InsaneJournal

NAME: Sirius Orion Black III; "Padfoot" to the Marauders.
AGE/BIRTHDAY: 21 / 27 October 1959
BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood
FORMER HOUSE: Gryffindor, 1978.
OCCUPATION: Making a living? What's that? Sirius Black has no idea. The gold he got from Alphard has enabled him into a grand life of utter laziness; this makes him really useful when impromptu Order business needs to be taken care of, but completely insufferable... at every other time. Outside of the Order, the life of Sirius Black consists of chilling in his apartment, chilling with his friends, following people around like a puppy, occasionally bringing someone home, etc. Enough of an occupation for him, he'd say, it's certainly occupying enough!

FAMILY: [All changeable with the family members who are in game!]
ORION BLACK. Estranged father. Sirius never had that many distinct problems with his father; Orion was always vaguely untouchable, very distant, sort of looming in the background. It hurt much worse than Sirius would admit to be disowned because even though he knew it was his mother to suggest the idea, his father's flippant confirmation of it proved that Orion never cared about his oldest son. And that familial love was something that Sirius, secretly, despite the "benign neglect" sort of relationship he and his father had, had been hoping for.

WALBURGA BLACK. The former bane of Sirius' existence. His estranged mother. And the one who struck him off the Black family tree. As far back as Sirius could remember he was rowing with his mother-- and what was initially about bedtimes and play toys and favorite cousins quickly started becoming about ideology and Sirius' friends as he got older. Her blatant favoritism of Regulus didn't help his relationship with either of them, and Sirius was very glad to leave and live with the Potters.

REGULUS BLACK. Sirius' brother, who is a year younger than him. Being disowned from the family was a little awkward because shortly afterward Sirius got to return to Hogwarts and still spend the next two years seeing Regulus everywhere-- and Sirius was pretty convinced Regulus was meant to stalk him and report all action back to their parents, so any sort of interaction between the two was avoided or kept to a sneer. [Post-Hogwarts relationship to be discussed!]

BELLATRIX (BLACK) LESTRANGE. Cousin. Sirius' relationship with his cousins when he was young probably led to his adoption of ideas different from that of his family; Bellatrix was easily his least favorite. He hated her as much as a child could, and this hate continued to fester and grow throughout his development. She is now married to RODOLPHUS LESTRANGE.

NARCISSA (BLACK) MALFOY. Cousin. More palatable than Bellatrix, at least, but by no means were they ever best friends. Now married to LUCIUS MALFOY, ugh, Narcissa, really?

ANDROMEDA (BLACK) TONKS. Cousin, by far and away Sirius' favorite. Probably introduced some of the ideas that led him away from the Black ideology into his head. He practically idolizes her. She married this awesome guy TED TONKS and then had this awesome child NYMPHADORA TONKS.

ALPHARD BLACK. Uncle. Sirius always got along with Alphard better than with his parents, and he was perhaps the only true parental-like influence he ever had until he moved in with the Potters. Alphard's donation of a generous inheritance to Sirius post-disowning has been his saving grace.

SEXUALITY: Predominantly heterosexual, in that almost all of his previous sexual activity has been with women, but he could probably be persuaded into messing around with another man. He is, though, biromantic.
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None at the moment.
CHILDREN:: None. None at all.

LOYALTY/ALLIANCE: Order of the Phoenix all the way.

ROLE IN THE WAR: Despite his young age and relative inexperience, there are quite a few good reasons why Sirius was recruited for the Order-- and it's more than just the fact that his best friends were being signed up, and there's no way he wouldn't have found out somehow.

Sirius is a bit of a genius (so misunderstood, he'll tell you), and his magical talent was almost unparalleled in his class at Hogwarts. While he might not have the strongest head for remembering facts, his grasp of a situation is instant and comprehensive, and his brain works quickly. His reliance on instinct, and lack of fear of being harmed, at the same time, make him a talented duelist. He picks up languages quickly, although after some time in disuse he loses them easily. Then there are a couple of uniquely Sirius capabilities that make him incredibly useful for the Order's purposes: his familiarity with the other Blacks, and his Animagus abilities, especially because he is unregistered. A dog makes a useful spy, it turns out.

