didn’t have to ask who she was. This was obviously Marlene McKinnon of Hufflepuff house. She had more freckles than her sister Grace, who’d been in Sirius’s year, but he contended that they looked related.

The beaming impish girl was tiny under all the golden-brown spiral curls. Sirius had encountered taller 2nd years. Her taste in muggle clothes might have made someone else look like a bit of a rebel.  Marlene, on the other hand, looked like a human sunflower who inexplicably enjoys muggle bands with a penchant for profanity.

She’s actually quite pretty.

As soon as he’d had the thought he mentally backtracked and argued with himself over how she wasn’t really beautiful. She might have been more accurately described as cute. Sweet looking. Like a kneazle kitten. She had nothing of the icy untouchable beauty that his own family was known for. Sirius thought maybe that whole concept was overrated anyhow. His deranged cousin Bellatrix may have been one of the great beauties of her generation, but nearly everyone would agree that she was terrifying.

Marlene was anything but terrifying. The only thing Sirius found disconcerting about her was that she was looking at him like Godric Gryffindor come again.

Was she under the influence of a curse? Was she confusing him with someone important? Or just… confused in general?

Sirius was entirely oblivious to the fact that Marlene McKinnon had been looking at him like that for quite a while. She’d considered herself well over it by now, even. But as soon as she walked in she realized that the crush she’d acquired when she was in her 4th year and he in his 7th, was not entirely a thing of the past. Then-14-year-old Marlene had decided that Sirius Black was perhaps the most impressive young wizard she’d ever come into contact with when she heard he’d run away from home and subsequently been disowned for rejecting his family’s blood supremacist ideologies.

She was completely smitten when she found that along with his principles and willingness to stand up for them, he also possessed strikingly handsome good looks. His high contrast coloring and steel grey eyes in combination with his aristocratic bone structure made it hard for Marlene to focus on anything else, even from across the dining hall.

Her siblings who were still at school with her at the time, Grace in 7th year and Lucan in 6th, took notice of her besotted gawking. The sibling pair, who were always closest with each other, did not hesitate to tease their baby sister mercilessly.

Marlene had ended up saying yes to the first boy who expressed an interest in her in 5th year, just to prove to them that she was over her silly crush. She made a noble effort to overlook Reginald Cattermole’s uncanny resemblance to a ferret. Poor sod. Never stood a chance. She got increasingly bored of him during 6th year and gave him the boot officially some months back. And now she was back to square one. Sirius, naturally, hadn’t even been aware of any of this while it was going on.

He thought that no one looked at him like that. Though he liked to think he was quite pleasant to look at (Marlene would concur), in general he was looked upon with suspicion. And that was amongst his allies. There were plenty of witches and wizards who looked at him with complete contempt. But until that very moment Sirius didn’t think anyone had ever looked at him like Marlene McKinnon had from the moment she walked in the front door.

He was really enjoying it.

But why? It was weird. I should stop. She should stop.

“You’re Sirius Black.”

“I am. But I’m afraid you have this whole introductions thing backwards. I already know who I am. You’re meant to tell me who you are. But I’m fairly certain you’re Marlene McKinnon? Am I right?”

“Yes. That’d be me. Errrm… I meant to have introduced myself. Not just gape at you like an idiot, then tell you your own name. And I’m early. That’s...unfortunate. Uh… I’m pretty bad at this. I’m sorry?”

“It’s alright, Marlene. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. You’re bad at… what exactly?”

“So many things, really.” She laughed.

Sirius decided that the ability to laugh at herself would come in handy if she was always this strange around people. He actually kind of admired that quality. He was of the opinion that most people took themselves too seriously. It was tedious for him to spend time around people like that. He got the immediate impression that Marlene was anything but tedious.

“Well aren’t we all? I’ve never mentored anyone before and I’m sure I’ll be very disappointing. Truly, I’m sorry that you got stuck with me. You can send complaints to the Potters.”

He thought maybe a small dose of self deprecation would put this little tightly wound ball of nerves a bit more at ease. Looking at her posture was giving him a crick in his neck.

It was also Sirius’s earnest opinion that he would be a terrible mentor. He had no idea what he was even meant to do with her. He felt it was likely that he would forget to feed her or something, like he had done with that goldfish he’d won at that muggle fair.

“Oh no; not at all.” She blurted out as if it were all one word.

As Marlene continued to speak, her words tumbled out at an impressive pace without so much as a pause for breath.

“I was thrilled when I heard you were going to mentor me. I always thought you were so brave, walking away from your family like you did. That must have taken an enormous amount of courage. But I hadn’t seen you since you left school and you are exceptionally good looking and I got distracted and forgot that I was supposed to say my name when I meet a person.”

