Dirty!Harry and Stoned!Harry

[dicentra63]

No: HPFGUIDX 43340

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "ssk7882" <skelkins at a...> wrote:
> 
> Here we touch on TBAY's Stoned!Harry: Harry as the living embodiment 
> of the Philosopher's Stone, as an agent of spiritual renewal and 
> transcendence.  By intervening in the Shrieking Shack, Harry is not 
> really saving Pettigrew at all. ...  He is saving *Sirius* (and al
so Remus), just as 
> James once saved Sirius and Remus by intervening in the prank, and 
> just as Harry and James will soon symbolically unite to save Sirius 
> from the dementors.  By intervening to insist upon the recognition of 
> a higher moral code than "he deserves it," Harry is acting as an 
> agent of transformative and redemptive moral change, one which can 
> serve to heal both the wounds of injustice and the wounds of the 
> past.   

As true as all this is, it seems so incongruous that Harry was on the
verge of killing Sirius only an hour or so earlier.  Harry's rage at
Sirius had been simmering ever since he overheard that conversation in
The Three Broomsticks.  He even asserted to Lupin that Sirius
"deserved" the dementor's kiss.  His impulse to kill Sirius was pure
hatred and vengeance, not at all different from Sirius's desire to
kill Pettigrew.

So what changed?  What persuaded Harry within that short time to
recognize this higher moral code?  It's understandable that he'd
decide to save his father's friends, based on what he believes his
father would have done, but why didn't his rage turn to Pettigrew? 
Why don't we see Harry himself killing him, or at least pointing a
wand at him and trying to get up the nerve to do it?  I'll have to
read Shrieking Shack again for clues, but I really don't remember
Harry having any epiphany apart from realizing that Sirius is innocent.

--Dicentra