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quidfree · 4 years

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hi! hope you're well and that you're having a good day:) I absolutely adore LMV - I genuinely think it's the best fic I've ever read. anyway, the point of this ask was that I was wondering whether you had any thoughts about sirius as a godfather? like, was he suited for the job, did he actually do a good job... idk, maybe you've answered that question before, in that case, sorry! and ofc don't stress abt answering:))

this is so nice of you ty!!!

ive never talked about dogfather sirius, actually!! what an interesting pair of questions.... i would have to say a qualified yes to both?

was sirius suited for the job: personality-wise, maybe not entirely (raising a child alone in the event of jily deaths would have been Rough, and he’s not exactly a stable parental unit, not to mention he would have spoiled harry rotten), BUT he has the most important prerequisite, which is undying love and loyalty for the potters and for harry, and that means he would have done everything in his power to be a good parent figure to him, which is what really matters, so. not to mention that jily realistically weren’t contemplating he would have to be godfather alone for the majority of harry’s life- with jily around he could have been just The Coolest Godfather Ever instead of harry’s first living parental figure who didn’t treat him like shit.

did he actually do a good job? i would say a resounding yes. bearing in mind he was stuck in azkaban for twelve years (let’s not get into that), we only actively see him godparent harry for three years (plus when he was a baby). obviously baby harry was spoilt v much by his dogfather; what we see of sirius + teen harry also speaks favourably of him, i think. ok, little bit of a rough start what with the unhinged prisoner vibe, but the FIRST thing sirius does when free is go check up on harry- and he keeps tabs via crookshanks etc once at school, knows his interests well enough to send him the firebolt, and he values harry’s opinions enough to not murder peter on the spot despite his thirteen year revenge vendetta. obviously, the fact harry is the spitting image of someone sirius hasnt seen except for in his nightmares for over a decade doesn’t hurt, but he’s just so awkwardly sweet to harry afterwards- when he offers harry to come live with him, expecting him to refuse and completely understanding of it, it’s so endearing (and it always broke my heart how excited they both were about it- i bet sirius was thinking about another time a potter asked to live together). and from the start sirius ALWAYS speaks to harry like a whole person, not a child to be kept in the dark (which, if everyone else had done, looking at you dumbledore...)- the speech he gives him before he escapes is so important for harry to hear, especially from someone who knew his parents. sirius is always so careful to tell harry things about james and lily. now, it’s not that sirius treating harry like an adult would be ideal on its own, and i do think in part the issue is that he skipped his entire childhood and harry looks so much like james, but i also don’t think sirius actually treats harry too much like a grown man, apart from slipups- just like a grown teen. he advises him against threats, tells him the edgy backstories harry SHOULD know (and no other adult ever wants to tell him), looks after him as best he can (HE LIVES IN A CAVE EATING BONES TO LOOK OUT FOR HIM), listens to his teen melodrama. even when he’s fucking up by encouraging harry’s risk-taking i don’t think he’s treating him like an adult- he’s treating him like a *marauder*, because at that age, that’s what he or james would have done; being able to make informed choices is what sirius would have wanted at his age. i don’t think molly or sirius necessarily have the better argument- both make good points; sirius gets what harry wants and molly gets what harry might need even if he doesn’t want it, but that makes perfect sense- molly is an older woman who’s raised seven children, and sirius is in his early thirties and lived with kids for (1) year. james and sirius were order members by age /eighteen/ and sirius was in azkaban at /twenty-one/- he was basically a kid HIMSELF before he got put in the torture prison. i always found it so unfair that literally none of the other adults ever mention the debilitating mental issues he must be suffering from- remember the lifelong PTSD hagrid got from a MONTH there???- and that’s without even mentioning dumbledore’s purposeful exacerbating of them. not to say that mental health excuses poor parenting, but sirius both /isn’t a parent/ and really does very well at filling that role anyways, on the whole, so i think he can be cut some slack for once in his life. harry loves sirius SO MUCH and sirius loves him right back- and sirius teaches him some of the most important lessons in the whole series, even if he himself never managed to learn them- lessons that i really think shape the adult harry becomes, and the kind of lessons his parents might have taught him. so overall i’d give him kudos- and considering the absolute bullshit he’s living through, with james and lily dead, azkaban sucking the light out of him for over a decade, peter running free, and dumbledore QUARANTINING HIM IN THE HOUSE WHERE HIS ABUSIVE DEAD MOTHER IS (?!?!), i would say he does a stellar fucking job.

