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small_giftsTitle: The Kindergarten Misadventures of Sirius Black for veeagainst
Author/Artist:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pppopcorn
Recipient:veeagainst
Rating: PG
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): None
Word count: 3,634
Summary: Sirius takes a job working as a kindergarten teacher as a last resort and finds himself liking it. (*This is an AU where the first war didn't take place and both Remus and Sirius shares a flat after leaving Hogwarts.)
Notes: I hope this hasn’t become a Sirius centric fic andveeagainst will like it :3 Merry christmas! And thank you sparkle_fingers for beta-ing!
xxx
"Dammit! Have you seen my other sock, Moony?"
It was Sirius' first day at his first job as a kindergarten teacher at a muggle school. It was his last resort after his parents had bad mouthed him in the ministry to the point where every door of each department closed on him. Although there were jobs that Sirius could take outside the Ministry, getting into Auror training had always been his dream, and it was important to have a practicing Auror take him as a student.
"Language, Sirius." Remus answered without turning around from dropping a well-fried egg onto each of their toast, before setting down the pan into the sink and filling it with water to cool it down.
Since Remus wasn't helping at all, Sirius groaned in frustration and decided to look for it himself, bending down to look underneath all the furniture in every room. When he found it, he quickly put it onto his bare foot as he hopped back into the kitchen to sit down at his seat. He would be late if he didn't hurry up. He took a big gulp of tea and burned his tongue as soon as Remus set the mug in front of him.
"Fuck!" Sirius set the mug down with a dull thud and fanned his mouth, sticking his tongue out.
"Careful. You still have time." Remus scanned through the day’s newspaper and calmly took a sip of his cocoa. "It's going to take me 10 minutes on my motorbike!” Sirius protested as he stuffed his toast in his mouth. It was already 5 minutes later than he’d planned to leave the house. He was definitely going to be late for his new job.
“You can apparate somewhere close to the kindergarten.” Unlike Sirius, Remus wasn’t in any hurry. He took a small bite of his toast, picking up a pencil to do today’s crossword puzzle in the newspaper.
Sirius stopped chewing his food and looked up at his boyfriend in surprise. “I thought you said no magic was allowed?” Remus reached for his mug and took another sip of his cocoa.
“Only in the kindergarten.” Oh, that had reminded Remus to give Sirius the talk he’d had in mind earlier when he was cooking. “You really have to withhold from swearing, Padfoot. We don't want kids running around, swearing at their parents when they come pick them up at the end of the day." Sirius made a Padfoot-like strangled noise before Remus continued. "Stand up for a second?" Sirius was so used to Remus commanding him (in bed) that he stood up obediently. Remus examined Sirius from head to toe before getting up to push his leather jacket off his shoulders.
Sirius, who gotten the wrong the idea, fidgeted and tried to keep his jacket on by clutching the front of his jacket. “M-Moony? I have to go to work!” Remus rolled his eyes and reached up to hit the top of Sirius’ head lightly. “You can’t wear this to work, silly.” Sirius blinked and looked down at the leather jacket that was halfway off his shoulders and slumped. He liked the jacket very much and he couldn’t fathom why others wouldn’t find it cool. He supposed he’d listen to his boyfriend, though, since he knew more about Muggle schools than he did. Sirius pouted and looked up at Remus with puppy-dog eyes as he reluctantly took the jacket off, hoping that his boyfriend would change his mind about it. Unfortunately, instead of stopping Sirius, Remus went upstairs to go through Sirius’ wardrobe to pick out an outfit with a more subtle colour and brought it downstairs.
“These are more appropriate.” He handed Sirius the clothes, who shook them out and examined them. They were a proper button-up shirt, a sweater and a pair of plain black trousers without those fashionable holes. Sirius was sure that Remus was going to make him put on that pair of boring leather shoes that Remus made him buy for job interviews before leaving the house.
“Are you sure the kids will like me better in these than in my own choice of clothing?” Sirius made his final struggle as he slowly, and unwillingly pulled off his t-shirt. “I’m not sure about the kids, but it’ll make a good impression on the teachers.” Remus crossed his arms in front of his chest, waiting for Sirius to get changed. He would have stripped Sirius since he was being so hesitant about it, but Sirius would get the wrong idea and would surely be cranky afterwards if they didn’t fool around a little before he left, and that was the last thing they wanted on the first day of Sirius’ new job.
Seeing as neither his puppy-dog eyes nor his obvious pleading worked, Sirius surrendered and swiftly got changed. Once he was done, Remus tugged him in for a kiss and reached up to fix his hair. “Good luck. I’m sure you’ll do great.”
