Sirius' eyes flew open, his heart in his throat and sweat dampening his hairline. He just sat for a moment, breathing deeply. Out of all the possible ways that the test could've gone, Sirius thought...he had no idea what he thought. He couldn't understand how the three scenarios were able to determine who he was.
A smash of glass made him sit up, seeing the glass broken on the floor and Andy staring at him, her lips pursed. Something about her face made Sirius nervous, and he swung his legs over the side of the chair, Andy still not moving.
"Is everything all right?" he asked, the silence unnerving.
She was silent for a moment, before shaking her head, "It had to be you didn't it?" she said, almost to herself. "God, it just had to be one of you boys."
Sirius watched, frozen, as she knelt down to collect the glass, muttering to herself as she placed the shards on the desk. Had something gone wrong? Had Sirius not completed the test correctly?
"Excuse me," Andy said suddenly, standing. "I have to go do... yes. I'll be back in a moment."
It was as though Sirius was muted as he watched her go, unable to speak. The small back door shut behind her and Sirius put his head in his shaking hands. He could just imagine his Mother's face if it turns out he broke the simulation, if his results say he doesn't belong anywhere. She would chuck him to the streets, quietly of course, she wouldn't want the public to be made too aware of her disappointment of a son. But she wouldn't care if he was starving, homeless. She always had Regulus. Perfect Regulus whom Sirius was sure was getting his results right now. Erudite of course. He could imagine his face, proud and a little relieved, any lingering doubt obliterated by the perfect results.
Sirius groaned into his hands, the terror rising like bile as the door opened and closed quickly, Andy slipping through and sitting on the small stool next to the desk, scooting it closer so they were almost face to face.
"Sirius, you must never repeat what I'm about to tell you all right?" she said softly and quickly. "Not to your friends, not to your brother, and especially not to your mother."
Sirius nodded, his eyes wide.
"Okay," Andy breathed, "Your test results were...abnormal."
"Abnormal?" That didn't happen, Sirius thought. You do the test, get the result, and leave.
"Yes. Abnormal. The simulation works by strategically crossing out all factions except one. That one faction being your result."
Sirius nodded, he'd read about the simulations. Third shelf to the right.
"Well, that didn't happen to you. Perhaps a better word to use is Inconclusive rather than abnormal." She paused, "You see if you had picked the cheese, then the simulation would have offered you a scenario confirming your aptitude for Amity. But you picked neither, forcing you to be, well, creative. Your willingness to save that boy showed Amity, but also Dauntless."
Dauntless.
The word rung in Sirius' ears. A glimmer of hope.
"And then on the bus, your answer was like your decision with the knife and the cheese, not very decisive. Your strategy of telling half-truths suggested Erudite but also a tad of Candor." She sighed, holding Sirius' hands in her own. "Only one was ruled out Sirius. Abnegation."
Sirius blinked blankly, not quite comprehending what was being said. A part of him had a horrible idea, but he refused to acknowledge the implications of what Andy was saying.
"I'm sorry," Sirius said, smiling politely, to mask his absolute terror, "I'm not sure I understand."
Andy sighed, squeezing his hands and looking at him, her gaze hard.
"You're Divergent Sirius," she said outright. "I'm sure you know what it means, your Mother would definitely have something to say about it."
Sirius swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.
Divergent.
He remembered a night a few months ago. The sounds of his Mother and Father in the kitchen, their voices too loud to be classed as whispering. He remembered padding down the hallway, stopping just before the door.
"-getting more reports of Divergence in the past year than in the last decade!"
Sirius remembered frowning. Divergence?
"It's getting out of hand," his Father had replied, "I agree but-"
"But what? They're a direct threat to the factions system," Walpurga spat, "These people who belong to- to more than one faction? It's an abomination!"
Sirius remembered stepping back in shock. The thought of someone belonging to more than one faction was something so inherently wrong, that it made him feel sick.