POLITICAL VIEWS: The problem with Sirius is that despite his bravado, despite his status as disowned, and despite his die-hard affiliation with the Order, he still is a Black. And he grew up with the Black mentality ingrained in the deepest parts of his mind-- where it takes the most pressing, the most grand of events to make a change. For example, the idea that werewolves were monsters, evil, feral, and inhuman. Had Sirius Black discovered this about Remus Lupin when they had first met, the two of them likely would not be friends in the present day; Sirius would have shouted an insult out of fear and likely ran away. It was only because he had developed a strong enough bond with Remus and knew without a doubt that he was his friend, a truly good person, that the opposite happened: Sirius pledged his support for good and his opinion on the humanity of werewolves took a complete 180 in response.

When it comes to Muggles, though, he isn't as progressive as he would want you to believe he is-- as he, even, believes he is. Half-bloods? Totally fine with him. Muggleborns? Good for you. Half-bloods and Muggleborns, Muggleborns and Purebloods, Purebloods and Halfbloods, he doesn't give a damn who marries who and who has babies with whom. In fact, he's probably biased a little bit against Purebloods, after recognizing what he sees as the crazy of his own family. But when you're actually speaking about Muggles?

Truth be told, if looked into deeply, one might see that Sirius' support for Muggleborns is rather condescending-- sort of like "Oh, it's really great that you're a wizard and I totally support you, considering your background." Because regardless of Sirius' professed ideals, he sort of does think Muggles are a little bit inferior. If any of his friends were to have a relationship with one, would probably be tempted to ask, "... why?" And his fascination with Muggle clothes, posters of Muggle girls in bikinis, etc., stems more from the desire to rebel against his family than true respect. Funnily enough, his motorbike, which he's now had for over four years, helped a little bit in pushing him forward: at least now instead of rolling his eyes at Muggle contraptions, he's interested in and impressed by them, but ultimately views them as ways Muggles have had to 'catch up' to wizards.

APPEARANCE: The face of Sirius Black is not one that he will let you forget. When he was little, and too young yet to complain about it, his parents said he had a classic Black face-- although he'd probably hex anyone who said it now, the statement stands. Strong features, a defined jaw, and dark eyebrows are the first thing one notices, followed closely by eyes of a dark grey. His hair is black, and he never wears it too short; he might be wearing it long, perhaps down to his shoulders, or if it was recently cut it'll probably still be shaggy, bangs falling down over his eyes.

He stands at around five feet and eleven inches, with a build that isn't lanky, and neither is he particularly muscled-- but fit, and toned, yes. He has various scars from different points in his life-- oh, just ask him, and you'll have yourself a story or five, well, probably leaving out the ones from times in the Shrieking Shack-- but most of them are on his torso or upper arms, easily hidden from the general public. Generally, when not in wizarding robes (which these days is most of the time) he wears jeans, a shirt that is probably either something offensive or in some shade of gray, and the leather jacket that is the proclaimed love of his life.

Then there are the things that aren't so easily described. His voice has a charming lilt when he's in a good mood, and a brewing, harsh anger underneath it when he is not, and yes, it is either one or the other. He has terrible posture unless he's deliberately trying to impress someone, and generally is slouched at least by a couple of inches. His expressions are grand, not even deliberately so, but his face is hardly ever a blank slate: true to the stereotypes of his Hogwarts house, his feelings can generally be read from his features. He tends to talk with his hands, perhaps a habit gained when he was young to anger his mother even more-- so expect wide, sweeping gestures and middle fingers flipped. One could also notice he has a habit of scratching himself-- likely a latent habit bleeding over from his abilities as an Animagus.

