Sirius as womaniser

[blaise_42]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C7254
From: blaise_42
Subject: Re: Sirius as womaniser
Reply To: [Yahoo! #7235] Re: Sirius as womanizer
Date: 8/19/00 5:21 am  (ET)

<<But when I talk to fans and read fanfic, one of the universally held
beliefs is that Sirius is a bit of a ladies' man. There is not one shred
of evidence in the actual text to back this up IMO! It doesn't even seem
to fit his canonical character.>>

Well, as one of the fanfic authors who like the idea of Sirius being
at least vaguely attractive to girls (and I'm not even a member of the
'We Seriously Love Sirius' club, before you ask!), I suppose I ought to
try to show my fellow authors' reasoning.

First of all, the Sirius I'm talking about is not the man who survived
Azkaban. I'm talking about the young Sirius, from before his life
was destroyed. I don't believe that the post-Azkaban Sirius is
a womaniser. Now, we've got about three lines of information on what
Sirius was like before then in the canon, so you'll understand why we
have to project our imagination a little.

According to Rosmerta, Sirius and his friends were in the pub in the
evenings, and they used to make her laugh. Sirius was very bright, a
top student, and a troublemaker worse than the Weasley twins, according
to Minerva. We also know that he was handsome at the time that Harry's
parents got married. And that's about it for the canonical impression
of the pre-Azkaban Sirius.

I think that it is safe to say that being in Azkaban for twelve years
of one's youth is enough to change a character dramatically. Sirius was
unrecognisable in appearance when he escaped from Azkaban; he could be
almost unrecognisable in character as well. Certainly there is a HUGE
difference in his character from PoA to GoF, but that's another story
(on which I would appreciate thoughts; it's been bothering me).

Therefore, though the post-Azkaban Sirius does not seem to be in any
way a womaniser, that doesn't mean he could not have been one before he
was imprisoned.

The snapshot of Sirius' character before Azkaban does not, to me, rule
out the possibility of him being a womaniser, and I've never had any
difficulty believing it when it's drawn well in a fanfic. We have only
that tiny image to go on, it's up to us to fill in the empty spaces
around it, and this particular interpretation seems to me to fit in well.

~Blaise.