Sirius did his best not to let his face react in any way while Marlene cycled through approximately 50 facial expressions within the span of a minute.

Sirius wondered what planet was this girl had come from. Grace McKinnon had been fairly Hufflepuffy in his recollection, but she wasn’t the personification of a broom crash when she spoke. But just like a broom crash, Marlene was impossible to look away from. Sirius was transfixed. But he preferred to think that he wasn’t quite terrible enough to have to hold back a laugh at a broom crash.

He was at a loss of anything at all to say. Lucky for him that Marlene, whose embarrassed blush might have been visible from her far off home planet, felt compelled to fill the air with more of her rapid fire words.

“Oh sweet Merlin did I really say that? I’m so so sorry. I think I should probably go. Maybe I’ll tell Dumbledore I’m not cut out for The Order. Maybe I’ll move to Spain and start a new life…”

“That really won’t be necessary. Besides it would reflect pretty poorly on me if my first mentee ran away to Spain after meeting me once. So I must object. You’ll be great with The Order. Your heart is in it. It must be. You’ve still got a year of school left but here you are.”

“I thought maybe I could help. Everyone’s so scared. You-know-who is gaining ground. I’d rather be part of something that stops him than sit idle and be scared.”

“See, you do belong here. Please don’t run away to Spain. I’m sure your brothers and sisters would miss you terribly.”

“I suppose they might. A bit. Well, maybe not Gawain. But the rest. Do you know them?”

“I was in Grace’s year. We’ve never been close but she seems like a lovely person. You look a lot like her. You all look alike. Gawain too. What’s wrong with Gawain?”

Marlene did look like all the other McKinnons. But Sirius had never given more the conventional looking Grace a second glance and if he had glanced any more at Marlene it would have constituted a full on ogling.

He reminded himself that he shouldn’t look at her like that. She was someone he’d have to see every day for a month. Then possibly work with in the future. He didn’t dip into that pool. It was needlessly messy, when he was Sirius Black and was not lacking in options.

Marlene had just called him exceptionally good looking which, while true, was not something he expected people to announce at random. So by doing that she confused his brain into considering the ways which she was attractive, or would be, if the circumstances were different. Or that was the mental gymnastics he performed to excuse his giving her the once over, anyway.

“Gawain’s terribly embarrassed by me. I’m… pretty embarrassing. So I don’t really blame him. But we aren’t particularly close.”

“I have a thing or two to teach him about what it’s really like to have embarrassing relatives. Did you know that my first cousin tells people that she’s the Dark Lord’s mistress? You’re not embarrassing. I… look forward to working with you.”

All the impulses Sirius felt towards Marlene felt wrong and contrary to the image he attempted to portray to the world. He was supposed to be blazé about people’s opinions of him. Self confident and cool. He felt anything but cool when intentionally bringing up Bella’s terrible taste in men. Could Voldemort even really be called a man at this point? He looked… not entirely human. Sirius idly wondered if he had all the working bits. But he would not go as so far as to make any inquiries into the matter.

Marlene looked so anxious. Her nervous fingers played with the ripped hem of her too-big shirt. As endearing as her nervous fidgeting was, Sirius wanted to make her feel more at ease.

But why should he care if she’s awkward? Probably that was just her. Why was he making himself uncomfortable in efforts to make her less so? He didn’t do that. He especially didn’t do that for skinny 16 year old Hufflepuffs with huge hair and school girl crushes.

But he did. And he continued to, even as he thought about how he didn’t.

“So you think she’s not his mistress but she tells people that she is? That’s. Wow. I can’t think of many things more embarrassing than that. Actually being his mistress would be less pathetic, at least.”

Her sunny smile was back. Sirius felt a small sense of victory before she averted her gaze down to her yellow-stitched boots.

“I don’t know. I mean that’s my theory. But I don’t keep a sneekoscope in he-who-must-not-be-named’s bedroom.”

“Do you think he even has a bedroom? You know I’ve never before this moment thought of him being a person who does mundane things such as sleep or shag your cousin. But he must, right? He can’t possibly devote every moment of his life to terrorizing and murdering. Do you think he does his own shopping?”

“He probably has his minions do it or else a house elf, but now I really wish he did do it himself. I like the mental image it creates. He’d need breaks from reigning terror for a few hours on Thursday afternoon, because he needs to stock up on fresh produce. Can you picture the poor shopkeeper, totally gobsmacked?”

“You make jokes about He-who-must-not-be-laughed-at too. Gawain would be so scandalized.”  

The pair were having quite a laugh at the expense of the most dangerous dark wizard alive. They were both sure that this was going to be fun. Sirius decided that he needed some fun in his life now that James and Lily were busy with their baby.