CHILDHOOD: For as long and as far back as Sirius' memory goes, he never was quite at home with his family. His father was distant, and most of Sirius' mental pictures of him involve him sitting at the table reading the Daily Prophet, or quietly eating dinner as Walburga ranted at him about something-or-other. It was her, his mother, that was the real problem, along with his cousins.

The fact was, that while most all of Sirius' cousins and his brother were all relatively well-behaved, Sirius never was. He was the boy who screamed and ran around in circles for no other reason than to create chaos, who took all the books off the bookshelf and threw them on the floor just because he could, who dipped his fingers in the paint and then high-fived the walls. He took lessons in all sorts of dancing and music and French but was a terrible student because he refused to learn. And this became a self-fulfilling cycle, a vicious circle, an experiment in recursion: the more Walburga was furious with Sirius, the more she would smack him on the arm for his trouble or exclude him from dinner for saying something out of line, the more he grew angry and bitter (as bitter as a child could be) and in response he only acted up more.

Despite his relationship with his mother, which could at best be described as rocky, he couldn't help but be jealous of Regulus for being the clear favorite. As independent and strong as Sirius would grow to be, as a child he was without a positive or loving parental influence. Black family get-togethers seemed to be strained by Sirius' presence, for he would ignore his parents, and ignore Regulus. In the same vein, he never got along with Bellatrix or Narcissa-- his interactions with Bellatrix always ended with snarls, and then usually the adults would decide that the fight was Sirius' fault. And his conversations with Narcissa usually ended the same way but with the snarls on her part replaced by simpers-- not exactly helping his case.

There were a couple of positive points in his young life: he got along with Andromeda, for one, if not her sisters, and as his one safe haven in the family, at the get-togethers he would attach himself quickly to her leg. By his late childhood, at the years of eight or nine, Andromeda was already drifting away from the ideals of their family, and although Sirius was yet too young to understand any of this, it perhaps readied him for the changes to said ideals that would come to him.

In general, as a child, Sirius held the Black family ideology-- but again, he was too young to really think about them in depth. He understood them in the sense that he could tell you "Muggles are icky, because they don't do magic," and "These are the people I am supposed to hang out with," but he couldn't tell you anything else about Muggles at all, and in fact had never interacted with any of them or even any non-purebloods before heading off to school. His rambunctious nature had already separated him from his family by the time he went to Hogwarts, which was right around the same time his favorite cousin Andromeda was going to be disowned-- opening doors for him that perhaps would not have existed otherwise.

HOGWARTS: When Sirius stepped on the train for his first day at Hogwarts, he had no idea what effect it would have on the rest of his life-- at eleven years old, he could only be glad that he was going to get to live away from his family. He spent the train ride eating more Chocolate Frogs than had ever been allowed him at home, and then was nearly sick in the bathroom from the amount of chocolate in his system-- that, of course, was just a small blip in the awesome that was his first day. Because then he was sorted.

Sirius had never given a thought to his sorting before. He had always merely assumed he would be placed in Slytherin with the entire rest of his family, just because he was a Black, and, well, probability, right? Even Andromeda had been a Slytherin. So when the hat fell on his head, the only thoughts that were going through his mind were something along the lines of ugh now I'm going to have to see Narcissa all the time in the common room and next year Regulus will come and it'll be just like home again because Mum will send me annoying owls-- and it didn't take long for it to shout out the name of the House that had been chosen for him. (HINT: It wasn't Slytherin. Three guesses, first two don't count.)

