ϡ for a childhood headcanon. Sirius Black.
Ah! Thank you so much! I really, really didn't expect to get any of these! Thank you so, so much for actually sending one! ^_^
Even when he was small, as I understand it, Sirius found flaws in the Black Family values. He rebelled against their purist ideals in every way he could, even (canonically) putting up pictures of muggle tech and muggle girls in his room.
Before he went to Hogwarts, he ran away from the house and wandered around town at every possible opportunity. During these aimless walks, he'd often come across stray dogs. Dogs that nobody wanted, yes, but also dogs that nobody could control. They went where they pleased, ate whatever they could find, and chose their friends and lovers at their own discretion. They were free, and with the exception of a few who couldn't quite handle the stray life-- who he helped with more regular supplies of food and water once he saw the condition they were in-- they were happy. They were mostly mutts and mixes and mongrels and generally the kind of "imperfect" or "indeterminate" dogs that snotty people threw away-- people who were just like his family. Even being rejects, these dogs had a freedom and happiness and love-inspired loyalty to their pack that the children of the Black Family had never been and never would be able to attain.
I like to think he made friends with those stray dogs when he was a kid, and remembered them for the rest of his life. I like to think that when he chose what animal he was going to have the ability to change into at will for the rest of his natural life, he thought back to those stray mutts and the way they opened their mouths wide in great big grins whenever they barked to greet him; the way they jumped on him and knocked him down and licked him all over and bounced around him like he was the most exciting and important thing in the world; the way they got distracted at random and went off to play with each other without a care in the world; the way that one big black lab with short fur had come to him in the middle of an otherwise quiet walk and tugged at his sleeves until he followed her to the crawlspace beneath the porch of a house that had been abandoned years ago-- leading little Sirius to the place where she had given birth to four shaggy grey-black puppies of "indeterminate" breed and allowing him to hold the living heartbeat of a creature that came into the world unmarked and unclaimed and wholly unfettered within his pale, tiny hands. I like to think he remembered that symbol of the freedom and fragility of which life is meant to consist, that year of looking after stray puppies that had only their mother and the pack to rely upon and no owners to mold them into what they were "supposed" to be, and took it into consideration when choosing his animagus species.
I have a headcanon, in other words, that Sirius Black III based his choice of species on the need to keep Remus company (there can't be just one canine in the group, now can there?), the hilarity of scaring people with false grim sightings, and his memories of all those stray dogs who taught him that freedom and diversity and happiness truly are possible in this world.