“Thanks, Moony. Wait for my good news.” Sirius was a bit nervous, actually. He took a deep breath and put on his best smile before disapparating to the vicinity of the kindergarten.
xxx
Sirius arrived at an alley next to the kindergarten so that no one would see him. He fixed his shirt collar and straightened his sleeves before lifting his chin up and walking out of the alley. The Muggles didn’t seem to notice him at all. Sirius smirked and kept walking straight to the kindergarten. He could see a lady, probably a teacher, standing at the entrance of the school and restlessly looking from left to right. Sirius hurried up to her, wearing a huge smile on his face.
“Hullo!” The teacher jumped in surprise when Sirius suddenly appeared in front of her. Her face blushed red seeing the handsome face, and she fidgeted a little. “G-Good morning. You must be Mr. Black.” Sirius laughed and gestured the teacher to go inside as if he was more familiar with the school than she was. “Call me Sirius. And you are?”
It was only then that it came to the teacher’s realisation that she was supposed to be the one to lead Sirius and quickly got herself together. “I’m Katie. The kids call me Miss Breton. The headmistress wants to speak to you, um, Sirius?” Miss Breton wanted to confirm with Sirius that she had got his name right, who nodded in response with the same charming smile, only causing her face to become even redder. “She will explain your duties and assign you a class before I show you around.” Sirius nodded again as he followed Miss Breton to the headmistress’ office and paused at the door. “Mrs. Gifford might look stern, but she is actually a very nice lady. She won’t be too harsh on you.” Miss Breton reassured Sirius before knocking on the door and pushing it open for Sirius after she heard the headmistress give her permission. Sirius was never the type to shy away from authority types. He greeted the headmistress, the person who’d interviewed him, with a handshake before he gracefully took the seat opposite her.
As Mrs. Gifford explained his duties and what was expected of him in a stern, no nonsense way without being terribly mean about it, Sirius was reminded of the lectures McGonagall would give him when he'd been at school, and he couldn’t help but smile. Sirius gained more confidence after he’d learned more about his job and decided that it’d be a piece of cake! The kids were so wee and tiny, so how bad could this possibly be? By the time Mrs. Gifford had finished explaining, Sirius was pumped up for his new job and he couldn’t wait to meet the kids and start teaching immediately.
Miss Breton was asked by the headmistress to show Sirius to his new class and introduce him to the kids. The headmistress had assigned Sirius to a class with older kids around 4 to 5 years old, who required less minding and more teaching.
The kids were running around, laughing, screaming, and even fighting when they entered the classroom. Sirius looked around in amusement as Miss Breton rushed to the fighting kids to separate them and asked them what happened to try to solve the dispute, while kids who had already noticed Sirius went up to him and surrounded him, looking up at him with big curious eyes. A little boy tugged at their old teacher’s sleeves and asked her who this big guy was. It turned out that the other two kids were fighting for sweets, so Miss Breton dug into her pocket for some more for each of them, before ushering the class back to their seats and introducing Sirius properly. After the kids had understood that Mr. Black was going to be their new teacher, Miss Breton left the class to Sirius.
xxx
Sirius returned home with mussed hair, clothes slightly disarranged. He flopped face down on the couch exhaustedly, not even noticing that Remus was already home. “How was your first day?”
Sirius perked up to see Remus sitting at the table in the dining room with a book before he buried his face into the arm of the couch again. “Tiring.”
Remus got up and went over to the couch, kneeling beside it and running his fingers through Sirius’ hair. Sirius made a pleased sound and closed his eyes to rest for a minute before he sat up and tugged Remus up onto the couch to sit with him. It was wonderful that Remus always had this calming effect on him, even if he hadn’t said anything, and Sirius had recharged a bit already. “The kids ignored me and didn’t take me seriously, even though I’m Sirius.”
Remus snorted and hid his face against Sirius’ shoulder. This joke never got old with his boyfriend, no matter how many times he’d told him he’d grown tired of it over the years. “They need time to get used to you. You can’t expect them to like you right away,” Remus tried to comfort Sirius with logical reasons, hoping his boyfriend wouldn’t give up after his first day at work.
“No, I don’t think they dislike me at all. They just didn’t seem to accept me as their new teacher.” Remus lifted up his head to look at Sirius with an eyebrow raised. “Why? What did you do?” Sirius shrugged and tried to recall what he’d done. “Nothing. I just told them to settle down so I could begin the class.”
“And what did you say exactly?” Remus probed, trying to figure out what went wrong. “‘Settle down, little beans!’” Sirius answered innocently as Remus turned to look at him wide-eyed in disbelief.
“What else did you call them?”
“Marbles, midgets.”
Remus brought his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “No wonder they didn’t take you seriously. You can’t call them that!”