His first night there, he met James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. He stayed up the whole night talking with James, with whom he had an instant connection, and from that night on they were inseparable. Remus and Peter didn't take long to fall into their little group, and Sirius had never felt so happy in his life. He was surrounded by people who he actually liked, he was free of the people he didn't-- nothing could possibly be better. Hogwarts, well, Gryffindor, specifically, caused him to realize exactly what it was that felt off about his family to him: their thoughts on blood purity and general political views. In Gryffindor House Sirius had many a wonderful conversation with people who he only later realized were Muggleborns or Halfbloods, and had to struggle with his childhood teachings of who is inferior to the evidence, right in front of his eyes, of intelligence and poise and class. The latter easily won out. While Andromeda had never pressed her personal beliefs onto him as a child, he found himself agreeing with her, and as she had already been blasted off the family tree, when he went home he found his shouting matches with his mother shifting in content to his defense of his middle cousin.

By his second year, he, James and Peter began to notice Remus' strange, monthly absences. In investigation, an almost joking comment of "What if he's like, a werewolf or something?" turned into "I think Remus is a werewolf," and the three of them confronted him with this newfound knowledge-- but were sure to tell him that they didn't care. Sirius, in particular, was vehemently pro-Remus; while just a couple of days before he had been terrified and disrespectful at the thought of werewolves himselves, he knew Remus, so it wasn't hard for his views on werewolves to change just as his views on blood purity had. The three friends knew they had to do something to help their fourth member or at least be there for him, so they decided to become Animagi. It was a decision that would consume a good part of their lives for the next few years. (At the same time, they began conceiving the idea of the Marauders' Map in their second year-- which would take even longer to complete.)

In general, Sirius was a great student: cuttingly intelligent, quick as a flash, but had studying and homework somewhere towards the bottom of his list of priorities. Regardless, he always made grades that were somewhere at the top of his class, a fact that frustrated his more studious friends. He had a penchant for troublemaking, but one that was mostly inspired by James, who he followed everywhere. With Remus (reluctantly) and Peter, they got up to the craziest things-- pranks on everyone and all of their mothers, too (yes, on parents weekend that actually happened). They hated on Severus Snape together, and bullied him constantly-- Sirius and James hated him together, albeit for totally different reasons. He joined the Quidditch team as a Chaser, probably mostly James was on it, but that was also more of a James thing than a Sirius thing, Quidditch. He was good at it, of course, but was never the superstar that his best friend was; for him, it was just another thing to do. He was popular with the girls, who he strung along with the sort of ease and boredom that made him even more unattainable and attractive, occasionally tugging a lucky one into a broom closet for a nice snog, but his reputation in that respect was much more expansive than the truth. Just the way he liked it.

Meanwhile, things were rough at home. He argued more and more with his mother and other family members (but overwhelmingly with his mother), hung Gryffindor-themed things all over his room, and wore a disproportionate amount of red and gold. And at school, his relationships became ever stronger. In his fifth year, he got to change into an animal for the first time: a black dog, large, proud. Sirius loved being a dog like nothing else. It was a difficult transformation to perfect, but he and his friends did it. The residual effects were a little crazy, and some of them still linger, even-- little things, James had little horns in his hair for two weeks, he forgot how to walk on two legs for a while; Peter had incisors sharp enough to cut rope and he couldn't talk for a few days while they figured out how to fix it; Sirius still scratches himself in public, and sometimes pisses on things. It happens. C'est la vie, or something.

By the end of fifth year they had mastered it enough to stay with Remus in the Shrieking Shack. Sirius still remembers their first night as one of the most important, most terrifying, most life-changing that he's experienced. But if anything, it only convinced him further that he was right about Remus' humanity. Shortly after, he went home for summer break, and that summer proved to be the last straw for Sirius and the Blacks. After a particularly violent argument with Walburga, this time involving werewolves, Sirius packed his bags and stormed out of the house. What his family might have seen as a temporary rebellion turned serious when James quickly offered Sirius a place to stay, and then a place to live-- and eventually, the Blacks couldn't wait any longer for the image they wanted of Sirius crawling back, figurative tail between his legs. They blasted him off of the family tree. It was to Sirius' great luck that his favorite uncle, Alphard, gave him a large inheritance. And we do mean large.

