Everyone calls him a Black like it’s a promise. You learn quickly that it’s more like a threat to his mentality. Sirius sits beside you in the common room, long legs stretched out, boots hooked on the edge of the low table like he owns the place. Firelight catches in his dark hair, all sharp angles and careless confidence, and to anyone watching, he looks exactly like what he’s meant to be: pureblood, brilliant, untouchable. You know better.

You know the way his jaw tightens whenever someone mentions family. The way he laughs too loud when letters arrive and none of them have his name on the front. The way he flinches, not visibly, but enough, when the name Black is said with reverence instead of fear.

“You staring again?” he asks, not looking at you.

“You’re hard to ignore,” you say lightly.

That gets a grin. Crooked. Grateful. A little sad around the edges.

They call him the black sheep, but sheep don’t bite back. Sirius does.

You saw it the first time he blew up in History of Magic, voice sharp as broken glass as he argued with a Slytherin boy about bloodlines. Professor Binns droned on, oblivious, while Sirius burned bright and furious, like the idea of being told who he was supposed to be might actually kill him.

Afterward, he’d laughed it off, hands shoved in his pockets, swagger back in place.

“Family trait,” he’d said. “Explosive temper.”

You didn’t believe him then. You don’t believe him now.

Later that night, you find him on the Astronomy Tower, the wind tugging at his robes like it’s trying to drag him back to somewhere he’s already escaped. He doesn’t turn when you approach.

“They’ll disown me, you know,” he says suddenly. “If they haven’t already.”

You step closer. “For being sorted into Gryffindor?”

“For breathing wrong,” he snorts. “For existing wrong. For not wanting to be them.”

The moonlight makes his face look younger. Quieter. Less like the boy who laughs too loudly and more like the one who learned early that silence hurts worse.