i am always thinking about harry and Sirius parallels because no two characters in the series are as similar as these two and it never fails to kill me. both ran away from abusive homes because they’d had enough and found a surrogate family with their best friends and their family (and this is the first time Sirius lays eyes on harry post Azkaban, running away just like he did)
“She deserved it,” Harry said, breathing very fast. “She deserved what she got. You keep away from me.” He fumbled behind him for the latch on the door. “I’m going,” Harry said. “I’ve had enough.” (POA)
“You ran away from home?” “When I was about sixteen,” said Sirius. “I’d had enough.” (OOTP)
they go all angry caps lock while defending each other
*
“DON’T TALK ABOUT SIRIUS LIKE THAT!”* Harry yelled. He was on his feet again, furious, ready to fly at Dumbledore, who had plainly not understood Sirius at all, how brave he was, how much he had suffered... (OOTP)
“HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HARRY?” roared Black. “HOW DARE YOU FACE HIM? HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT JAMES IN FRONT OF HIM?” (POA)
they’re deeply unimpressed with voldy and taunt their cowardly enemies about saying the name
“Well, I’m terrified now,” said Harry sarcastically. “I s’pose Lord Voldemort’s just a warm-up act compared to you three — what’s the matter?” he said, for Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had all looked stricken at the sound of the name. “He’s your dad’s mate, isn’t he? Not scared of him, are you?” (OOTP)
*“Voldemort, teach me tricks?” *he said. Pettigrew flinched as though Black had brandished a whip at him. “What, scared to hear your old master’s name?” said Black. (POA)
they’re in the exact same circumstances in ootp - forced back into abusive homes by dumbledore (and then harry is further retraumatized at hogwarts by umbridge), begin to break down as a result. their ways of coping with that trauma are also very similar. they prefer being in dangerous, risky, life threatening, adrenaline charged situations over being in the homes they were abused in. sirius is partly joking here but the fact still is that he straight up prefers being on the run from the ministry (while living in a cave eating rats, no less) and risking azkaban/the dementors kiss again over being back in grimmauld place. similarly, harry states that he would rather face a dragon - even though he is more terrified than ever before in the lead up to the first task - than be back at privet drive.
Somehow, the knowledge that he would rather be here and facing a dragon than back on Privet Drive with Dudley was good to know; it made him feel slightly calmer. (GOF)
“Personally, I’d have welcomed a dementor attack. A deadly struggle for my soul would have broken the monotony nicely. You think you’ve had it bad, at least you’ve been able to get out and about, stretch your legs, get into a few fights. . . . I’ve been stuck inside for a month.” (OOTP)
they’re the only ones who truly understand the other’s situation and vouch for each other’s autonomy and repeatedly defend each other (harry’s voice literally breaks and he has to turn away from dumbledore when he thinks about how much sirius hated that house and how painful it was for him to be back there)
*“Yeah, he did hate it!” *said Harry, his voice cracking, turning his back on Dumbledore and walking away. (...) “You made him stay shut up in that house and he hated it, that’s why he wanted to get out last night —” “I was trying to keep Sirius alive,” said Dumbledore quietly. *“People don’t like being locked up!” *Harry said furiously, rounding on him. “You did it to me all last summer —” (OOTP)
“Since when did someone have to be in the Order of the Phoenix to ask questions?” asked Sirius. *“Harry’s been trapped in that Muggle house for a month. He’s got the right to know what’s been happen —” *(OOTP)
when they are in a bad state, they isolate themselves in similar ways - to the point where when harry is hating and blaming himself after the attack on arthur weasley because he thinks he was possessed, he locks himself up in the same room that sirius does when he’s depressed, with buckbeak (and there are like fifty rooms in grimmauld, so), and stops speaking to everyone, just like sirius. (also interesting how this further mimics their abuse; sirius is spending his time shut up specifically in his mother’s room, and harry is locking himself up in a room and not eating which is exactly how the dursleys punished him). but the difference is that harry still has a support system; when harry does this, ron, hermione, and ginny soon go get him and are like “hello we’re here for you, stop avoiding us and locking yourself away like a dumbass”. while almost everyone who would’ve done that for sirius is either dead or otherwise incapacitated - harry very badly wants to help but he’s a kid with his own shit going on and it’s not his responsibility (i imagine that remus is definitely some comfort but he’s away on missions a lot and can’t do everything)
When he heard Mrs. Weasley calling his name softly up the stairs around lunchtime he retreated farther upstairs and ignored her. It was around six o’clock in the evening that the doorbell rang (...) Harry merely settled himself more comfortably against the wall of Buckbeak the hippogriff’s room where he was hiding, trying to ignore how hungry he felt as he fed Buckbeak dead rats. (OOTP)
...soon, however, he was moodier and surlier than before, talking less to everybody, even Harry, and spending increasing amounts of time shut up in his mother’s room with Buckbeak. (OOTP)
even at their lowest points, they still try so hard to be cheerful and supportive for other people’s sake; harry after his horrible detention with umbridge plasters on a smile for ron while his hand is literally still bleeding from the blood quill, and sirius is forcing himself to laugh and be a good host for everyone else, despite his misery that everyone will be gone soon and he’ll be left all alone in grimmauld again.
