Sirius Black (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fleasaremurder) wrote,@ 2008-09-13 17:59:00 |
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NAME: Sirius Black
FANDOM: Harry Potter
AGE: 36
ALIGNMENT: Good
BACKGROUND SUMMARY:
Sirius is the last heir of the House of Black, a once notable pure-blood Wizarding family. His parents, Orion and Walburga Black, were both Blacks by birth and second cousins. Sirius had a younger brother, Regulus, and three older cousins: Bellatrix Lestrange, Andromeda Tonks, and Narcissa Malfoy. Sirius's early life proved unhappy; he had come to hate most of his relatives, in particular his mother. He rejected his family's pure-blood elitism and reverence for the Dark Arts. Whereas all other members of the Black family were sorted into Slytherin house, Sirius was placed in Gryffindor, showing that his views had already diverged from those of the rest of the family before he came to school.
By contrast, he greatly enjoyed life at Hogwarts, where he was inseparable from his best friend, James Potter. Sirius and James were immensely popular and known for their exceptionally good looks. Students liked his biting humour, and teachers respected his intelligence, though not his behaviour. His popularity was not universal, as a mutual hatred sprang up between he and Severus Snape. Sirius immediately got off on the wrong foot with Severus Snape when they met on the Hogwarts Express in their first year, as did James Potter, who would become Sirius's best friend. Sirius snapped at Snape after he sneered at James' wish to be sorted into Gryffindor house, and the two bestowed the mocking name of "Snivellus" on the Slytherin student. They loathed Snape as "this little oddball up to his eyeballs in the Dark Arts", and, according to Sirius, the other boy was jealous of their popularity and always took to following them around, trying to get them into trouble. While watching one of Snape’s memories in the Pensieve, Harry saw Sirius and James physically bully him only because they were bored. Sirius attempted to justify this by claiming that Snape's memories were biased and that he had a cruel streak, though he did admit that he and James were "arrogant little berks", and that he wasn't proud of his bullying of Snape.
They also became best friends with another student, Remus Lupin, whom they later discovered was a werewolf. To support Lupin, Sirius, James, and another friend, Peter Pettigrew, secretly (and illegally) became Animagi, which allowed them to safely accompany Lupin during his transformations and keep him under control. After mastering Animagery, Sirius's form took the shape of a huge black dog, from which his nickname Padfoot was derived.
Late in his Hogwarts career, the feud between Snape and Sirius reached its climax when Sirius played a potentially lethal practical joke on Snape. He informed Snape how to enter a tunnel under the Whomping Willow that would lead to the Shrieking Shack where, unbeknownst to Snape, Remus Lupin was confined during his transformations. Snape went there during a full moon, and James was forced to rescue him. Sirius excused his own actions, explaining that he had simply told Snape what he wanted to know about the tunnel, whilst omitting crucial information. He simultaneously claimed it "served Snape right". The resentment Snape felt for Sirius was never healed.
Sirius left home at the age of sixteen and took refuge with James and his parents. His outraged mother burned his name off the family tree. Sirius's Uncle Alphard left him a large inheritance, causing Walburga to also remove Alphard's name. He was left financially independent by his uncle's generous bequest.
After leaving school, Sirius fought against Voldemort, eventually joining the Order of the Phoenix. In 1977, he and James were involved in a motorbike chase with two policemen. Although the chase started off as a bit of fun, it turned slightly more serious when the pair were attacked by three men on broomsticks. Sirius and James used their wands to raise the police car that had been chasing them, and the their attackers crashed into it.
He remained friends with James Potter and attended James' wedding to Lily Evans as best man. When their son Harry was born, James and Lily named Sirius godfather, thus designating him as Harry's guardian in the event of their deaths. He also gave Harry his first broom at the age of one as a birthday present.
After joining The Order of the Phoenix, Sirius found himself roiling with mistrust and stress due to the great terror that was Lord Voldemort. It took its toll – by October 1981, he no longer trusted his old friend Remus Lupin, suspecting he was a spy and excluding him from important information. However, he trusted Peter Pettigrew implicitly, a decision he would grow to regret for the rest of his life.
