Sirius Black character study I guess.

This is will follow canon to the best of my abilities however, screw you Joanne.

(Content warning, mentions of abuse, though vague, idk if I should add a cw but just in case)

Sirius’ childhood and home life; Contrary to popular belief, Sirius wasn’t heinously abused, in fact, we can assume that Walburga did love him, in her own way of course that’s not to say that she was a good mother, but it is something to keep in mind. His home life was bad, yes, but a common misconception I see in this fandom is that Sirius canonically got cruciatus cursed by his own mother, which is in fact not canon. Sirius had a terribly complicated relationship with his mother, he used all those spells on his room to keep it in that order and pristine, yet when he came back to his home years later, he chose to sleep in his parents bedroom. With Walburga’s painting, he tells them to move it, or cover it up, but he doesn’t tell them to destroy it. Sirius and Walburga had a terribly complex relationship, she wasn’t a good mother by any means, but she wasn’t an overly abusive cruel one.

Sirius’ running away and disownment; Another common misconception is that Sirius got disowned then ran away when it’s actually the opposite, he also did not leave because he was getting horrifically abused, that’s not to say his home life wasn’t awful, it was, but he left because of his parents pureblood beliefs and politics in general. Sirius did not get disowned before he ran away, it was after. We also have no proof that he was beaten the night he left, unlike some people try to point at.

Sirius and The Prank: Sirius did not tell Snape about the whomping willow for a good reason, he did not tell Snape about the tree out of fear of being blackmailed, or hurt, or anything else like that, the very simple and easy explanation for The Prank is that Sirius, was an idiotic teenage boy who did not think about the consequences of his actions, or the effects it would’ve had on both parties. I see the common, “oh Sirius would’ve been so lonely and sad and it’s so unfair how his friends isolated him”, when we can safely say that he did not feel remorseful for it, at all. In fact when he’s later talking about it in the shrieking shack, his exact words and justification are,

“It served him right,” he sneered. “Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to … hoping he could get us expelled …”

I could only see Sirius feeling even slightly remorseful for how it caused Remus to feel, but even then, I don’t imagine Remus would’ve brought the issue up all that much. (Which I will get into it you guys want to hear about that :D)

Sirius and arrogance; Sirius’ arrogance has a HUGE part to play in both the marauders and in James and Lily’s deaths, throughout the books we see Sirius and James as the main aggressors in their back and forth bullying with Snape(back and forth from both parties but still). With James and Lily’s death, it was James primarily but Sirius was mentioned that turned down Dumbledore’s offer for him to be the Potters’ secret keeper, insisting that Sirius was the right guy and that he could do it, however Sirius decided that nah that was too obvious, that they’d make “weak talentless” Peter the secret keeper, because no one would expect that, to make this plan even better, they then did not tell Dumbledore of this genius plan, nor Remus because Sirius was so convinced that Remus was the spy, that they just did not feel it was safe to tell him. That is what kept him in Azkaban for so long, theoretically he could’ve broken out anytime he damn pleased but, the guilt of being quite accidentally responsible for Lily and James’ deaths, that is what kept him in there.

Sirius and his loosened grip on his sanity; The man spent twelve years in Azkaban, his sanity definitely had declined by the time he left, we can in fact see this is certain choices that he makes and when he tells Harry “nice one, James”. He wasn’t the best father figure because he was still basically trapped in his twenty one year old mind. We can further point at grief and guilt as another reason for his sanity dwindling, as we know, he felt a good bit responsible for James and Lily’s deaths, add that on top of the grief of losing two of the closest people to him, and bam, you have a guilt ridden twenty one year old to throw into what was basically hell for twelve years.

Anyways that’s the end of my ted talk, I love you Sirius Black.