anyways harry & sirius’ relationship is so important to the series- even the GP was upset when sirius dies in OOTP, largely because everyone could see how bad it hit harry. that scene in dumbledore’s office? oof. they just care about each other so v much and we were robbed of a lifetime of sirius as harry’s absolute fav adult. if sirius had held onto harry that day- if dumbledore hadn’t decided to place him with abusive bigots for a plan which would only pay off by OOTP- i honestly think sirius would have outlived the series. because with harry he’d have been less unhinged by grief, able to testify properly, gotten support from other order members, not gone to azkaban- and with harry he would have had a reason to live. thirteen years of raising harry would have made harry the snarky little fucker he is at his core by age eleven, confident and happy and very good at quidditch indeed; thirteen years would have made sirius as whole as he can get. they would have patched things up with remus. there’d be no OOTP tragedy of errors. sirius would have punched dumbledore at some point. harry would have sent a pic of him and his new friends over week 1 of hogwarts and sirius would have punched through a wall and then calmly strolled over to hogwarts and taken ron’s pet rat over to minerva mcgonnagal, where unspeakable things happened to it. he would have gently butted heads with hermione (but won her over via crookshanks if nothing else) and gotten on very well with ron; snape would barely have been able to be such a dick to him because sirius would have gleefully sent him howlers for every minute of his day until he cracked. lucius on the school board terrorizing the other parents? not on sirius “billionaire heir to the toujours pur line” black’s watch- he’d happily invest even more obnoxious wealth into the school fund to get first call, not to mention lucius’ imperius excuse would not get very far with sirius around. “who’s nicholas flamel? we can’t ask adults- we’d get in trouble with the teachers and our parents are either muggles or wouldn’t know- oh wait nevermind, sirius, who’s nicholas flamel?” no more expelliarmus-ing for four years; harry Trained Duellist By Age 11 more like. dobby the house-elf? oi dobby sirius is family too- now spit it all out, won’t you? chamber of secrets? yeah, sirius knows what that is. parseltongue? yeah, sirius is familiar, and fuck those other kids for being weird to harry about it, does he want to come home for the holidays? weird creepy diary? oh, sirius’ family will have Magicke Moste Evile around somewhere. book 3 is just Harry’s Holiday: The Book because there’s no sirius subplot. you think snape would have dared treat remus the way he does with sirius hovering around paying half his checks? i think the fuck not. you bet your ass they had box seats for the whole of gryffindor house at the Quidditch World Cup. barty crouch? yeah, sirius knows THAT asshole- and remembers his son. catch harry whizzing through all the challenges minus the nerves ahead of time while sirius and remus do half the investigating for him. yule ball? no sweat, just go with ron; that’s what james and sirius would have done. if the maze went the way it goes in the books, “moody” wouldn’t even have been able to drag harry off without sirius intervening. and sirius “ptsd” black would have been The One Person who Got harry’s feelings in OOTP- not to mention sirius Skilled Legilimens black could have coopted that shit from snape and gotten harry up to scratch. sirius-raised-harry would have given umbridge twice as much shit. no kreacher lying here- and harry has sirius’ mirror anyways. so no massive drama in the ministry, and no suicidal recklessness / desperate first taste of freedom on sirius’ part means no veil incident even if they got there. hence book six through seven going Quite Differently. sirius shows up book six to be DADA teacher, why not. him and remus think it’d be funny, and besides he’s petty enough to steal the job from snape. move over firenze, new hot teacher in town. half the books are avoidable.

#answer #qui repond #sirius black #harry potter #dogfather #lmv #marauders

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