He returned to school for his sixth year emotionally drained, but feeling as though a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He avoided Regulus, for the most part. And Lily and James were starting to not-hate one another, which was weird and Sirius didn't like it. They had always been them, the four of them, and who was Lily to encroach on that? Perhaps it was this frustration that led to Sirius being more volatile than usual-- which could have been why in his sixth year, Sirius played his own "prank" on Snape, independent of James. Telling him to go pull the familiar knot on the Whomping Willow, Snape was on his way to see what he didn't know was Remus and in fact did discover his secret-- only being saved from an untimely end by the intervention of James.

To this day, Sirius maintains that Snape would have deserved whatever he had gotten. When asked if Remus would have deserved that, becoming a murderer, Sirius goes oddly quiet. James took a while to forgive Sirius; Remus, even longer, and sometimes Sirius thinks he hasn't been forgiven at all.

With that little disaster spotting their sixth year, Sirius entered seventh with bright hopes. Of course, then Remus was still very upset with him and James and Lily were dating (what?!) and everything kind of sucked-- except the Map, which was finally finished. Slight problems inside, Sirius enjoyed his last year at Hogwarts, and spent the better part of it making the mischief he was becoming aware he'd never be able to make again.

POST-HOGWARTS: After graduation, Sirius' life became this giant whirlwind. He was recruited for the Order along with all three of the other Marauders and Lily shortly after leaving the school, and was the first out of them to respond with a resounding yes. He never bothered to get himself a real job, preferring to use the money his uncle left him, and is renting his own very nice but simple flat close to where his friends are living. Speaking of where his friends are living, another huge thing that happened in Sirius' life-- yes, Sirius'-- was James and Lily's marriage, and not only because Sirius (of course, he says smugly) was the best man and therefore got to plan the rocking bachelor party. Although Sirius still felt like James was sort of leaving him, and didn't understand (marriage what), he was able to grudgingly accept it.

Since then, Sirius has been essentially a full-time Order member. He's been trying to gain a larger voice in the group despite his young age; after all, he always has something to say. Still, Sirius has a way to go before being experienced enough to be any sort of wise leader, and he is, of course, still a padawan. The seriousness of the situation has been slowly taking its toll on him, however; even though he attempts to be his usual self, joking and going on mad adventures, Sirius has found himself stressed and suspicious of everything lately.

FIVE THINGS:

As for my personal connection with Sirius Black: I've played him before, but only in a non-plotty, school-era PSL with the other Marauders. I'd always wanted to write him because he's such a character, one that fascinates everyone, it seems, with this huge history and a long list of things he's gone through and obstacles he's overcome. Plus, who doesn't love them a bad boy?

The most interesting thing to me in the RP world about Sirius, though, is that I have always seen him portrayed as his primary characteristics being of this prankster, this flirt, this loud, fun-loving seductive person. And that's all well and good, but I always thought Sirius was really complex, so why can't those parts of his personality be the ones at the front? A bitter Sirius, an angry Sirius, a vaguely masochistic and insensitive Sirius-- that's the one that interests me more. So! Here are my five plots:

• I would love to see someone call Sirius out on the fact that he was raised a Black and does still hold, unconsciously, some of those prejudices; with such an environment for most of his life, it was impossible for him to completely break away. Sirius is still very much growing in his beliefs and growing up in general, and I think being forced to realize it would help him a lot.

• Someone needs to tell this boy to start doing something with his life. Something along the lines of pointing out that the war will hopefully have an end, eventually, that he needs to think about his interests and potential jobs he could look into. He doesn't really have that many things he's interested in right now, so finding some of those things and perhaps eventually even getting a job would be really good for him.

• In which Sirius finds out that sometimes being cute won't let you get away with being insensitive. I'm waiting for the moment where he seriously pisses off someone that he really cares about, and just doesn't understand what he did wrong, and even worse, doesn't believe that the other person is serious in his or her anger. He needs to be brought to understand that sometimes things like this are serious and he will need to apologize sincerely.

