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Sirius Black was born during a dark winter night in the ancestral Black family manor, also known as Grimmauld Place. He was a source of joy for Walburga and Orion Black at the moment of his birth - finally, after so many years of failed attempts, they had a son. An heir. He was treated with what he thought was love, but was truly relief; there was finally a male heir to carry the Black line, after Druella and Cygnus's three births resulted in only girls. As a child, his existence was regarded with pure adoration - not for him, particularly, but his existence as a male. His cousins couldn't help but fawn over him, absolutely enamoured with their baby cousin.
For a pureblood, his childhood was tame. In the beginning, at least.
He fared well with his parents when he was younger. In fact, it would be fair to say he revered them. Walburga in all of her effortless grace and sophistication, Orion with his intimidating and powerful aura. When he was young, there was nothing Sirius wanted more than to be just like them - he wanted to be respected, he wanted to be admired, he wanted to be feared. He craved the power that came with being the only Black heir; he took his status as heir earnestly, hoping that one day his family would be proud of him.
With the birth of his brother Regulus, the pressure on Sirius only increased. Walburga, once again, was thrilled at having another son; she tasked Sirius with imposing the family's beliefs on Regulus from the moment of his birth. And unlike Sirius, Regulus seemed to absorb it more. More so than Sirius, Regulus adored his parents - especially his father. The two formed a connection that Sirius would never have, with either of his parents. If Sirius was the heir, Regulus was the son. For a reason unknown to Sirius, his parents favoured their younger son more. Perhaps it was because Sirius was a lot more outright in his beliefs, while Regulus went through life obediently, with his head bowed. From childhood, the differences between the Black brothers were evident. Maybe Regulus learned from Sirius's mistakes, knowing that fighting back against even the simplest of things came with only negative consequences. And no matter how much Sirius tried to take his brother under his wing, nothing seemed to be enough. Walburga always wanted more, more, more - she was a greedy woman, wanting to be admired by anyone she came across. She wanted her sons to be absolutely perfect - there was no room for mistakes in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
And Sirius was anything but perfect. He was a fiery being, even as a child, throwing tantrums and wreaking havoc across Grimmauld Place. Perhaps that was why he'd always gotten along best with Bellatrix - she, too, was a being of passion. There was a flame of wrath burning so brightly within both of them that could not be extinguished, no matter how hard their parents tried.
But that was where the similarities came to an end. While Bellatrix wholly agreed with her family's views, Sirius soon diverged from them. As he grew older, as he read, as he met ordinary Muggles - on the outings his family would take him out on, to prove that Muggles were lesser - he came to the realisation that those same elitist ideals held no basis in fact. For the life of him, he could not understand why wizards were supposedly better than Muggles; why his pure blood made him superior to others. No, to him, Muggles seemed completely ordinary. There was nothing explicitly wrong with them, so why did his mother paint them as a lesser race? Why was his mother so adamant on ridding the world of them? No matter how many times Walburga instilled into his head that Muggles deserved not to exist, no matter the punishments he garnered for his opposition of their beliefs, Sirius refused to bow down. The flame within him began to burn brighter than ever, but this time, it was in objection to his family's beliefs.
