Ginnevra

"Maybe I'll break the tradition,"

has more depth than all the Slytherin characters combined. Do you guys really understand how much courage it must have taken him to say this? People love to portray this scene as, "Oh, Sirius was obsessed with James and he chose whatever would keep them together," but... I simply don't think so.

​Sirius grew up in a cult, surrounded by an insane amount of propaganda and his family's emotional projection since he was the heir. (And he was probably the perfect fit for the heir, too. I like to think Orion and Walburga saw his bravery, charm, audacity, defiance and arrogance as a "strong personality" and high-fived each other because their firstborn wasn't some passive, soft-headed bloke (like Regulus) who couldn't properly represent the Noble House of Black. I know Sirius probably resisted their wants and argued with them even pre-Hogwarts, meanwhile Regulus did everything they wanted and the most prominent thing about him in those years was his submission—although I don't think they even once wished for Regulus to be their firstborn. They liked Regulus's behavior, but they wanted Sirius to embody it.)

​I also like to headcanon that Walburga never once truly believed Sirius betrayed the Potters. Because yeah, he was her firstborn—her fierce son with a sharp personality, the perfect fit for the Black heir. She knew her baby, and probably loved him too, just improperly. I know this fandom loves to make her an evil, overly sadistic parent to the point that it leans into misery porn, but I like to think of Sirius's relationship with his parents as something much more emotionally destructive.

​I personally think the fact that she never once disowned him properly is enough evidence stand-alone. I mean, why did they let Sirius take all of that fortune—and even let him leave it to whoever he wanted (as Harry got it at the end)?

(Because disowning Sirius completely and legally would mean admitting defeat. It would mean admitting that they completely lost control of him. Instead, they kept him on the family registry and left the fortune intact. So it felt less like an amputation of a limp for them and more like a bad decision their teenage son made.)

​Do people know how much courage it takes to even think about doing something outside of the standards when you grew up in a closed environment like that? It took Draco until the end of the seventh book to do something—to lie to his aunt and tell her that it wasn't Harry Potter.

An eleven-year-old is a child, a middle schooler, roughly even conscious. I like to think his House sorting was something he thought a lot about beforehand. (Maybe he even decided to follow the first friend he made to their House, so it was really all because of James, but not about James. Or maybe he decided to walk up to that Hat mumbling to himself, "Anything but Slytherin," just like Harry did. Or maybe it was a total shock for him like everybody else, though I don't think so.) It was something he thought and stressed about.

​I like to headcanon that Andromeda married Ted Tonks just the summer before Sirius's first year, so it was like a double whiplash for the family, you see? It was also what gave Sirius the daring to even hope for another way than being a Slytherin.

Why? Because in cults, the conformity relies on the illusion that no alternative exists. The entire illusion shattered for everyone that summer. Andromeda, by marrying a muggle-born, provided a cognitive opening- a containment breach for the whole politic superiority complex Blacks had built their noble bloodline onto.

​And well, when he finally did get sorted into Gryffindor, he immediately sat next to Lily (a muggle-born) canonically—remember? Do you see the immediate difference in the path he would take for the rest of his life? Sirius getting sorted into Gryffindor was one of the most powerful rebellions in the whole franchise, purely because of the emotional labor it put 11-year-old Sirius through.

​It was hard. It was hard. Seeing through the propaganda at 11 is hard. Realizing maybe your parents are not that great is hard. Accepting it is somehow even harder. I like to think Walburga was the kind of mother who shows affection— but only if her sons are "good enough." She'll hug them, make them sit on her lap, and kiss their faces, but only after they do something that aligns with her values, proving to her that her two children are taking the path she wants them to take. I don't really know what practices those could have been, but I know that offering affection as a rewards for compliance was 100% more effective than fucking Cruciating them constantly (I honestly hate this headcanon with a passion, do people even know how systematic emotional oppression in abusive families work?)

​It's harder to leave your family if you could just not speak, and suddenly your mother is waking you up by caressing your hair and your father is asking about your day at the dinner table. There is a saying,

A baby cannot hate a mother without the mother first hating the baby,

and I agree. But if you were made to believe that you could simply prevent your mother's hate by being a good boy, wouldn't you have tried to do that? It is a survival instinct for a child to try to comply first before completely rebel. Wouldn't you try to fit yourself into her standards at first, work hard for your mother's love to actually earn it, and then look at the ceiling of your room at night trying to decide whether you could live like this forever or not?

If love is a form of transaction which uses your autonomy as it's currecy, how much could you really afford? Or how much would you be eager to sacrifice to afford more?

But all of this reminds me a little bit (if I may) of where I ended up with Sirius in the first chapter of the re-write of I Solemnly Swear (although Andromeda has not yet married Ted, she's very much in the process of planning her elopement and her conversation with Sirius matters for his decision to say he might break the decision. Not because I don't think he was already at odds with his family, but because there's a difference between that and even knowing an alternative exist).

---Extract---

‘Are you excited?’

Andromeda’s eyes had also found Sirius’ trunk, and she beheld it with a sort of mix of longing and relief. This year, she hadn’t needed to pack a suitcase. Her Hogwarts days were behind her.

‘Can’t wait,’ replied Sirius, evenly. 

Truth be told, he was thrilled. But Andromeda must have known that. There was no point belabouring the thing. 

‘Clearly.’

Her twitching lips told him that she knew how a thousand butterflies were fluttering in his stomach. Though the excitement was curtailed by something dark and heavy, which seemed to press down on his chest and make it difficult to breathe. 

Why exactly, Sirius didn’t know. He just knew that while the idea of getting away from Grimmauld Place thrilled him, every time he pictured himself falling asleep, tomorrow, in a bed in the Slytherin dungeons, he felt the darkness coil around his chest and shoulders, pressing down and making everything seem… hopeless.

‘Have you thought about your sorting yet?’ 

‘What do you mean?’ 

Sirius looked over at his cousin. What a strange thing to ask. Of course, he’d thought about it. About a million times. He’d played the sorting over and over in his head, and yet he did not know why he bothered. The outcome was always the same.

‘Well, it’s a big deal,’ Andromeda spoke slowly, her words measured. ‘Your house will become the closest thing you have to family, so there’s hardly anything more important than where you get sorted.’

He knew that, thanks. 

Wait! 

Where he got sorted? Where. 

They knew perfectly well where he’d end up. Where every Black had been sorted before him.

‘All I am saying,’ continued Andromeda, looking at him intently, ‘is that you should give it some thought. Where you want to go.’

With that, she got up. The last two sentences hung in the air for some time after she’d left. Neither had said another word as she’d hurried over to the door. What she’d spoken, what she’d implied, broke all sorts of unwritten rules.

The words she had shared were hardly revolutionary. Yet, for all that Sirius knew, for all the thoughts that constantly filled his head and put him at odds with his parents, he realised, as he lay in bed staring at the carved headboard, that he had never entertained the idea of being sorted anywhere else. 

Imagining what it’d be like to be sorted into Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff—even just as a thought experiment—he noticed the heavy, dark something that pressed down on him, release its grip a little.

This popped off on my Twitter account so I decided to share it here as well! Thank you all again for the love and here’s a little preview as to what I’m currently working on💙

"For truth, and for fiction" ⚔️🪶

Re-creating my first webcomic from 12 years ago, "Hair Expectations vs Reality."

I can't help but feel all kinds of emotions after re-visiting the original comic: the one that started it all. A lot has changed since then, and I feel so fortunate to still create art and tell stories for a living. Thanks for your support, and sticking around for so long ❤️

Check out the other versions:

2014 (OG)