“Harry, I did it, I’m in, I’m Keeper!” “What? Oh — brilliant!” said Harry, trying to smile naturally, while his heart continued to race and his hand throbbed and bled. (OOTP)
That night’s meal should have been a cheerful one with Mr. Weasley back amongst them; Harry could tell Sirius was trying to make it so, yet when his godfather was not forcing himself to laugh loudly at Fred and George’s jokes or offering everyone more food, his face fell back into a moody, brooding expression. (OOTP)
but they have a tendency to lash out, especially when others try to take care of them and tell them to do things that they knew deep down they should be doing for their own safety (practicing occlumency, not leaving grimmauld). both do this in the same way too - make petty, pointed comments to hit the other person where it hurts and that they don’t truly mean (i think harry’s anger burns out quicker though, while it’s implied that sirius freezes out harry for weeks, which is very leo vs scorpio of them)
“You can’t tell me you’ve stopped having funny dreams,” Hermione said now, “because Ron told me last night you were muttering in your sleep again...” Harry threw Ron a furious look. Ron had the grace to look ashamed of himself. “You were only muttering a bit,” he mumbled apologetically. “Something about ‘just a bit farther.’” “I dreamed I was watching you lot play Quidditch,” Harry lied brutally. “I was trying to get you to stretch out a bit farther to grab the Quaffle.” (OOTP)
“I would, I just don’t want you chucked back in Azkaban!” said Harry. There was a pause in which Sirius looked out of the fire at Harry, a crease between his sunken eyes. “You’re less like your father than I thought,” he said finally, a definite coolness in his voice. “The risk would’ve been what made it fun for James.” (OOTP)
they tried to protect the people they loved most in the world and inadvertently ended up causing their deaths instead and blame themselves for it (harry does this for cedric too, and then by deathly hallows he’s just. blaming himself for every death in the wizarding world ever)
It was his fault Sirius had died; it was all his fault. If he, Harry, had not been stupid enough to fall for Voldemort’s trick, if he had not been so convinced that what he had seen in his dream was real, if he had only opened his mind to the possibility that Voldemort was, as Hermione had said, banking on Harry’s love of playing the hero . . . (OOTP)
“Harry . . . I as good as killed them,” he croaked. “I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me. . . . I’m to blame, I know it. . . . ” (POA)
there are many more of course - harry is smeared by the papers and ministry in ootp just like sirius (”And with a surge of sympathy for his godfather, Harry thought that Sirius was probably the only person he knew who could really understand how he felt at the moment, because Sirius was in the same situation; nearly everyone in the Wizarding world thought Sirius a dangerous murderer and a great Voldemort supporter and he had had to live with that knowledge for fourteen years.”), and later there’s a price on his head as Undesirable #1, their additional experiences of imprisonment (most of the twelve years sirius spent in a cell in azkaban harry spent locked in a cupboard), harry’s first instinct upon discovering that sirius betrayed his parents was to kill him just like sirius tried to kill peter (after trying to take responsibility for harry of course), they’re affected similarly by dementors, both went for large amounts of time without enough food and are malnourished at points in the series (“he made a point of sending regular food packages up to the cave in the mountain for Sirius; after last summer, Harry had not forgotten what it felt like to be continually hungry.”), the parallels between dudley and regulus as the golden children while harry and sirius are scapegoats, both go soft for ron weasley and give him expensive gifts, become reckless godfathers to orphans of war, they try to protect each other throughout the books which of course ends in harry trying to save sirius and sirius dying when he tries to save harry, etc.
addition: also i’d never noticed before that harry LAUGHS when he goes after bellatrix (“’and he knows!’ said harry with a mad laugh to match bellatrix’s own” “harry laughed again because he knew it would incense her”). harry laughing madly after losing the person he loves most and going after their killer…. harry laughing while taunting bellatrix…. he’s truly his (now dead) godfather’s godson.
Author is http://snufflesirius.tumblr.com/, but their blog seems down now.