"-need to be exterminated." Was the last thing Sirius heard before rushing back to his room.
Wrong, yes. Exterminated? He wasn't sure about that.
"Sirius? Sirius are you all right?"
Andy's voice pulled him back into the testing room, the fluorescent light suddenly too bright, the smell of whatever they used to clean the floors suddenly burning his nose.
"Sirius-"
"I'm fine," Sirius said, proud of how strong his voice sounded. "I'm fine," he repeated once more, for himself.
Andy nodded, "I've manually entered your results into the program. If anyone asks, your result was Erudite, all right?"
Sirius almost laughed. The perfect result after all.
"Sirius you can't say anything," Andy said, standing, "Divergence is dangerous do you understand?"
Sirius stood, nodding. He was dangerous? That couldn't be right. His dress shoes squeaked on the floor as Andy herded him to the small door at the back of the room, and he thought back to the dog snarling at Reg. Was he dangerous?
"Go home Sirius. Say you had a bad reaction to the fluid you ingested."
Sirius put his heels down as she opened the door, turning to face the woman who still looked startlingly like Bella.
"How come I never knew about you?" he asked softly. "I mean- you're my cousin."
She shook her head, "Go Sirius, there's no time-"
"Just one more thing," Sirius said, hating that he sounded like he was pleading. "You have no idea what my aptitude results were?"
Andy hesitated before shaking her head, "Not quite," she pushed him out the door, "Only Abnegation was ruled out Sirius."
The door shut in his face.
~~~~~~~~~~
There was a bench next to the bus station outside the Hub, and Sirius sat heavily, staring at the concrete, twirling the silver ring on his middle finger over and over. His thumb brushed over the familiar indent. A small magpie and dagger, the Black family crest. The bird supposed to symbolize intelligence, but Sirius had read that the bird also represented deception. His lips quirked at the irony.
His Mother wanted had wanted Regulus to have the ring, but Orion had put his foot down, the implications holding more value because he so rarely disagreed with Walpurga.
"He is the eldest. He gets the ring."
And that was the end of it.
Sirius wondered what would happen to the ring if he left Erudite.
Who was he kidding.
When he left. When he left Erudite.
He couldn't stay there now he was... well. Now he knew what his results were. His mother would find out. He just knew she would. She wasn't the leader of Erudite for nothing. 'Exterminated' she had said. And Sirius knew that she wouldn't hesitate to squish him like a bug under her shoe if she found out.
Spinning the ring again, he felt strangely calm. He knew he should be feeling something, fear, confusion, anger, but none of it came. He'd take the ring with him, Sirius decided suddenly. He'd steal it, it was his after all. He laughed suddenly, thinking how the Black family crest would look indented on someone's face.
He stopped spinning the ring, his fingers flinching away from the silver like it had burned him.
You're dangerous, Andy's voice echoed in his head.
Sirius clenched his fists, almost jumping when the bus arrived, twenty minutes earlier than the one he and Regulus usually took, but he couldn't deal with his brother's questions, or, the more likely option, his brother's judgmental silence.
He stumbled slightly as the bus started moving, realizing too late that he had left his bag behind, but as he sat on his own, he couldn't bring himself to care. He wasn't going to need his advanced mathematics book, and he couldn't imagine missing his exercise book full of doodles and the occasional burst of perfect cursive handwriting. The bus wasn't air conditioned, and the sweat on Sirius' brow made him think back to the aptitude test. Breathing deeply, his eyes darted around, latching onto a man, his face covered by the open pages of a newspaper. Sirius' heart dropped, and even though he knew it was irrational, he stood and chose a new seat closer to the front, taking to spinning his ring again.
Divergent.
There. He said it.
In his head anyway.
Even the word sounded wrong. Too harsh, the continents biting and scratching on Sirius' tongue.
Divergent.
Notes:
Poor Sirius is a mess :(
If you haven't already, check out the other two stories on my profile. They're both Dark Harry (my favourite trope).