#validate me.

didn’t have an interest in girls when he was younger; pretended in order to please his parents while mostly not being concerned about it- he was going to be in an arranged marriage anyway, and love would have nothing to do with it. 

knew he was the heir and the expectations that came from that at a very, very young age - while there was no love in his childhood home, he was treated like a sort of prize until he was put into gryffindor, at which point things started to slip. 

knew that he liked boys at around twelve years old, but kept it silent and continued to pretend he had all sorts of crushes and was interested in girls - this time to make sure he kept his friends, who were the only good thing in his life. 

maintained a playboy persona throughout hogwa.rts years to keep himself from being found out - he was the first to play spin the bottle at parties, the first one for drunken make-outs, but nothing ever went further. people assumed he was just hard to get. 

had a crush on james that lasted until he was thirteen - it was sort of a misplaced love in that james was the first person to ever really show sirius love. 

gave a half-hearted final attempt to prove to himself that he wasn’t gay and that he could just get on with his life by sleeping with a girl, after which it became very clear to him that he wasn’t interested in girls romantically or sexually. sent him into a spiral of hating himself for not being able to ‘fit in’, knowing that ending up running from his family was on the horizon if he didn’t want to be forced into a marriage. 

he comes out to the marauders when he’s fifteen/sixteen. 

while things were certainly said to him by his family insinuating that he was gay, they were never able to prove it. they were obviously not supportive. 

during his seventh year of hogwarts and during the first war, his being gay is sort of an open secret - after he leaves his family, he’s more open about it. if you know you know, and if you were to ask he wouldn’t keep it a secret from you unless you were an active danger to him. he makes a valiant effort to wear the label like he does the blood traitor label. 

he looks up to alastor moody so much after he finds out he’s gay (note that this is not something the general public knows) - he sees this man who is a successful person, has a career, and he’s gay. he wants to be like him. looking up to moody is part of the reason he regrets not being an auror for a long time.