Was: Sirius' laughter,(Voldemort's corpse and a Dumbledore goof?)

[linda_mccabe]

No: HPFGUIDX 36032

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Eric Oppen" <oppen at c...> wrote:

One explanation for Sirius Black being found laughing like a loon 
when the Aurors swooped down on him after Peter Pettigrew got away 
has not, as far as I know, been put forward:  A Cheering Charm.


Athena writes:
Eric, I must admit that your line of reasoning got me to think.  I'm 
going to take your premise and tweak it just a little.  I don't 
think it was a cheering charm, according to cannon in the PoA p. 
294, the students left the classroom grinning broadly with a feeling 
of great contentment.  My vote instead is for the Tickling Charm 
that Harry used on Malfoy in CofS in the Duelling club.  (p. 192)  
Harry used the Rictusempra! charm and Draco fell to his knees and 
gasping for breath.

I can picture Sirius forced into laughing by the tickling charm and 
trying to get his wand to focus on Pettigrew, except that Wormtail 
is now moving about wildly getting people's attention by yelling 
about how Sirius betrayed James and Lily.  Then Pettigrew magics the 
sewer cover to slide open and casts the hex that blows the 
bystanders to smithereens.  Sirius wasn't able to connect with him 
due to the shaking of his arm with the tickling.

except, except - Sirius doesn't mention that Wormtail did any other 
magic except for the explosion while holding a wand behind his back. 
(p. 363)  Maybe he was embarrassed that he succombed to the juvenile 
tickling charm which allowed Pettigrew to murder so many people.  
(Heck even if Wormtail wasn't the greatest of wizards, he should 
have been able to do the tickling charm if Harry in his second year 
could do it with ease on Malfoy.)


However, I'm going to throw out a theory regarding that day that 
I've thought of that I don't think has been mentioned here before.  
That is that Pettigrew went down the sewer and *then* severed his 
finger.  He allowed his blood to drip on his robes and then he did a 
banishing charm to throw out the robe and the severed finger.  Then 
he transformed into a rat and hid to make sure that his plot worked 
and that he had successfully framed Sirius.  (Then again maybe he 
just turned his ratty little tail and ran away at this point.)

After a nasty explosion that killed all those Muggles with bodies 
everywhere and people screaming, it would have been chaos and for a 
robe and a finger to fly out of the sewer a minute after the 
explosion would not have been noticed.  I guess I've always had 
trouble envisioning how someone could just cut their finger off 
while holding their hands behind their back.  It makes more sense to 
try and do your cover up *afterwards* by chucking the bloodied robes 
and finger rather than do it before you cause an explosion.

(I tried checking and couldn't find any mention in previous posts of 
Pettigrew/wormtail and banishing charms.)

I think that it is most likely that if Sirius was indeed laughing 
(and it wasn't just slander made up by the Evil Fudge) then it was 
that reality was beginning to sink in on him that his best friends 
were murdered and he had convinced them to trust That Little Rat and 
now he was being denied his vengeance and instead was going to be 
blamed for it all.


Okay, so here's a couple questions that I've just come up with after 
reading many posts and haven't seen discussed.  If Voldemort was 
ripped from his body as he states in GoF p. 653 - then what became 
of his corpse?  Wouldn't the body of Voldemort be a source of 
incredibly Dark Magic?  I wonder how it would be disposed of?  Other 
posts had wondered about the burials of James and Lily, but what 
about the Big Bad Guy's body?

And one thing that's nagged me and maybe I should just leave it as 
JK wanted a dramatic scene and leave it at that, but why do you 
think that Dumbledore would announce to Karkaroff that Snape had 
been a spy?  p 591.  One would think you'd try to keep the identity 
of your spies secret even after The Fall.  And who's to say if 
there's a large roomfull of witches and wizards sitting in judgement 
that all of them are trustworthy to keep secrets such as that?

Instead, I would think that it would have been more secure for 
Crouch to say - thank you for that name also, we will have further 
investigation on that.  And then Moody could have growled to 
Dumbledore again about Snape being a DE.  Dumbledore could then 
remind him gently and quietly that Snape had turned spy for him at 
great personal risk and the Ministry is aware of that.  They will 
not pursue that charge due to my testimony on where Snapes true 
loyalties lie.

So is that something that Dumbledore shouldn't have done or am I 
just being too damned picky?

Athena - hoping her second post is found to be adequate to the 
moderators