defense of Sirius and James

[joym999 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19322

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Susan Hall" <shall at s...> wrote:
> This is my first post in this group, so please excuse any 
inadvertant breach
> of group conventions.
> 
Welcome Susan.  Great post.

> I confess to feeling a bit baffled by a couple of recent posts 
describing
> Sirius as "commitmentphobic".  Not only is there nothing in the 
text to
> support this (about the only time we hear of  him pre Azkaban he is 
trying
> to assume the sole care of an orphaned 15month old child) it 
completely
> contrasts with my view of him and James, in that I tend to think 
that not
> being in a lifetime relationship at 22 is pretty normal, and James 
and Lily
> are definitely on the young side to have settled down, especially 
since
> normal wizard lifetimes exceed Muggle ones by about 50% apparently. 
Had
> Voldemort not intervened I  could have imagined James at age 28 or
> thereabouts coming home from a long day at wherever he was earning 
all those
> Galleons, tripping over Harry and his bratty siblings, having a 
huge row
> with Lily in which she works off her frustrations at the 
sidetracking of her
> magical career and he works off all his frustrations at his missed
> opportunities to play the field, culminating with his final insult 
"You get
> more like your sister Petunia every day", a slammed door, and a 
trip out to
> meet Sirius in the pub, where he makes bitter remarks about women 
into his
> pint and flirts outrageously with the half Veela barmaid just to 
prove he
> isn't past it....

Aside from being extremely amusing, this post makes an interesting 
point.  We really know very, very little about James and Lily except 
that they were very smart.  We tend to make a lot of assumptions 
about them. I think that there are some things we can surmise, though.

One thing that I think is implied in the books is that they were very 
involved in the War Against Voldy.  It is even possible that they 
married early and had a child quickly because they knew there was a 
great possibility that they would not survive.  Judging by the wizard 
celebrations in Chapter 1 of PS/SS, this War was as overwhelming and 
all-encompassing as WWII was for muggles.  I doubt anyone on this 
list is old enough to remember WWII, but I have read a lot and heard 
stories from my parents, who were small children during WWII, and I 
believe it was the kind of situation where everyones life was 
affected, almost all the time, and it was hard to think about 
anything else.

I imagine that James and Lily were sort of like the WWII resistance 
fighters.  Brave, dedicated, secretive by necessity, loyal, 
principled.  And amusing as though Susans portrait is, I think their 
lives were substantially different.

--Joywitch