Sirius is a fascinating character, and, frankly, an absolute mess. Heās not a bad person, but he is a person with a somewhat skewed sense of right and wrong and one with a history of deep trauma, starting with growing up at Grimmauld Place in the Black family, and compounded by his lengthy stay in Azkaban.
One aspect of Sirius that is well established in the books is that heās very impulsive. Heās intelligent but clearly not one to always think things through in great depth or detail, as we see in his dealings with Harry - he wants to be involved, he has to be where the action is, no matter how dangerous it is. He sees a problem, he has. to. act. Itās bravery, but not necessarily bravery in just cause. Sometimes itās recklessness for its own sake. He enjoys facing danger. He chastises Harry at least once for not choosing to face danger, because thatās what his father would have done, because thatās why he & James would have enjoyed it as teenagers.
Returning to the UK during the Goblet of Fire is aĀ prime example. He hasnāt been asked to, he canāt really do anything to affect a situation that Albus Dumbledore is already trying to handle, he has only rumors and second-hand stories. If he is seen, it will be his death or far worse. Itās an incredible risk.
Harry blames himself when he gets the first letter back from Sirius, assuming itās him saying his scar pained him that convinces Sirius to return, but Harry is apt to take on guilt and responsibility for all sorts of things that arenāt really his. Sirius was clearly already itching to return and his letter makes this obvious - heās āsuspiciousā of many things. Not without cause, but also not anything he is in a position to fix. But itās more important for him to be where the action is, than to be safe.
Then in The Order of the Phoenix, heās cooped up in Grimmauld Place at the behest of Dumbledore and the Order, which brings back all sorts of terrible memories and emotions for him, and makes him even more irrational and emotionally volatile.
Sirius wasnāt happy growing up in the Black family household, did not get along with his family and itās implied that they werenāt always kind to him and baldly favored his brother Regulus over him. Given what his motherās portrait is like, a constant stream of verbal abuse, at the very least, is not hard to imagine, nor is it a great mystery as to why he fled this home and ended up living with the Potters as a teenager.
This is also a pureblood family, much like the Malfoys or the Lestranges. They have a particular set of morals and customs that do not necessarily reflect the rest of the worldās. Blood purity, familial loyalty and keeping up the family name & reputation are clearly very central. Not such magnanimous things like loving your neighbor or giving to the poor. See the burned-off names on the family tapestry in the Black family home, for an illustration of what happens to those who do not uphold those values.
So Sirius returns to this house in OotP and canāt stand himself. Heās going stir-crazy, he starts fights with Snape basically to blow off steam, and then lets Snape get under his skin in return. He swans off to the Ministry of Magic to help Harry without any real plan or forethought. We see his fight with Bellatrix - heās enjoying himself immensely, then he slips up and he dies.
This is adult Sirius, by the way.
Teenage Sirius was all of this, plus the natural impetuousness and inexperience of youth. He seems to have a very black-and-white type of morality, and the familial loyalty he was taught at his parentsā knees has been shifted entirely to his friends instead. The target changed, the nature of it.. not necessarily.
He meets Severus Snape at the age of eleven and he hates him. And over the years at Hogwarts, that hatred only grows. Snape is everything Sirius personally hates - Dark magic, a Slytherin. Snape is also everything his family hated - half-blood, poor. Heās a neatly wrapped-up package of everything Sirius Black hates about himself and his family. So Snape is a natural target for Siriusās inward self-hatred to turn outward and slake itself on another.
And itās easy for Sirius to justify targeting Snape. Snape is a Slytherin. Snape likes Dark magic. Eventually Snape starts hanging out with the children of Death Eaters. He is āBadā.
And by their fifth year, Sirius deems that Snape might indeed become a threat to his friends. Therefore, it is only meet and right that he must be done away with.
In a certain way of looking at things, it makes perfect sense. To murder Snape is an act of justice because it is done to protect Siriusās friends. He knows Snape is suspicious of Remus Lupinās absences every month. So he uses this to his advantage.
How, exactly, Sirius managed to convince Snape to visit the Shack is not spelled out. I can only suspect that Sirius either passed the information along to him in some anonymous fashion, perhaps framing it as a letter from a āfriendā with altered handwriting and a fake signature.
Perhaps he goaded Snape, calling him a coward, and gave whatever the 70ā²s UK wizarding equivalent of I Triple Dog Dare Ya is, in front of the crowd of Slytherins that Snape was trying to impress and be accepted by, thus forcing him to do it to save face. Itās not said in the books, so all we can do is guess.
But I truly think it does not enter Siriusās mind that murdering Snape is not a morally defensible action. It makes perfect sense in his own head. Keep in mind this is a boy who was raised by Walburga Black. He might have rejected her and the rest of his family, but nobody suddenly just gains knowledge and wisdom they have never been taught, bestowed out of the sky.
As for Remus Lupin, well. I think Sirius assumed he would not be upset at having to pick bits of Snape out of his teeth in the morning, because he would see that Sirius did something that was purely to protect him and the other Marauders. I donāt think he really understood the full implications of it, because he didnāt think that far ahead (as we see he often does not).
Or that Remus would, in fact, be highly traumatized by having killed somebody (even Snape) as a werewolf, which was his greatest fear.
Or that this would, in itself, risk outing Remus as a werewolf to the rest of the school.
I do think Dumbledore would have tried to protect Remus, would have tried his best to cover up what the actual cause of Snapeās death was, because Dumbledore clearly did care about Remus, and it hardly would have been Remusās fault, but I personally think Remus would have left school of his own accord after such an incident. I donāt think, however, that Sirius would understand why, and that was his greatest failing as a teenager.
As an adult, I think Sirius did grow some, although he always retained an utter hatred of Snape (a mutual feeling obviously). He tells Harry that everyone has good and bad inside them. I think where Sirius sometimes struggles is acting on the good parts of himself and shutting the bad up. Or as one famous Alice once said, āI give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.ā
The tragedy of Sirius is that he isnāt stupid. He isnāt lacking in wisdom entirely, but he finds it difficult to control himself, to control his emotions and to act on that wisdom which he often voices. (See also: his comments about judging people on how they treat his inferiors, and his later unkindness dealing with Kreacher). Itās not that he doesnāt want to do what is right, but that his emotions and impulses get the better of him in the end.
The real irony is that Sirius and Snape are similar in many ways. If they hadnāt hated one another so intensely from the day they met on the Hogwarts Express, they might have been able to be friends.
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