In 1981, the Potters were aware that Harry, along with the son of Frank and Alice Longbottom, two other Order members, had become Lord Voldemort's specific targets. Albus Dumbledore advised the Potters to go into hiding using the Fidelius Charm, which Dumbledore hoped would conceal them from doom. James was adamant about Sirius being their Secret-Keeper, believing that Sirius would rather die rather than reveal where they were. However, believing Voldemort would suspect him, Sirius suggested a "weak, talentless thing" - Peter Pettigrew - instead. Keeping everyone else, including Lupin and Dumbledore, in the dark, Sirius and the Potters reassigned Pettigrew to be Secret-Keeper with Sirius as a decoy.
On Halloween night 1981, Sirius went to Pettigrew’s hiding place and found him missing. Unsettled by the missing signs of a struggle, Sirius frantically sped to Godric's Hollow, discovering the Potters' house destroyed and his friends dead; only baby Harry was still alive. When Rubeus Hagrid appeared on the scene to rescue Harry, on Dumbledore's orders, Sirius offered to take Harry himself. However, Hagrid told him that Dumbledore had made arrangements to send Harry to Lily's sister, Petunia. Sirius conceded, and gave Hagrid his flying motorcycle, telling him he wouldn't need it.
After leaving Godric's Hollow, Sirius tracked Pettigrew down, determined to kill him in vengeance. However, Pettigrew outwitted Black: confronted by Sirius on a city street, he created a huge explosion which faked his own death, leaving a severed finger behind as evidence, and killed twelve Muggles in the process. Sirius was arrested by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and was sentenced without trial to Azkaban for the murder of Petigrew, the twelve Muggles,for giving the information about the Potters where abouts which lead to their death and for being in the service of Lord Voldemort. He would spend the next twelve years in solitary confinement at the mercy of the Azkaban guards, the Dementors.
Driven to the brink of madness, he retained his sanity by focusing on his innocence – "...not a cheerful thought but an obsession..." could not be detected by the Dementors, but which gave him small comfort. However, his brooding over his friends' deaths and Pettigrew's betrayal became an obsession as well.
Sirius Black was the first known person to ever escape from the wizard prison of Azkaban in 1993. This was after he discovered that Pettigrew was still alive and in hiding in his Animagus form as a pet rat named Scabbers. He learned this after seeing him in Animagus form with the Weasleys in a picture on the front of the Daily Prophet. Filled with the desire for revenge, Sirius transformed into his Animagus form. The dementors' inability to perceive unsophisticated canine minds, along with his severe weight loss from malnutrition, allowed him to slip through the cell's bars.
Sirius took refuge around Hogsmeade; he was spotted a few times and mistaken for the Grim. He made the aquaintance of Hermione Granger's cat Crookshanks, who had recognised that Sirius wasn't actually a dog, and who had also recognised what Peter was. Half-crazed and desperate, he snuck into Hogwarts and, on one occasion, slashed the Fat Lady's portrait when she refused him entrance to Gryffindor Tower. Later, he was able to enter the Gryffindor common room with a list of passwords stolen from Neville Longbottom by Crookshanks, and shred Ron Weasley’s bed curtains in his search for Scabbers. Harry, not knowing the truth, believed Sirius had betrayed his parents and was trying to kill him.
Through a series of events and explanations, Harry confronted Sirius and discovered the truth from him. He subsequently prevented Sirius from murdering Pettigrew, believing that it would be better to force Pettigrew to face justice, but he escaped even that and fled back to the service of Voldemort.
Sirius was briefly re-captured by the Dementors at Hogwarts, and was sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss, a fate worse than death. Miraculously, Harry and Hermione helped him escape through use of Hermione's Time-Turner. Sirius was once again a wanted man, although alive and with his soul intact.
Sirius fled Europe beyond the Ministry of Magic's jurisdiction. He communicated with Harry by owl very seldomly to retain the secrecy of his location. Harry grew to greatly rely on Sirius' advice in time of need.
