TBAY: Another Flying Hedgehog

[dicentra63]

No: HPFGUIDX 39519

Dicentra is awakened from a much-needed nap by a tremendous commotion
on the beach.  Elkins, Cindy, Pippin, and Pip are playing catch with a
couple of flying hedgehogs: Evil!Lupin and Evil!McGonagall.  Poor
things are scared out of their minds, and they have rolled themselves
into tight balls.  

But the women are shrieking with laughter and paying no mind to the
havoc they wreak as they thoughtlessly topple kiosks, folding
recliners, sand castles, and not a few can(n)ons as they toss and
catch with all gusto.  Dicentra is inclined to give them a piece of
her mind for waking her up, but she knows that Cindy has a new,
reinforced paddle, 

@=====())))

Elkins is Not Someone You Mess With, and Pip and Pippin have forged
their own reputations as LOONs...

<@
 /___'

... and formidable CARPers.  After all, Pippin literally *invented*
the term FLINT, and Pip conjured the dog Prank.

Nope.  There is definitely no Beating Them.  So Dicentra decides to
Join Them:

Sirius Black Is Ever So Evil.

No, really.  But not in the sense that he was made out to be in PoA. 
Sirius is Evil for reasons no one suspected.  He's not Voldemort's
servant, and he's not out to kill Harry.  

He's the grandson of the Dark Wizard Grindelwald, and he's going to
avenge his grandfather's defeat and Rule the World, just as his
grandfather attempted to do before Dumbledore stopped him.

This is how it works: Sirius's mother, Andromeda Grindelwald Black,
joins the Death Eaters right at the beginning of Voldemort's Reign of
Terror.  She figures that since Voldemort is gunning for Dumbledore to
begin with, he'd make a good ally.  If she herself can't get
Dumbledore, maybe one of the other DEs will, and that is fine with her.  

But it isn't long before Andromeda discovers that Voldemort is
actually *afraid* of Dumbledore. What an idiot! she thinks. How are
you supposed to defeat someone you're afraid of?  But before Andromeda
can bow out of the DEs and strike out on her own, she's ambushed by an
Auror and AK'ed.  

Enter Sirius.  Enraged at his mother's death and determined to carry
out her mission, Sirius decides to take the opposite tack.  Instead of
fighting *with* Voldemort, he joins Dumbledore's side and fights
against him.  After all, when he takes over the world, he can't very
well have Voldie and Co. challenging his rule, can he?  Perceiving
that Dumbledore is the stronger of the two foes, he's counting on
Dumbledore to eliminate his rival for him. Then as part of
Dumbledore's trusted inner circle, Sirius will be in the perfect
position to kill Dumbledore when he least expects it.

Elkins, Cindy, Pip, and Pippin have stopped playing catch and are
staring at Dicentra in disbelief.  Where the sam hill did *that* come
from?

"Aren't you the one who's always sticking up for Sirius?" asks Pippin.

"Yes," answers Dicentra.  "That's why I've discovered that he's Ever
So Evil.  I can't bear to have him be out of style."

"Uh, do you think you could cite a little canon there?" says Cindy,
fingering the yellow flag in her back pocket.

Dicentra grows visibly paler.  She begins to back away slowly.  

"For example, maybe you could explain some of Sirius's actual actions
in light of this theory," suggests Pip.

Dicentra brightens, but only a little.

OK.  Sirius is determined to go deeeeeeep undercover for his mission.
He goes through Hogwarts as a normal student and pretends to befriend
James, Remus, and Peter, whom he plans to use to his own advantage.  

But then there's young Severus Snape, who has this nasty habit of
putting two and two together.  Snape isn't fooled at all by Sirius's
amateur attempts to Be Good.  No, there's something phony about the
way Sirius compliments Dumbledore's choice of hat or robe.  Snape
begins to dig into Sirius's background and discovers his heritage. Two
plus two is four, and Snape is sitting in the catbird seat. 

He threatens to tell Dumbledore, but Sirius convinces him to keep his
mouth shut if Sirius tells him where Lupin goes every month.  So
Sirius tells him about the knot on the Whomping Willow, and the rest
is history.  Yes, Sirius *was* trying to kill Snape, but that
goody-goody James had to interfere.  Sirius vows to get back at James
someday, but he's patient.  He can wait.  If he kills him now, it will
be too easy to trace him to the crime.

So finally his chance comes.  Voldemort targets James and Lily, and
Sirius persuades James to use him as his Secret-Keeper.  But there is
no last-minute switch.  Sirius, who is on to Peter's little double
life, *accidentally* lets it slip that he still hasn't learned how to
throw off Imperius. Peter tells Voldemort where Sirius is, and
Voldemort "forces" him to divulge the secret.  

