thinking about how in gof, sirius says “ever since i found out snape was teaching here, i’ve wondered why dumbledore hired him” and goes onto explain how snape was famous for the dark arts at school and part of a slytherin gang that all turned out to be death eaters (who we later find out were attacking students with dark magic). so he’s one of the only people to immediately be like “why the fuck is dumbledore letting snape teach children”. then says that as far he knows snape was never even accused of being a death eater but many of them were never caught. but when ron keeps insisting that snape must be a death eater, sirius disagrees and reasons it out, because he doesn’t think it makes sense based on the facts, and also because: “there’s still the fact that dumbledore trusts snape, and i know dumbledore trusts where a lot of other people wouldn’t, but i just can’t see him letting snape teach at hogwarts if he’d ever worked for voldemort.” (so even while questioning dumbles, sirius clearly still has way too much faith in him. which makes everything in ootp extra infuriating). anyways, sirius was willing to give snape the benefit of the doubt on being a death eater, like, he’s perfectly capable of being rational about snape and not jumping to conclusions despite his hatred of him!
and then at the end of gof he finds out that snape WAS in fact a death eater, and sirius has no proof or reason to believe that snape has actually changed, all he has to work off of is that Dumbledore Trusts Snape, even though all sirius knows is that snape literally tried to hand him (and remus) to the fucking dementors and outed remus, and witnessed snape going unhinged at his godson and two other teenagers in the same scene.
and now he has to work alongside snape knowing that he apparently paid no consequences for his death eater past, wasn’t even so much as accused of being one (not unlike lucius malfoy and karkaroff and the others who did deals with the ministry and clearly haven’t changed their ways, who sirius shows bitterness towards in gof) while sirius was branded as one by the ministry and the whole wizarding world and unjustly imprisoned for it for 12 years without even getting a trial.
and snape is constantly taunting him about the fact that he can’t leave the house and help the order because of the world STILL thinking that sirius is a death eater and murderer because of that very same unjust imprisonment that the fascist hate group snape joined directly fucking caused, and snape the actual former death eater is able to do these things and live freely because he got away with it all. and he might complain about it but sirius still puts up with all of that for months along with all the other shit he has to deal with in ootp.
then he’s told that snape has to teach harry occlumency, and makes sure to sit with harry rather than letting snape talk to him alone, and is apparently the ONLY one to question this clearly terrible stupid ass decision and ask why dumbledore can’t teach him instead. yeah sirius starts off with a petty comment or two but harry even looks to sirius to intervene on his behalf, and sirius does. sirius calmly and firmly warns snape not to use occlumency lessons to give harry a hard time, to which snape responds by insulting not only his fifteen year old godson but his dead best friend, that voldemort, who snape WORKED FOR, literally murdered, to sirius’s face. OF COURSE SIRIUS IS GONNA LOSE IT. ANYONE WOULD. and the first thing sirius says is “i don’t care if dumbledore thinks you’ve reformed, i know better” and refers to snape being lucius malfoy’s lapdog bc he knows they were fellow death eater buddies at hogwarts and during the war, like wow i wonder why sirius would have doubts about snape’s loyalties, especially after what he just said??!? this is not an example of sirius’s supposed ~crazy uncontrollable temper~, any normal person would want to throw down at something like that, personally i think sirius showed an impressive amount of self control for managing to wait that long to try to hex snape. AND he makes sure to give harry the mirrors specifically so harry can contact him if snape treats him badly, because that’s all sirius can do at that point when he’s powerless and his input is being completely ignored.
anyways it’s truly a tragedy that sirius never even got to find out that snape was the death eater who told voldemort about the prophecy, i think sirius deserved to know and go completely unhinged at snape!!! as was his right!!!!!
