[HPforGrownups] Re: Sirius a "pureblood"?

[Monika Huebner]

No: HPFGUIDX 37258

Marianne wrote:

> On the other hand, Sirius could be a pureblood who had been at the 
> top of his class in Muggle Studies, and so, might be well acquainted 
> with things like matches.  Or, his survival in the wild may be 
> attributed to his ability to transform into the dog, regardless of 
> pure, mixed or Muggle parentage.

Yes, of course you have a point here, the problem is that we don't
know - sigh. I don't completely buy the dog thing, though. I can't 
imagine him spending all his time in his animagus form, even though
we know from Peter's example that it's possible. He already spent
two winters outdoors, and I can't believe that even an animagus
would be able to survive all the time on dog food. He could have
been hunting then, but he is starved when we meet him in the
Shrieking Shack, and again at the end of GoF.

> Then, there is that motorcycle.  I don't think that giving a gasoline-
> powered, internal combustion engine vehicle the ability to fly is 
> simply a matter of waving one's wand and saying a spell.  I have no 
> canon evidence of this.  It just seems to me that if this was easily
> done, a lot of people would be trying it, and the Ministry would 
> never be able to stop it.  

I got the impression that this was one of the matters the Ministry
was really strict with. If everyone had a flying motorcycle or car, the
wizarding world wouldn't stay hidden from the Muggles for long.
Arthur never flies his car himself, and Molly is furious when her
sons are doing so to rescue Harry from the Dursleys. Maybe at the time
of VWI this was handled a bit less strictly because other matters
were more important. After all, Hagrid doesn't hesitate to take the
motorcycle from Sirius to take Harry to the Dursleys. But there's
one thought that just struck me, Dumbledore doesn't seem to
know the bike belongs to Sirius. I'm just listening to PS/SS again,
and he asks Hagrid where he got the bike from, and Hagrid answers
that "young Sirius Black lent it to me". So, does this imply that the
bike was Sirius' secret, like being an animagus?

> Or maybe Dad Black is/was a muggle who owned an auto repair shop and 
> young Sirius had fun tinkering with bits of engines, crank shafts, 
> master cylinders, etc.  and figured things out on his own.  

Well, that would make him a half blood, and this makes the most sense
to me, at least at the moment. Like someone else said, he also has
that wizard pride, so he might just be taking the best part from both
cultures, so to speak. 

> Maybe we can beg, plead or otherwise grovel to JKR, once she finishes 
> the series, to publish some sort of Potterverse encyclopedia that 
> would answer all of these questions...

Yes, I would like that a lot better than her writing "Hogwarts, a History",
although that might be quite interesting, too.


Dave Hardenbrook wrote:

> This is an interesting question about the nature of Sirius' family:
> What sort of family, Wizard or Muggle, would allow their son to go
> to prison without a trial??

That's what struck me about this affair, too. Other people have already
provided some answers, like his family being dead or ashamed of their
son, the mass murderer. Well, I don't want to declare him a tragic orphan,
but his family rejecting him because of his crimes makes quite a lot of
sense. It seems that no one except Dumbledore is actually helping him
in GoF, maybe Lupin, but we don't really know it. Everyone still believes
he's guilty, so the only family he has is Harry. Maybe we'll learn more
about it once we get to know the old crowd, at least I hope so.

Monika