• I'd like to see how his grudges from when he was younger played out. Sirius is extremely stubborn with this sort of thing; an enemy for a day is an enemy for his entire life, just as he would never turn on a friend. Although this is all dependent on how he gets along with the other characters, I'm interested, for example, in Lily, Severus, and Regulus. Regulus and Severus because he has to work with them, and struggling with his personal feelings and their histories will be difficult for him. Lily, on the other hand-- I sort of imagine that Sirius never understood why James was so taken with her, and was quite resentful of Lily's 'taking his place' in James' life. I would like to see if this antagonism continued, fizzed out, or what. (A note-- in my headcanon the birth of Harry is what makes Sirius come around, but since Harry wasn't born in this game yet (?), everything is up in the air!)

• Sirius, obviously, has never been quite at home with his family-- only, perhaps Andromeda and Alphard. I want to have him develop his own idea of what family is-- those people that he cares so much about, and would die for, and be able to put a that label of family on those people, perhaps thereby finding peace in knowing that he isn't as family-less as he had thought.

• You get six, because I say so. Sirius has never had a girlfriend because he is all ~no labels and ~no commitment and ~I Do What I Want Yo, but these have all been reasons connected with keeping up a specific reputation that he has wanted. Also because he doesn't like Lily and he just scowled through James' and Lily's entire relationship. I'd like to have him realize there's nothing bad or scary about a romantic connection with another person. The plotline I'm thinking would work for this is that he enters a friends with benefits relationship with some girl (while a line where he has a thing with a boy would be fun, I think a girl would work better for this idea) that eventually falls into being exclusive and eventually, Sirius finds that he's dating this girl without even knowing. Something like that. Details are all flexible, but you get the picture.

JOURNAL ENTRY: As Callum MacDougal, vexatious.

Announcement, denizens of Hogwarts. I have written the following with my own blood, fresh from my veins. Diluted with water and red ink, but PART MY BLOOD NONETHELESS.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.

If you are not familiar with Shakespeare-- although this is probably the most famous of his works-- Hamlet is considering whether he should bear the terrible pain of life or risk the damnation of an early death. In this situation, I am Hamlet. In case it wasn't clear.

I have decided that after I take myself out in a most glorious and epic fashion, I shall choose to join the ranks of Hogwarts ghosts, thus able to stick around and haunt the unworthy for the rest of their sorry lives. Try punching me as a ghost, Flannigan!

RP SAMPLE: As Scorpius Malfoy, onemoreson.

It was his first free moment since the week had started. Scorpius loved school--although he probably wouldn’t say just so; love was a pretty strong word and he tended to avoid declarations of strong feelings in any way, so he’d probably say that he got a lot out of his education, or something like that. But in any case, despite all of that, the satisfaction he got out of finishing all his currently assigned homework, the sound his Potions essay made when he rolled it up to tie a string around it, the feeling of finally having done the recent Transfiguration correctly, to open up his planner and realize he had absolutely nothing left to do? It was very welcomed. And although Scorpius was an excellent student and sometimes did work ahead in his classes, that was usually saved for the weekends, and now he was glad to just get a book and sit down with it for a little while.

Picking up a novel he had planned on starting a while ago, and checking three separate times to make sure it wasn’t one of Tanner’s crazy enchanted ones (living with the other boy meant that this was tuned to an instinctual reaction to picking up any book), Scorpius made his way briskly to the common room from his dormitory. He had just made himself comfortable on one of the plush green (well, naturally) armchairs across from the fireplace and opened up his book when a suspiciously person-shaped shadow fell over the pages. Scorpius blinked, and tilted his head up in order to see who this person behind him was, raising both eyebrows slightly in the meantime.

“You’re blocking my light,” he said, not in an accusatory tone, but more as if he were commenting on the weather.