“Well, what am I supposed to call them? They are all fidgety and little just like beans!” Sirius protested, didn’t see anything wrong in what he said. “Call them ‘kids’ or anything that you’d use to address human if you don’t know their names.” Remus stated the obvious, in hope that Sirius would understand. “Imagine them addressing you as ‘giant’ or other descriptive terms.” Sirius didn’t have to think about it to wrinkle his nose. All right, he got it. He would stop with those silly terms. “Fine. I will call them something else tomorrow.”
xxx
The next day, Sirius came back home after work with mussed hair and his clothes slightly disarranged again. He flopped face down on the couch exhaustedly, smelling tea was being made in the kitchen and looked up to see Remus stirring the content in his mug. He waited for his boyfriend to bring the mugs over to the living room before sitting up and wrapping his arms around him as he leaned against him. “Moony, you’re a genius. The kids were very fond of me today.” Sirius pressed a kiss to the side of Remus’ head affectionately in thanks. Remus chuckled softly and turned around to cup Sirius’ face to kiss him back properly on the mouth. “So it went well?”
“It sure did. But Merlin, they were so needy and clingy and sticky! I had to give them treats to make them sit still in their seats.” Sirius sighed dramatically and pretended to wipe the sweat away from his forehead, making Remus laugh. “Treats as in sweets?” Remus asked as he calmed down and took a sip of his tea. ”Yup! Oh, which reminds me! Moony? Do you have more muggle sweets for me to bring to work?” Sirius knew Remus was very protective of his sweets, so he wouldn’t ask him for the special kinds. Remus contemplated for a while as he went through in his mind of what he’d got before shaking his head. “I think my stock is running low. Shall we go get some?” Sirius nodded like an excited puppy and finished his tea quickly to get ready.
xxx
The following day was disastrous. Sirius learned that, unlike pets, it was a bad idea to give kids too many treats whenever they behaved, because they started running around and not taking their naps. The hour where Sirius was supposed to be getting some rest ended up with him making up stories to tell the kids (he didn’t know enough muggle stories to last for the hour, so he had to add modified stories of his shenanigans at school a bit to tell the kids), and drawing and playing toys with them. Because the sugar was making them hyper, they wouldn’t sit still during classes either. Sirius had to threaten to glue the kids to chairs with to make them listen.
Sirius went home and discussed the award system with Remus. Sirius was glad that his boyfriend was experienced in dealing with kids, as he helped Molly Weasley with her tutoring for wizard kids. In fact, Remus had asked Sirius if he wanted to help out before interviewing at the kindergarten, but Sirius had rejected it, given that Molly tended to pick on him and argue with him. Remus couldn’t help but laugh as he listened to today’s misadventure at work, but he suggested giving the kids stamps and stickers as alternatives to sweets, as he recalled his childhood. Sirius didn’t know what they were, so Remus got up to go upstairs to the attic to look for the trunk with his childhood treasures stored, to search for the little notebook he used to collect stamps and stickers. He brought it back downstairs to the living room to show Sirius, who flipped through them with earnest interest and examined the collections carefully. “Where can I get those?” He looked up to ask Remus with his eyes lit up. He wanted to get some for himself, too!
Remus had to bite on his lip to resist the urge to laugh at how adorable Sirius looked as he answered him. “In stationery stores. We can go there now if you want.” Sirius nodded again, like he’d done yesterday, and got onto his feet, tugging Remus up with him as he led the way out of the house.
xxx
The stamps and stickers worked as good as a charm. Eager to earn stamps and stickers, the kids had been very obedient since Sirius had presented each of them a notebook to collect their rewards. The complaining about his job gradually turned into fond stories of the kids at school. There was an occasion where he burped in class and the kids wouldn’t stop laughing for 15 minutes. Sirius had taken the opportunity to entertain his students and performed a puppet show, conjuring puppets behind his desk. He got along well with the kids, to the point where he even took naps with them during nap time.
Eventually, everything had to come to an end. After a year of teaching, it was announced that the school had to close because it ran out of funding. It wasn’t so much that Sirius had to face unemployment again. He was just nearly heartbroken saying goodbye to the kids after getting to know them. Sirius clung to Remus on the night before the last day of school. He was never good at saying goodbye. Once he’d grown attached to people, it was hard for him to let go and move on. Remus pressed little kisses to his forehead and face, holding him close and rubbing his back to soothe him and trying to get him to sleep. He decided that he’d make Sirius to take a rest from working for a while to let him recover from this.