When Harry was mysteriously entered in the Triwizard Tournament, Sirius returned to England when Harry gave him notice that his scar had been hurting. This came to be known as a signal of Lord Voldemort’s presence or power. Sirius hid out near Hogsmeade and provided mostly moral support to Harry during this time.
With Lord Voldemort restored to his physical form, Dumbledore reactivated the Order of the Phoenix. Sirius donated his ancient family home at of 12, Grimmauld Place in London as Order Headquarters. Unfortunately because he was still wanted by the authorities, Sirius could never safely leave the house and became quite bitter over his perceived "uselessness." When he briefly left the house to see Harry to the Hogwarts Express, Draco Malfoy nastily complemented Harry on his "pet dog", which suggested Sirius' cover was blown.
Harry and Sirius stayed in touch during Harry's school year via owls and the Floo Network, though Sirius' presence was nearly discovered by Dolores Umbridge during her dictatorial managing of Hogwarts that year.
Sirius acted as a father and older brother figure to Harry throughout the his hardships with Umbridge, encouraging him to oppose her reforms and strongly approving of Harry's secret defensive tutorial group for students, Dumbledore's Army. He also willingly answered all Harry's questions about the Order and Voldemort, though most of Harry's mentors felt it was inappropriate because of his youth.
Voldemort used the power of Legilimency to implant a false vision into Harry's mind that Sirius was captive at the Department of Mysteries. Harry was thus convinced that Sirius is being tortured, and, along with Ron, Hermione and other D.A. members Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood, he flew to the Department of Mysteries, only to be ambushed by Death Eaters.
Ironically, it was Severus Snape who ultimately saved their lives by alerting the Order. Sirius, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, Alastor Moody and eventually Albus Dumbledore all arrived and began battling the Death Eaters. Tragically, however, during a frenzied duel with his hated cousin Bellatrix, Sirius was struck with an unnamed curse and pushed through a veil in the Death Chamber, to his death.
PB: Gary Oldman
FANDOM: Harry Potter
AGE: 36
ALIGNMENT: Good
BACKGROUND SUMMARY:
Sirius is the last heir of the House of Black, a once notable pure-blood Wizarding family. His parents, Orion and Walburga Black, were both Blacks by birth and second cousins. Sirius had a younger brother, Regulus, and three older cousins: Bellatrix Lestrange, Andromeda Tonks, and Narcissa Malfoy. Sirius's early life proved unhappy; he had come to hate most of his relatives, in particular his mother. He rejected his family's pure-blood elitism and reverence for the Dark Arts. Whereas all other members of the Black family were sorted into Slytherin house, Sirius was placed in Gryffindor, showing that his views had already diverged from those of the rest of the family before he came to school.
By contrast, he greatly enjoyed life at Hogwarts, where he was inseparable from his best friend, James Potter. Sirius and James were immensely popular and known for their exceptionally good looks. Students liked his biting humour, and teachers respected his intelligence, though not his behaviour. His popularity was not universal, as a mutual hatred sprang up between he and Severus Snape. Sirius immediately got off on the wrong foot with Severus Snape when they met on the Hogwarts Express in their first year, as did James Potter, who would become Sirius's best friend. Sirius snapped at Snape after he sneered at James' wish to be sorted into Gryffindor house, and the two bestowed the mocking name of "Snivellus" on the Slytherin student. They loathed Snape as "this little oddball up to his eyeballs in the Dark Arts", and, according to Sirius, the other boy was jealous of their popularity and always took to following them around, trying to get them into trouble. While watching one of Snape’s memories in the Pensieve, Harry saw Sirius and James physically bully him only because they were bored. Sirius attempted to justify this by claiming that Snape's memories were biased and that he had a cruel streak, though he did admit that he and James were "arrogant little berks", and that he wasn't proud of his bullying of Snape.