But unfortunately for Sirius, he also has an Evil Overlord moment and
blurts out part of his Master Plan.  Peter hears him say he wants
James and Lily dead.  So after the Potters are murdered, and after
Sirius shows up and does his grief-stricken act for Hagrid, he goes
after Peter to silence him.

But Peter's had a few hours to think, so he both fakes his own death
and frames Sirius for the 12 muggle murders so that Sirius can't come
after him anymore.

And it works for 12 years, but then Sirius finds out where Peter is,
and PoA comes into existence.

Dicentra looks expectantly at the four, but they're not convinced at
all.  

"Excuse me," says Elkins. "But Peter confessed to having betrayed the
Potters.  How do you explain that?"

"Easy.  Post-hypnotic suggestion."

Cindy pulls the yellow flag from her back pocket and winds up.

Dicentra has to talk really fast. "Wait! This isn't a yellow flag
violation, I swear!  Post-hypnotic suggestion is a real-life thing. 
I'm not making it up!"

Cindy hesitates.  She pulls out her rule-book and thumbs through the
pages while Dicentra continues.

"Remember how Fred and George learned how to pick locks, muggle style,
just in case it came in handy?  Well, Sirius learned muggle hypnotism
for the same reason.  Because it's not magical, wizards tend not to
know what it is or to guard against it.  Sirius decided that Peter
would be his designated scapegoat, so while at Hogwarts he planted in
his mind the suggestion that when Sirius says "Do you deny it?" Peter
would confess to whatever he was being accused of.  And lo and behold,
on page 374, Sirius says to Peter "You sold Lily and James to
Voldemort. Do you deny it?" And like Pavlov's dog, Peter crumples into
a heap and confesses.  It works beautifully, because it's Sirius's
word against his."  

Dicentra's face is flushed with the exhilaration of having actually
used canon. "Besides, this theory explains so many things: why Sirius
doesn't have a Dark Mark, and why none of the DEs fingered him, and
why everyone including Dumbledore knows he was the Secret-Keeper, and
how he could survive Azkaban (he had only dark thoughts anyway). 
We've got the additional bonus of being "outside of the box" as David
insists we go. Because instead of having one be the scapegoat and one
guilty, the scapegoat IS guilty.  But not in the way people thought. 
Sirius manages to spin the whole book on its ear during the Shrieking
Shack scene. Who's going to suspect that the guy who we thought was
guilty and got cleared is really guilty of something else?  Worthy of
JKR, I say."

But the four are still not convinced.  Pippin raises her hand and
talks without being called on.

"So what's up with Harry?  Why did Sirius invite him to live with him?
 Isn't his care for Harry a sign he's a good guy?"

Dicentra's mind whirls out of control for a moment.  Yes. 
Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain.  He and his rebels killed the
royal family but they spared the heir alive.  Franco groomed Juan
Carlos to be his successor.  Trained him in the army, kept him by his
side, taught him to be a good little fascist.  Sirius is doing the
same with Harry.  He's seen the signs surrounding Harry, just as
Dumbledore has.  He knows Harry is Destined For Greatness.  He wants
Harry to be his successor when he rules the world.  Better cozy up to
Harry than to have Harry try to unseat Sirius later on.  "Keep your
friends close, but keep your enemies closer."  That's Sirius's motto.

"Um, didn't Juan Carlos institute Democracy about five minutes after
Franco died?" asks Elkins.

"Yes he did," admits Dicentra, "but that's Sirius's problem, not mine."

"I don't like it," declares Pip. "After all, if you're going to say
that 'It's all an act,' to explain every apparently good or innocent
thing Sirius does, that doesn't prove a thing.  There has to be a
Crack.  Sirius has to tip his hand somewhere.  JKR has to tip *her*
hand.  Otherwise, you have nothing."

"What did we have on Crouch Jr. when he impersonated Moody?" Dicentra
shoots back.  "His kindness to Harry and Neville was all part of a
Master Plan.  What clues were there in GoF that a first-time reading
would have uncovered?  It's like the movie Sixth Sense: you can't see
the clues until you know the secret.  But I've figured out what the
secret is, so I know how to read Sirius's actions in their true light."

There is a sound of crickets chirping.  A leaf flutters by.

"So where do you get the secret!" they say in chorus.

"Grindelwald was defeated by Dumbledore," Dicentra says.  "What more
do you need?  Now, can I play hedgehog-toss with you?"

The four look at each other and shrug their shoulders. Then they look
back at 

--Dicentra, who waits patiently for an answer