Remus took a day off from working at Molly’s and accompanied Sirius to the kindergarten for the closing ceremony. Sirius’ class was already waiting for them on the playground before going into the Hall. They ran up to him, surrounded him like the first day of school, except there were tears in their eyes. Sirius knelt down and opened his arms to hug the kids, resisting the urge the cry. He was a grown man and grown men did not cry! The kids’ parents and Remus were touched by the sight. There wasn’t anything that they could do but watch them in silence. The class monitor pulled away first and reached in his bag to pull out a big card that had one big guy with 20 little people (Sirius assumed that it was him in the middle with the kids) drawn on it. The tears that had gathered in the corners of Sirius’ eyes were on the verge of rolling down his cheeks. He had to sniff hard and close his eyes for a few seconds to make sure that they wouldn’t spill from his eyes before opening them again. When he opened the card, he saw the big sloppy, colourful handwriting in the middle of it, saying ‘YOU ARE THE BEST TEACHER EVER. WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU’. Sirius pulled the kids into a big hug again, crying with them, for real this time. They stayed like this for a few minutes before Miss Breton ran out of the Hall hurriedly to look for them. She felt bad interrupting the moment, but the ceremony was about to start. Sirius let go of the kids and nodded in understanding as he got up, reaching up to wipe the tears away from his eyes. He led his class as their teacher into the Hall for one last time, thanking his parents for badmouthing him or he wouldn’t have landed in this job and discovered how much he enjoyed working with children.
After attending the closing ceremony Sirius took the time to walk home hand in hand with Remus, instead of disapparating. Sirius had promised himself that he wouldn’t cry anymore, but he couldn’t help it. All Remus could do was to lend him a shoulder to cry on until he stopped. When they got home, they took a nap on the couch together until it started to get dark and Remus had to get up to light the fire and prepare dinner. Sirius had never slept well without Remus beside him, and he woke up half an hour later to find his boyfriend preparing dinner. He padded to the kitchen in his socks and wrapped his arms around Remus from behind, startling him.
“Hey,” Remus said softly as he leaned back against Sirius, tilting his head a little to peck on Sirius’ lips.
“Hey. It smells good,” Sirius replied, resting his chin on Remus’ shoulder as he watched him cook.
“Mmhm,” Remus hummed in reply and let Sirius stay like this as he cooked. Neither of them had said anything else afterwards. Sirius eventually got bored of watching and started to help with tea making.
“Moony?” Sirius ventured without looking away from adding sugar idly.
“Yes, Padfoot? You know you’re adding too much sugar, don’t you?” Remus pointed out as he carried the pot of roast chicken onto the table. Sirius jumped and snapped out of his reverie, brushing some sugar out from his mug. “I don’t think I can manage another job with kids, except babysitting.” Sirius said softly as he poured hot water into the mugs. Remus nodded and served them both food before taking off his apron and hanging it on the hook on the wall. He smiled at Sirius, sitting down at the table to wait for him. “You can babysit Harry for a while.”
Sirius looked up in surprise, handing Remus his mug as he sat down with him. “Oh yeah, I can do that. Or we can have a kid of our own?” It was Remus’ turn to be surprised. He choked on his tea, falling into a coughing fit. When he’d calmed down and wiped the tears from his eyes, he smiled at Sirius and nodded. “I’m not sure if the Ministry would allow, but we can try.”
They would be in their mid-twenties in a few years’ time. It’d be nice to start a family of their own. Sirius beamed at Remus and got up, going over to pull Remus into a hug as he planted sloppy kisses on his cheeks.
“I love you Moony.”
“I love you too, Padfoot.”
Remus laughed happily and hugged Sirius back tightly, burying his nose in the crook of his neck. Sirius was no longer that upset. The idea of having and raising their own child made Sirius felt warm and fuzzy. He enjoyed his dinner with Remus and spent the night with him cuddling on the couch before going to bed in each other’s arms.
Author/Artist:
pppopcornRecipient:
veeagainstRating: PG
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): None
Word count: 3,634
Summary: Sirius takes a job working as a kindergarten teacher as a last resort and finds himself liking it. (*This is an AU where the first war didn't take place and both Remus and Sirius shares a flat after leaving Hogwarts.)
Notes: I hope this hasn’t become a Sirius centric fic and
veeagainst will like it :3 Merry christmas! And thank you sparkle_fingers for beta-ing!xxx
"Dammit! Have you seen my other sock, Moony?"
It was Sirius' first day at his first job as a kindergarten teacher at a muggle school. It was his last resort after his parents had bad mouthed him in the ministry to the point where every door of each department closed on him. Although there were jobs that Sirius could take outside the Ministry, getting into Auror training had always been his dream, and it was important to have a practicing Auror take him as a student.
"Language, Sirius." Remus answered without turning around from dropping a well-fried egg onto each of their toast, before setting down the pan into the sink and filling it with water to cool it down.
Since Remus wasn't helping at all, Sirius groaned in frustration and decided to look for it himself, bending down to look underneath all the furniture in every room. When he found it, he quickly put it onto his bare foot as he hopped back into the kitchen to sit down at his seat. He would be late if he didn't hurry up. He took a big gulp of tea and burned his tongue as soon as Remus set the mug in front of him.
