He felt a little reassured but still…"I'm sure you have important things you have to do back home though."
"Nothing is more important than you." Sirius said immediately.
Harry blushed; happy and bewildered at the sincere statement.
"Come here." Sirius held open his arms.
Harry moved into the hug with only minor reluctance – a roll of his eyes, and mostly that was for show – he was a teenage boy; he wasn't supposed to want hugs. But his mind healer thought they were good for him and he secretly enjoyed the comfort of being hugged. Sirius was great at hugs. His godfather seemed to instinctively know how to hug him; secure but not suffocating, comforting but without babyish words of nonsense like Petunia gave Dudley, and Sirius had a sixth sense about when to step back before Harry started to feel embarrassed.
Like right then.
Sirius patted his back quickly and eased away, although he clasped Harry's shoulders and looked him in the eye. "I don't want you to worry about this. You're a powerful wizard; we just need to work through your lessons again. OK?"
"OK," Harry mumbled, nodding. "It's just…" he bit his lip as he tried to figure out a way to tell Sirius that he wasn't that good a student. "I don't want to disappoint you."
"Why would you think you're going to disappoint me?" Sirius asked, surprise written all over his face.
Harry could feel his cheeks heating with shame. "I'm…I'm not like my Mum and Dad. I'm not as smart as they were."
Sirius sat on the desk and patted the space beside him, indicating Harry should join him. "Why do think you're not as smart as your parents?"
Harry ducked his head. "Well, I'm not. I mean, you said they were top of their classes like…like Hermione, and I'm…I'm not, well, except in Defence Against the Dark Arts."
"Hmmm." Sirius looked at him closely. "Look, your Dad was one of those annoying people who could get good marks without trying very hard. He just had this intuition about magic. It used to drive Remus bonkers because we would never see him working but then in class he'd produce a perfectly conjured bouquet of flowers or make a fork dance the can-can."
Harry smiled at the image.
"Your Mum had an affinity for Charms and Potions but she worked hard to get the marks she did. She spent a lot of time in the library and a lot of time practicing. Remus was like that although he had no affinity for Potions at all. He knew the theory backwards but every time he got in front of a cauldron, it'd melt." Sirius said. "I probably fell somewhere in between – Transfiguration and Defence Against the Dark Arts came easy to me but I had to work at the rest."
Harry listened carefully, hearing the underlying message in Sirius's words: good marks and class positions took work and if he didn't put the work in – well, he'd end up where he was: average in all but the one subject that came naturally to him.
"But class positions aren't everything." Sirius continued. "Do you try your best?"
He didn't want to lie but he didn't want to admit the truth either. He squirmed under Sirius's scrutiny. "Sometimes." He admitted.
"Which means sometimes you don't." Sirius pointed out with brutally honest logic that reminded Harry of Hermione. "Why do you only sometimes try your best?"
"I don't know," Harry replied automatically, shifting again as he really considered Sirius's question.
He thought back over his schooling. He'd loved his primary school when he'd first attended; it had been an escape from his meagre existence at Privet Drive. But then Dudley had started chasing away anyone who wanted to be friends with him and his relatives had never praised his marks and had simply never accepted him being better than Dudley. In the end he'd decided not to draw attention to himself by remaining average in class, but secretly went over the lessons in his cupboard at night. He'd looked forward to Stonewall as a means of starting afresh, and he vaguely recalled that his plan had been to do well so he could escape Privet Drive when he was sixteen and get a job. But then there had been Hogwarts and…
And Harry had intended to do well the summer before he'd started. He'd stayed up late reading his books and he'd tried, hadn't he, those first few weeks of school? But…it had been harder than he'd expected between the quills and the wizarding ways of doing things and Snape. Ron had never been interested in studying, openly disparaging of Hermione's cleverness back then, and Harry hadn't wanted to rock the boat with his new friend by going to the library or showing what knowledge and aptitude he did have. Thankfully, Hermione had forced them into studying once they'd properly made friends with her after the troll and Harry remembered that he had gotten good marks that first year: exceeds expectations and a couple of outstandings which had more than made up for the acceptable he'd scraped in Potions and History of Magic.
Second year had been a nightmare between hearing voices in the wall and being shunned for being the Heir of Slytherin; he hadn't wanted to stand out. There had been no exams that year but he thought he would have passed. And he had passed third year – mostly acceptables with a couple of exceeds expectations and the outstanding in DADA. But thinking it over, he slowly realised that he'd let Ron set the tone again since Hermione had been busy or they hadn't been speaking to her. Not that he could blame Ron – Harry figured Sirius would expect him to take responsibility for his own studying – and hadn't he already decided that he was going to be a little more independent from Ron in the coming year, drop Divination and take something else?
He looked up from his meanderings and met Sirius's patient waiting gaze.
"I guess I haven't wanted to stand out too much or…or upset Ron." He confessed miserably. "He thinks studying is boring and…"
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