Ten things about the Marauders Chapter 1: Sirius, a harry potter fanfic

Not mine

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1) He was honestly surprised to discover his own attractiveness. Not once during his life had his father ever looked directly at him and his mother's mouth seemed permanently twisted in a cold sneer and her eyes harboured a perennial indifference; both had led to Sirius' belief that he was, in fact, rather ugly. Upon starting at Hogwarts, however, he began to realise that other people seemed to adhere to the opposite sentiment – the more... precocious of his female year-mates approached him right from the start, shy and giggly and tentative, but even the older girls followed him with their eyes and twittered behind their hands at how pretty he would be when he grew a few feet up and several pounds of muscle. This astonishing behaviour startled him, at first, but he liked it – loved it – and quickly built up a reputation and personality to match.

2) When he's being introspective and completely honest, he sometimes thinks that he's the weakest of the four of them.

Because, after all, Remus is a werewolf and still manages to be one of the sweetest, most adorable and smartest people in the castle. Sirius thinks that Remus would probably win the award for Best Person Ever (in fact, Sirius awards him with that very prize at their private end-of-seventh-year party).

And James, well, James is the picture they put beside the word persistence in the dictionary (seriously; he chased after Lily for seven years). He's righteous and funny and accepting and Sirius can't imagine life without him.

Even Peter, who is teased and bullied and overlooked, manages to be charming and funny and happy. He's whole and healthy and, though he's not Sirius' best mate, he's welcomed into the exclusive circle of friends.

Sirius, however, is just an actor; he's fragile and broken and he hides it all behind his smiles and his hair and his pranks.

3) When Peter betrays them all, Sirius remembers having that thought and takes some scant pleasure in mentally obliterating Peter from the list.

4) He doesn't know if it's a character flaw or if it's the product of eleven years of emotional barrenness, but he needs love (or attention - he takes what he can get), needs to be at the centre of everyone's life. If he were alone, Sirius knows he would break, would go mad, because he needs the reassurance that he can be loved.

5) He's had an unrequited crush on Remus since fourth year. Sirius doesn't really do unrequited (or exclusive), so he ignores it, for the most part, but if Moony ever gave the slightest indication he was interested, Sirius would pounce on it. As the werewolf has never showed much interest in romance at all, much less in boys, Sirius just flirts vaguely and impersonally (an art the young Mr. Black has mastered) with his friend and sighs a little over the lack of response.

6) His record of never being dumped says more about his vanity and his perspicacity than it does about his appeal. Sirius has always been good at reading people and he's very, very good at discerning when his partners are just on the verge of getting bored of his constant plays for attention. When this happens, he jilts them, as kindly as he can (usually) and leaves them able to garner sympathy for his cruelty and secretly feeling the tiniest bit relieved.

7) His feud with Snape is almost accidental; it starts, as so much animosity does, with jealousy, because Sirius is eleven and just discovering how to be the centre of attention and the awfully pale and tired-looking boy beside him is listening intently to the greasy-haired wimp sharing their compartment. So, with the logic of youth and privilege and wounded pride, Sirius taunts the Snape boy cruelly; he never expects that envy-driven impulse to lead to the all-out war that occupies most of their school years.

8) Sometimes Sirius is afraid of losing himself to Padfoot; he would love to stay in dog form forever, because for Padfoot life is simple.

There is no terrible family-who-is-not-pack; there is pack (lovelovelove) and there is the rest of the world (if you have food i'll consider it).

Padfoot always sleeps soundly and never wakes up terrifiedsweatysuffocatedcrying from dark nightmares of fire and blood magic.

In Padfoot's world, there is only Moony-the-packmate-who-feeds-me-and-plays-with-me; Remus-whom-I'd-really-like-to-snog doesn't exist at all.

He is a good dog, but he wants to be stronger than that and prove that he can be a good human, too.

9) Sirius owns four swords and a shrine somewhere in Provence that were bound magically to him as the Black family heir before his blood traitor tendencies became quite obvious. He can summon the swords to hand with a thought, too. One morning he storms the Great Hall, juggling four swords and shrieking at the top of his lungs, whereupon he banishes the swords and quietly sits down to breakfast as he does every other morning.

The shrine is a tribute to a rather nasty Muggle goddess and when, in fourth year, he tries the sword-summoning trick with it, a bloodless, headless chicken, a rusted pitchfork and a pouch of herbs that Moony immediately confiscates drop onto his head. He never tries it again.

10) His boggart turns into himself, but wears an expression that Sirius sincerely hopes has never sullied his actual features. It is all the arrogance, indifference, selfishness and hate that he sees in his family, but a million times worse because they inhabit his own face and that means that they have won. It takes Remus, James and Peter (shaken by their own encounters with the creature) two hours to calm him down after they run into a boggart in their third year.