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[dicentra63]

No: HPFGUIDX 39336

It's late, and the coolness of the Bay's waters is now the coolness 
of the air.  Dicentra, stiff and achy from scrubbing the deck of the 
Big Bang, slips into the water and dog-paddles to shore.  

Hey, if Padfoot can do it from Azkaban, she thinks, I can do this 
little stretch.  Dripping and cold, she stumbles toward the museum 
and, finding its doors unlocked, enters and makes her way to the 
third floor dioramas, leaving a trail of water and sand as she goes.

She stops again at the diorama called "Shrieking Shack."  The lights 
are dimmed but she can still see Sirius Black and Ron.  Sirius has 
that waxy skin, yellow teeth, and insane rictus going.  Dirty black 
hair.  Yeech.  Good thing he cleans up good.

Dicentra sits cross-legged in front of the diorama like Harry in 
front of Erised.  She has been obsessed with something ever since she 
dragged Pip in here.  It was that bit about what Sirius's main flaw 
was.  Pip insists it's cowardice (to which Dicentra gives *no* heed), 
but Dicentra herself declared that it was overconfidence in his own 
abilities.  But is that really it?  Dicentra had worked herself into 
a froth over the "cowardice" comment and may not have been thinking 
so clearly.

After all, Sirius has been accused of having many flaws: arrogance, 
immaturity, promiscuity, hot-headedness... but none of them really 
sit right, not as your typical fatal flaw, anyway. Not as That Which 
Always Makes Him Screw Up. Besides, some of those accusations have 
zero basis in canon (promiscuity), and others are assumed because of 
the Prank (immaturity, hot-headedness).

Dicentra thinks perhaps the best clues lie in a pattern of behavior 
that has actually been laid down in canon.  We know so little about 
Sirius, really, but we do know this:

He's a dog.

Yep, a dog.  And on this list it's pretty well established that 
Sirius's primary virtue is loyalty, such as you would find with a 
dog.  And as is common with human beings, our virtues are often tied 
in closely with our flaws; at times our virtues *are* our flaws, when 
untempered by other virtues.  

Isn't it possible that Sirius is loyal to a fault, so to speak?  Is 
he so determined to be loyal to his "pack" that his single-minded 
attempts to protect the ones he loves inevitably turn out badly?  But 
how could protecting someone be a flaw?  Easy: when you take it upon 
yourself to single-handedly effect that protection.

Dicentra rolls the wheel of the diorama to the place right before 
Snape throws off the Invisibility Cloak.  Lupin is explaining that 
Sirius had played a trick on Snape while they were in school.  She 
presses the button and the sound comes on:

"It served him right," [Sirius] sneered. "Sneaking around, trying to 
find out what we were up to... hoping he could get us expelled...."

Dicentra pushes the button and the scene freezes.  There has been 
plenty of speculation as to what Snape could have done to Sirius to 
piss him off that badly.  Were they rivals for a witch's attention?  
Maybe, but there's no canon to support it.  The "we" and the "us" in 
Sirius's comment are clue enough: Snape was threatening his pack.  So 
what does Sirius do?  He takes it upon himself to teach Snape a 
lesson.  We know he didn't tell James what he planned, and it appears 
he didn't tell Lupin (who cares about Peter).  So it was just he 
himself, Sirius the Protector, who went off by himself; disaster was 
averted only because James found out in time (did Peter run and tell 
him?).  If he had consulted with the others, they probably would have 
thought up a far more satisfying and less dangerous way to deal with 
Snape.

Skip to a few years later, when Voldemort targets the Potters.  
Again, Sirius comes up with his own plan, ignoring Dumbledore's offer 
to keep the secret.  Turning the wheel again, to the part where Harry 
accuses Sirius of betraying his parents:

"Harry... I as good as killed them," [Sirius] croaked.  "I persuaded 
Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them 
to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me.... I'm to blame, I know 
it...."

Freeze again.  Sirius takes all the blame because he recognizes it 
was *his* and only his plan to save them.  And it would have worked, 
too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids... er... if Peter 
hadn't been a traitor.  Sirius should have known there was a 50/50 
chance that Peter was the mole, but no, he was sold on *his* idea.

Dicentra's throat tightens.  She doesn't like ferreting out Sirius's 
flaws like this.  Sirius *was* genuinely stupid to trust Peter 
instead of Remus, but he just *had* to Be The Lone Protector.  
Couldn't let someone else do it for once.

Fast-forward again to just past Pettigrew's appearance.  There's a 
foggy little sub-diorama going on as Sirius narrates the events of 
the summer of 1993.  In Azkaban, we see Sirius as he reads the 
article about the Weasleys, sees Scabbers aka Wormtail and that he's 
in a position to hurt Harry.  Sirius says:

"It was as if someone had lit a fire in my head, and the dementors 
couldn't destroy it.... It wasn't a happy feeling...it was an 
obsession...but it gave me strength, it cleared my mind."

Once again, seeing a member of his pack threatened, Sirius takes it 
upon himself to save Harry.  Being able to reprise the Lone Protector 
role put life back into him. There has been commentary on this list 
wondering why Sirius didn't just send Dumbledore an owl upon arriving 
on the mainland: "Dear Sir. The Weasley kid's rat is Peter 
Pettigrew.  Yours sincerely, Sirius Black."  Or why he didn't contact 
Remus.  Or...

Well, besides the fact that it would have made an Awfully Short Novel 
(WARPDRIVE!), Sirius didn't contact anyone because that's not how 
Sirius operates.  

Other examples of Sirius Going It Alone: trying to assume the sole 
care of Harry after the Potters were murdered, breaking into the 
castle to get Peter (he *did* try to include someone else in his 
plans, but that didn't work, did it?), trying to finish Peter off by 
himself, and taking on Werewolf!Remus after he transformed (but he 
didn't have much choice in that case). He's Lone Protector, and he 
doesn't need anyone else.

Or at least, that *was* his modus operandi.  The next time Harry is 
in trouble (GoF), we don't see Sirius trying to Go It Alone: he's 
been corresponding with Dumbledore, and he's been taking Dumbledore's 
insructions (where to find a cave to hide, etc.). No striking out on 
his own.  No heroics.  And no screw-ups.  Let's hope he's recognized 
that he can't Protect The Pack on his own, and that we don't see him 
reverting to Lone Protector in OoP and the rest.

Now, *why* did think he had to Go It Alone?  Dicentra stands and 
swats the sand off her legs as she heads back to the Big Bang.  That 
will have to be another night...

--Dicentra, who's glad *one* of the Potterverse heartthrobs is 
getting his act together