"Fuck!" Sirius set the mug down with a dull thud and fanned his mouth, sticking his tongue out.
"Careful. You still have time." Remus scanned through the day’s newspaper and calmly took a sip of his cocoa. "It's going to take me 10 minutes on my motorbike!” Sirius protested as he stuffed his toast in his mouth. It was already 5 minutes later than he’d planned to leave the house. He was definitely going to be late for his new job.
“You can apparate somewhere close to the kindergarten.” Unlike Sirius, Remus wasn’t in any hurry. He took a small bite of his toast, picking up a pencil to do today’s crossword puzzle in the newspaper.
Sirius stopped chewing his food and looked up at his boyfriend in surprise. “I thought you said no magic was allowed?” Remus reached for his mug and took another sip of his cocoa.
“Only in the kindergarten.” Oh, that had reminded Remus to give Sirius the talk he’d had in mind earlier when he was cooking. “You really have to withhold from swearing, Padfoot. We don't want kids running around, swearing at their parents when they come pick them up at the end of the day." Sirius made a Padfoot-like strangled noise before Remus continued. "Stand up for a second?" Sirius was so used to Remus commanding him (in bed) that he stood up obediently. Remus examined Sirius from head to toe before getting up to push his leather jacket off his shoulders.
Sirius, who gotten the wrong the idea, fidgeted and tried to keep his jacket on by clutching the front of his jacket. “M-Moony? I have to go to work!” Remus rolled his eyes and reached up to hit the top of Sirius’ head lightly. “You can’t wear this to work, silly.” Sirius blinked and looked down at the leather jacket that was halfway off his shoulders and slumped. He liked the jacket very much and he couldn’t fathom why others wouldn’t find it cool. He supposed he’d listen to his boyfriend, though, since he knew more about Muggle schools than he did. Sirius pouted and looked up at Remus with puppy-dog eyes as he reluctantly took the jacket off, hoping that his boyfriend would change his mind about it. Unfortunately, instead of stopping Sirius, Remus went upstairs to go through Sirius’ wardrobe to pick out an outfit with a more subtle colour and brought it downstairs.
“These are more appropriate.” He handed Sirius the clothes, who shook them out and examined them. They were a proper button-up shirt, a sweater and a pair of plain black trousers without those fashionable holes. Sirius was sure that Remus was going to make him put on that pair of boring leather shoes that Remus made him buy for job interviews before leaving the house.
“Are you sure the kids will like me better in these than in my own choice of clothing?” Sirius made his final struggle as he slowly, and unwillingly pulled off his t-shirt. “I’m not sure about the kids, but it’ll make a good impression on the teachers.” Remus crossed his arms in front of his chest, waiting for Sirius to get changed. He would have stripped Sirius since he was being so hesitant about it, but Sirius would get the wrong idea and would surely be cranky afterwards if they didn’t fool around a little before he left, and that was the last thing they wanted on the first day of Sirius’ new job.
Seeing as neither his puppy-dog eyes nor his obvious pleading worked, Sirius surrendered and swiftly got changed. Once he was done, Remus tugged him in for a kiss and reached up to fix his hair. “Good luck. I’m sure you’ll do great.”
“Thanks, Moony. Wait for my good news.” Sirius was a bit nervous, actually. He took a deep breath and put on his best smile before disapparating to the vicinity of the kindergarten.
xxx
Sirius arrived at an alley next to the kindergarten so that no one would see him. He fixed his shirt collar and straightened his sleeves before lifting his chin up and walking out of the alley. The Muggles didn’t seem to notice him at all. Sirius smirked and kept walking straight to the kindergarten. He could see a lady, probably a teacher, standing at the entrance of the school and restlessly looking from left to right. Sirius hurried up to her, wearing a huge smile on his face.
“Hullo!” The teacher jumped in surprise when Sirius suddenly appeared in front of her. Her face blushed red seeing the handsome face, and she fidgeted a little. “G-Good morning. You must be Mr. Black.” Sirius laughed and gestured the teacher to go inside as if he was more familiar with the school than she was. “Call me Sirius. And you are?”
It was only then that it came to the teacher’s realisation that she was supposed to be the one to lead Sirius and quickly got herself together. “I’m Katie. The kids call me Miss Breton. The headmistress wants to speak to you, um, Sirius?” Miss Breton wanted to confirm with Sirius that she had got his name right, who nodded in response with the same charming smile, only causing her face to become even redder. “She will explain your duties and assign you a class before I show you around.” Sirius nodded again as he followed Miss Breton to the headmistress’ office and paused at the door. “Mrs. Gifford might look stern, but she is actually a very nice lady. She won’t be too harsh on you.” Miss Breton reassured Sirius before knocking on the door and pushing it open for Sirius after she heard the headmistress give her permission. Sirius was never the type to shy away from authority types. He greeted the headmistress, the person who’d interviewed him, with a handshake before he gracefully took the seat opposite her.