They also became best friends with another student, Remus Lupin, whom they later discovered was a werewolf. To support Lupin, Sirius, James, and another friend, Peter Pettigrew, secretly (and illegally) became Animagi, which allowed them to safely accompany Lupin during his transformations and keep him under control. After mastering Animagery, Sirius's form took the shape of a huge black dog, from which his nickname Padfoot was derived.
Late in his Hogwarts career, the feud between Snape and Sirius reached its climax when Sirius played a potentially lethal practical joke on Snape. He informed Snape how to enter a tunnel under the Whomping Willow that would lead to the Shrieking Shack where, unbeknownst to Snape, Remus Lupin was confined during his transformations. Snape went there during a full moon, and James was forced to rescue him. Sirius excused his own actions, explaining that he had simply told Snape what he wanted to know about the tunnel, whilst omitting crucial information. He simultaneously claimed it "served Snape right". The resentment Snape felt for Sirius was never healed.
Sirius left home at the age of sixteen and took refuge with James and his parents. His outraged mother burned his name off the family tree. Sirius's Uncle Alphard left him a large inheritance, causing Walburga to also remove Alphard's name. He was left financially independent by his uncle's generous bequest.
After leaving school, Sirius fought against Voldemort, eventually joining the Order of the Phoenix. In 1977, he and James were involved in a motorbike chase with two policemen. Although the chase started off as a bit of fun, it turned slightly more serious when the pair were attacked by three men on broomsticks. Sirius and James used their wands to raise the police car that had been chasing them, and the their attackers crashed into it.
He remained friends with James Potter and attended James' wedding to Lily Evans as best man. When their son Harry was born, James and Lily named Sirius godfather, thus designating him as Harry's guardian in the event of their deaths. He also gave Harry his first broom at the age of one as a birthday present.
After joining The Order of the Phoenix, Sirius found himself roiling with mistrust and stress due to the great terror that was Lord Voldemort. It took its toll – by October 1981, he no longer trusted his old friend Remus Lupin, suspecting he was a spy and excluding him from important information. However, he trusted Peter Pettigrew implicitly, a decision he would grow to regret for the rest of his life.
In 1981, the Potters were aware that Harry, along with the son of Frank and Alice Longbottom, two other Order members, had become Lord Voldemort's specific targets. Albus Dumbledore advised the Potters to go into hiding using the Fidelius Charm, which Dumbledore hoped would conceal them from doom. James was adamant about Sirius being their Secret-Keeper, believing that Sirius would rather die rather than reveal where they were. However, believing Voldemort would suspect him, Sirius suggested a "weak, talentless thing" - Peter Pettigrew - instead. Keeping everyone else, including Lupin and Dumbledore, in the dark, Sirius and the Potters reassigned Pettigrew to be Secret-Keeper with Sirius as a decoy.
On Halloween night 1981, Sirius went to Pettigrew’s hiding place and found him missing. Unsettled by the missing signs of a struggle, Sirius frantically sped to Godric's Hollow, discovering the Potters' house destroyed and his friends dead; only baby Harry was still alive. When Rubeus Hagrid appeared on the scene to rescue Harry, on Dumbledore's orders, Sirius offered to take Harry himself. However, Hagrid told him that Dumbledore had made arrangements to send Harry to Lily's sister, Petunia. Sirius conceded, and gave Hagrid his flying motorcycle, telling him he wouldn't need it.
After leaving Godric's Hollow, Sirius tracked Pettigrew down, determined to kill him in vengeance. However, Pettigrew outwitted Black: confronted by Sirius on a city street, he created a huge explosion which faked his own death, leaving a severed finger behind as evidence, and killed twelve Muggles in the process. Sirius was arrested by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and was sentenced without trial to Azkaban for the murder of Petigrew, the twelve Muggles,for giving the information about the Potters where abouts which lead to their death and for being in the service of Lord Voldemort. He would spend the next twelve years in solitary confinement at the mercy of the Azkaban guards, the Dementors.
