A Profile of Sirius Black

Introduction

They say humans are made of stardust, and maybe some are more so than others. Sirius Black, true to his name, was the brightest of all: just to be near him was to know the rush of excitement before doing something dangerous or trying something new. He was a fire, warm and bright and sometimes dangerous. You had to get close to see what was beneath the wild surface, a core always threatening to be eaten away entirely by that flame. You had to get very close to see what happened when it burnt out.

Parents

When he was born, he was a relief, the first male of his generation, a son to carry on the family name. He was an heir, and he was expected to live up to that. If they didn't love him, his parents were proud to have him, proud of the man they were shaping him to grow into. For the most part, they ignored him until they were no longer able to, putting him in his place with a few sharp words and the occasional biting hex.

When he was eleven, he became a problem—being sorted into Gryffindor was an atrocity, but not irreparable; to come home with whispered uncertainties about what the Blacks had always believed was unforgivable—yet nothing managed to stomp them out. Whispers turned to shouting matches that ended with Sirius locked in his room, watching bruises start to form.

When he was sixteen, he packed a trunk and left, and over the whispers of scandal Orion and Walburga turned up their noses and spoke of their second son as though he'd always been the heir, burning Sirius away like he was nothing—because to them, he was unnecessary.

Siblings

While he grew up, it was never just Sirius, or even just Sirius and Regulus. It was all of them—Bellatrix and Narcissa and Andromeda and Sirius and Regulus. Years later, once the war was on and Sirius had left home, he stopped trying to explain it to people, stopped trying to tell them about when Bellatrix Lestrange had just been Bella, and had been the one to teach him how to nick food from the house elves and the grown-ups-only parties, or how Narcissa Malfoy had been Cissy, teaching them all the best way to get in the good graces of an adult, how he'd learned the mask of innocence that made it impossible to tell if he was bluffing from her. Partly, it was because no one would understand, but mostly, it was that even he couldn't connect the dots, couldn't tell when they'd crossed the line to become unrecognizable. When he talked about them, it was to plan their downfall. When Sirius was seventeen, Regulus came back to Hogwarts with bags under his eyes and his sleeves carefully pulled over his full forearm in spite of the hot summer day, and Sirius stopped talking about him at all.

At school, he had James and Remus and Sirius, and he called them all brothers more friends, as though saying it enough times would make it true. He taught James a spell to muffle footsteps and Remus to let loose and make up answers for history of magic after full moons and Peter how to ask the girl he liked to Hogsmeade, trying to repay them for teaching him about what was right and what was wrong from the first time they met—no matter how old he got, he never lost the image of James at eleven, telling him in a condescending tone that "all beings are of equal worth—blood isn't equivalent to merit," then ducking the pillow Sirius threw at him and admitting it was something his father said, and he wasn't quite sure what it meant, really, except that "that pureblood stuff is a load of rubbish."

Date of Birth

Sirius was born on November third, but they were never really different than any other day, except for the presents, which were usually uncomfortable clothes and family heirlooms. He didn't tell anyone when his first birthday at Hogwarts was until mentioning it as an afterthought the night before, and James, horrified at the thought of not having a gift for him, convinced Remus and Peter to stay up all night figuring out how to charm all the suits of armor to release red and gold bubbles every time someone walked past them.

Sirius' best birthday, though, was when he turned nineteen, and James and Lily were a week late coming back from their mission—Moody told him with a grimace that he'd better expect the worst, but it was James and Lily and the thought of them being gone broke him worse than false hope ever could. He spent the day alone, avoiding the pity-filled looks the rest of the Order kept giving him, and when it was nearly midnight he heard a knock on his door that he was sure was Remus or Marlene or someone, come to check on him again, but it was followed by James' voice shouting at him to "Let us in, you git," and he opened the door to find Lily and James standing on his porch and telling him happy birthday as though nothing had been wrong. He let them in, and they talked into the morning, and when James apologized for not having a present, Sirius only laughed, because if he'd had one birthday wish, this was it, and for a moment, everything felt alright.

Date of Death

Officially, Sirius Black died on June 18, 1996, hit by a spell from a woman who had once been like his sister. It was ironic, really: Bellatrix Lestrange had only cast a stunner, unbelievably mild, for her. If it hadn't been for the veil, Sirius Black might not have died at all.

But really, Sirius Black's life had been broken long before that fall. It happened on the first of November, 1981, when he failed to kill Peter Pettigrew. All he could do as he got arrested was laugh—laugh at how foolish he'd been, at the fact that it was his idea, his brilliant plan, which had gotten his best friends killed, at the fact that he'd been betrayed by another friend, and had pushed another so far away out of unfounded suspicions that he could expect no help. He laughed at the fact that his clever plan had left him no room to bargain, even stealing his chance for a trial. They said he was already mad, and that was why the dementors couldn't affect him, but the truth was that his happy memories had already died, poisoned by those last days—he had nothing for the dementors to feed on.

Fourteen and a half years later, as he fell backwards into the veil, he didn't feel as though he was truly dying—not when the voices of everyone he'd lost was there to welcome him home.