As Mrs. Gifford explained his duties and what was expected of him in a stern, no nonsense way without being terribly mean about it, Sirius was reminded of the lectures McGonagall would give him when he'd been at school, and he couldn’t help but smile. Sirius gained more confidence after he’d learned more about his job and decided that it’d be a piece of cake! The kids were so wee and tiny, so how bad could this possibly be? By the time Mrs. Gifford had finished explaining, Sirius was pumped up for his new job and he couldn’t wait to meet the kids and start teaching immediately.
Miss Breton was asked by the headmistress to show Sirius to his new class and introduce him to the kids. The headmistress had assigned Sirius to a class with older kids around 4 to 5 years old, who required less minding and more teaching.
The kids were running around, laughing, screaming, and even fighting when they entered the classroom. Sirius looked around in amusement as Miss Breton rushed to the fighting kids to separate them and asked them what happened to try to solve the dispute, while kids who had already noticed Sirius went up to him and surrounded him, looking up at him with big curious eyes. A little boy tugged at their old teacher’s sleeves and asked her who this big guy was. It turned out that the other two kids were fighting for sweets, so Miss Breton dug into her pocket for some more for each of them, before ushering the class back to their seats and introducing Sirius properly. After the kids had understood that Mr. Black was going to be their new teacher, Miss Breton left the class to Sirius.
xxx
Sirius returned home with mussed hair, clothes slightly disarranged. He flopped face down on the couch exhaustedly, not even noticing that Remus was already home. “How was your first day?”
Sirius perked up to see Remus sitting at the table in the dining room with a book before he buried his face into the arm of the couch again. “Tiring.”
Remus got up and went over to the couch, kneeling beside it and running his fingers through Sirius’ hair. Sirius made a pleased sound and closed his eyes to rest for a minute before he sat up and tugged Remus up onto the couch to sit with him. It was wonderful that Remus always had this calming effect on him, even if he hadn’t said anything, and Sirius had recharged a bit already. “The kids ignored me and didn’t take me seriously, even though I’m Sirius.”
Remus snorted and hid his face against Sirius’ shoulder. This joke never got old with his boyfriend, no matter how many times he’d told him he’d grown tired of it over the years. “They need time to get used to you. You can’t expect them to like you right away,” Remus tried to comfort Sirius with logical reasons, hoping his boyfriend wouldn’t give up after his first day at work.
“No, I don’t think they dislike me at all. They just didn’t seem to accept me as their new teacher.” Remus lifted up his head to look at Sirius with an eyebrow raised. “Why? What did you do?” Sirius shrugged and tried to recall what he’d done. “Nothing. I just told them to settle down so I could begin the class.”
“And what did you say exactly?” Remus probed, trying to figure out what went wrong. “‘Settle down, little beans!’” Sirius answered innocently as Remus turned to look at him wide-eyed in disbelief.
“What else did you call them?”
“Marbles, midgets.”
Remus brought his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “No wonder they didn’t take you seriously. You can’t call them that!”
“Well, what am I supposed to call them? They are all fidgety and little just like beans!” Sirius protested, didn’t see anything wrong in what he said. “Call them ‘kids’ or anything that you’d use to address human if you don’t know their names.” Remus stated the obvious, in hope that Sirius would understand. “Imagine them addressing you as ‘giant’ or other descriptive terms.” Sirius didn’t have to think about it to wrinkle his nose. All right, he got it. He would stop with those silly terms. “Fine. I will call them something else tomorrow.”
xxx
The next day, Sirius came back home after work with mussed hair and his clothes slightly disarranged again. He flopped face down on the couch exhaustedly, smelling tea was being made in the kitchen and looked up to see Remus stirring the content in his mug. He waited for his boyfriend to bring the mugs over to the living room before sitting up and wrapping his arms around him as he leaned against him. “Moony, you’re a genius. The kids were very fond of me today.” Sirius pressed a kiss to the side of Remus’ head affectionately in thanks. Remus chuckled softly and turned around to cup Sirius’ face to kiss him back properly on the mouth. “So it went well?”