Driven to the brink of madness, he retained his sanity by focusing on his innocence – "...not a cheerful thought but an obsession..." could not be detected by the Dementors, but which gave him small comfort. However, his brooding over his friends' deaths and Pettigrew's betrayal became an obsession as well.
Sirius Black was the first known person to ever escape from the wizard prison of Azkaban in 1993. This was after he discovered that Pettigrew was still alive and in hiding in his Animagus form as a pet rat named Scabbers. He learned this after seeing him in Animagus form with the Weasleys in a picture on the front of the Daily Prophet. Filled with the desire for revenge, Sirius transformed into his Animagus form. The dementors' inability to perceive unsophisticated canine minds, along with his severe weight loss from malnutrition, allowed him to slip through the cell's bars.
Sirius took refuge around Hogsmeade; he was spotted a few times and mistaken for the Grim. He made the aquaintance of Hermione Granger's cat Crookshanks, who had recognised that Sirius wasn't actually a dog, and who had also recognised what Peter was. Half-crazed and desperate, he snuck into Hogwarts and, on one occasion, slashed the Fat Lady's portrait when she refused him entrance to Gryffindor Tower. Later, he was able to enter the Gryffindor common room with a list of passwords stolen from Neville Longbottom by Crookshanks, and shred Ron Weasley’s bed curtains in his search for Scabbers. Harry, not knowing the truth, believed Sirius had betrayed his parents and was trying to kill him.
Through a series of events and explanations, Harry confronted Sirius and discovered the truth from him. He subsequently prevented Sirius from murdering Pettigrew, believing that it would be better to force Pettigrew to face justice, but he escaped even that and fled back to the service of Voldemort.
Sirius was briefly re-captured by the Dementors at Hogwarts, and was sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss, a fate worse than death. Miraculously, Harry and Hermione helped him escape through use of Hermione's Time-Turner. Sirius was once again a wanted man, although alive and with his soul intact.
Sirius fled Europe beyond the Ministry of Magic's jurisdiction. He communicated with Harry by owl very seldomly to retain the secrecy of his location. Harry grew to greatly rely on Sirius' advice in time of need.
When Harry was mysteriously entered in the Triwizard Tournament, Sirius returned to England when Harry gave him notice that his scar had been hurting. This came to be known as a signal of Lord Voldemort’s presence or power. Sirius hid out near Hogsmeade and provided mostly moral support to Harry during this time.
With Lord Voldemort restored to his physical form, Dumbledore reactivated the Order of the Phoenix. Sirius donated his ancient family home at of 12, Grimmauld Place in London as Order Headquarters. Unfortunately because he was still wanted by the authorities, Sirius could never safely leave the house and became quite bitter over his perceived "uselessness." When he briefly left the house to see Harry to the Hogwarts Express, Draco Malfoy nastily complemented Harry on his "pet dog", which suggested Sirius' cover was blown.
Harry and Sirius stayed in touch during Harry's school year via owls and the Floo Network, though Sirius' presence was nearly discovered by Dolores Umbridge during her dictatorial managing of Hogwarts that year.
Sirius acted as a father and older brother figure to Harry throughout the his hardships with Umbridge, encouraging him to oppose her reforms and strongly approving of Harry's secret defensive tutorial group for students, Dumbledore's Army. He also willingly answered all Harry's questions about the Order and Voldemort, though most of Harry's mentors felt it was inappropriate because of his youth.
Voldemort used the power of Legilimency to implant a false vision into Harry's mind that Sirius was captive at the Department of Mysteries. Harry was thus convinced that Sirius is being tortured, and, along with Ron, Hermione and other D.A. members Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood, he flew to the Department of Mysteries, only to be ambushed by Death Eaters.
Ironically, it was Severus Snape who ultimately saved their lives by alerting the Order. Sirius, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, Alastor Moody and eventually Albus Dumbledore all arrived and began battling the Death Eaters. Tragically, however, during a frenzied duel with his hated cousin Bellatrix, Sirius was struck with an unnamed curse and pushed through a veil in the Death Chamber, to his death.
PB: Gary Oldman