“It sure did. But Merlin, they were so needy and clingy and sticky! I had to give them treats to make them sit still in their seats.” Sirius sighed dramatically and pretended to wipe the sweat away from his forehead, making Remus laugh. “Treats as in sweets?” Remus asked as he calmed down and took a sip of his tea. ”Yup! Oh, which reminds me! Moony? Do you have more muggle sweets for me to bring to work?” Sirius knew Remus was very protective of his sweets, so he wouldn’t ask him for the special kinds. Remus contemplated for a while as he went through in his mind of what he’d got before shaking his head. “I think my stock is running low. Shall we go get some?” Sirius nodded like an excited puppy and finished his tea quickly to get ready.
xxx
The following day was disastrous. Sirius learned that, unlike pets, it was a bad idea to give kids too many treats whenever they behaved, because they started running around and not taking their naps. The hour where Sirius was supposed to be getting some rest ended up with him making up stories to tell the kids (he didn’t know enough muggle stories to last for the hour, so he had to add modified stories of his shenanigans at school a bit to tell the kids), and drawing and playing toys with them. Because the sugar was making them hyper, they wouldn’t sit still during classes either. Sirius had to threaten to glue the kids to chairs with to make them listen.
Sirius went home and discussed the award system with Remus. Sirius was glad that his boyfriend was experienced in dealing with kids, as he helped Molly Weasley with her tutoring for wizard kids. In fact, Remus had asked Sirius if he wanted to help out before interviewing at the kindergarten, but Sirius had rejected it, given that Molly tended to pick on him and argue with him. Remus couldn’t help but laugh as he listened to today’s misadventure at work, but he suggested giving the kids stamps and stickers as alternatives to sweets, as he recalled his childhood. Sirius didn’t know what they were, so Remus got up to go upstairs to the attic to look for the trunk with his childhood treasures stored, to search for the little notebook he used to collect stamps and stickers. He brought it back downstairs to the living room to show Sirius, who flipped through them with earnest interest and examined the collections carefully. “Where can I get those?” He looked up to ask Remus with his eyes lit up. He wanted to get some for himself, too!
Remus had to bite on his lip to resist the urge to laugh at how adorable Sirius looked as he answered him. “In stationery stores. We can go there now if you want.” Sirius nodded again, like he’d done yesterday, and got onto his feet, tugging Remus up with him as he led the way out of the house.
xxx
The stamps and stickers worked as good as a charm. Eager to earn stamps and stickers, the kids had been very obedient since Sirius had presented each of them a notebook to collect their rewards. The complaining about his job gradually turned into fond stories of the kids at school. There was an occasion where he burped in class and the kids wouldn’t stop laughing for 15 minutes. Sirius had taken the opportunity to entertain his students and performed a puppet show, conjuring puppets behind his desk. He got along well with the kids, to the point where he even took naps with them during nap time.
Eventually, everything had to come to an end. After a year of teaching, it was announced that the school had to close because it ran out of funding. It wasn’t so much that Sirius had to face unemployment again. He was just nearly heartbroken saying goodbye to the kids after getting to know them. Sirius clung to Remus on the night before the last day of school. He was never good at saying goodbye. Once he’d grown attached to people, it was hard for him to let go and move on. Remus pressed little kisses to his forehead and face, holding him close and rubbing his back to soothe him and trying to get him to sleep. He decided that he’d make Sirius to take a rest from working for a while to let him recover from this.
Remus took a day off from working at Molly’s and accompanied Sirius to the kindergarten for the closing ceremony. Sirius’ class was already waiting for them on the playground before going into the Hall. They ran up to him, surrounded him like the first day of school, except there were tears in their eyes. Sirius knelt down and opened his arms to hug the kids, resisting the urge the cry. He was a grown man and grown men did not cry! The kids’ parents and Remus were touched by the sight. There wasn’t anything that they could do but watch them in silence. The class monitor pulled away first and reached in his bag to pull out a big card that had one big guy with 20 little people (Sirius assumed that it was him in the middle with the kids) drawn on it. The tears that had gathered in the corners of Sirius’ eyes were on the verge of rolling down his cheeks. He had to sniff hard and close his eyes for a few seconds to make sure that they wouldn’t spill from his eyes before opening them again. When he opened the card, he saw the big sloppy, colourful handwriting in the middle of it, saying ‘YOU ARE THE BEST TEACHER EVER. WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU’. Sirius pulled the kids into a big hug again, crying with them, for real this time. They stayed like this for a few minutes before Miss Breton ran out of the Hall hurriedly to look for them. She felt bad interrupting the moment, but the ceremony was about to start. Sirius let go of the kids and nodded in understanding as he got up, reaching up to wipe the tears away from his eyes. He led his class as their teacher into the Hall for one last time, thanking his parents for badmouthing him or he wouldn’t have landed in this job and discovered how much he enjoyed working with children.
After attending the closing ceremony Sirius took the time to walk home hand in hand with Remus, instead of disapparating. Sirius had promised himself that he wouldn’t cry anymore, but he couldn’t help it. All Remus could do was to lend him a shoulder to cry on until he stopped. When they got home, they took a nap on the couch together until it started to get dark and Remus had to get up to light the fire and prepare dinner. Sirius had never slept well without Remus beside him, and he woke up half an hour later to find his boyfriend preparing dinner. He padded to the kitchen in his socks and wrapped his arms around Remus from behind, startling him.
“Hey,” Remus said softly as he leaned back against Sirius, tilting his head a little to peck on Sirius’ lips.
“Hey. It smells good,” Sirius replied, resting his chin on Remus’ shoulder as he watched him cook.
“Mmhm,” Remus hummed in reply and let Sirius stay like this as he cooked. Neither of them had said anything else afterwards. Sirius eventually got bored of watching and started to help with tea making.
“Moony?” Sirius ventured without looking away from adding sugar idly.
“Yes, Padfoot? You know you’re adding too much sugar, don’t you?” Remus pointed out as he carried the pot of roast chicken onto the table. Sirius jumped and snapped out of his reverie, brushing some sugar out from his mug. “I don’t think I can manage another job with kids, except babysitting.” Sirius said softly as he poured hot water into the mugs. Remus nodded and served them both food before taking off his apron and hanging it on the hook on the wall. He smiled at Sirius, sitting down at the table to wait for him. “You can babysit Harry for a while.”
Sirius looked up in surprise, handing Remus his mug as he sat down with him. “Oh yeah, I can do that. Or we can have a kid of our own?” It was Remus’ turn to be surprised. He choked on his tea, falling into a coughing fit. When he’d calmed down and wiped the tears from his eyes, he smiled at Sirius and nodded. “I’m not sure if the Ministry would allow, but we can try.”
They would be in their mid-twenties in a few years’ time. It’d be nice to start a family of their own. Sirius beamed at Remus and got up, going over to pull Remus into a hug as he planted sloppy kisses on his cheeks.
“I love you Moony.”
“I love you too, Padfoot.”
Remus laughed happily and hugged Sirius back tightly, burying his nose in the crook of his neck. Sirius was no longer that upset. The idea of having and raising their own child made Sirius felt warm and fuzzy. He enjoyed his dinner with Remus and spent the night with him cuddling on the couch before going to bed in each other’s arms.
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Date: 2013-12-19 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-20 09:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-19 06:06 pm (UTC)How cute was that? Seriously, man, that was adorable.
You know, we had a post discussing Sirius being an animal lover, but, you're right. I bet he'd be really good with kids, too. He's just fun and has the right kind of personality. (Dogs tend to love kids, too, right?) Often people have Remus as a kindergarten-type teacher, but I like the Sirius-as-teacher trope. :)
My mom taught kindergarten, and I used to go to her class and help out. They're so cute and fun, but, yes, they can by hyper and sticky. Sometimes they smell kinda funny, too. But, again, I could totally see Sirius being into that.
Great story!
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Date: 2013-12-20 09:22 am (UTC)Sirius would transform into Padfoot and play with puppies and dogs. He'd so be an animal lover.
Oh right! :O I haven't considered the kids would be smelly but they totally would lol If Sirius was to take care of younger kids in the fic, it'd be cute and funny to see him struggling to clean up their mess (and maybe use some spells secretly to make the bad smells away).
I don't think I've ever read any fics on kindergarten teacher Remus. He seems more like a uni professor to me XD
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Date: 2013-12-19 07:58 pm (UTC)Lovely story!
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Date: 2013-12-20 08:49 am (UTC)The sailor moon kinds of tiaras suddenly came up to my mind.Thank you for reading it :333no subject
Date: 2013-12-20 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-20 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-20 08:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-20 03:23 am (UTC)I can see Sirius being a favorite teacher, though, and getting really attached to his kids. End-of-the-year would always be hard, even if the school hadn't been closing.
I really want the sequel to this, where Remus and Sirius have a new child of their own. (At least with teaching, you get 16 hours away from them to recharge).
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Date: 2014-01-05 07:51 am (UTC)I've only got into tutoring once. Even though it wasn't with kids, it was difficult enough. The education industry is never easy.
And a sequel sounds nice huhuhu it'd become fic of raising their own kid :3c
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Date: 2013-12-20 06:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 08:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-21 10:27 pm (UTC)Sirius - when in a good mood - would be great with kids, I think. I also love how supportive and sweet Remus and Sirius are together.
And this made me laugh:
"Stand up for a second?" Sirius was so used to Remus commanding him (in bed) that he stood up obediently. Lol!
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Date: 2014-01-05 08:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-24 03:14 pm (UTC)Especially like the too many sweets = hyper kids bit. Too funny!
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Date: 2014-01-05 08:15 am (UTC)