Sirius choking Harry; Florence and Riddle

[Hillman, Lee]

No: HPFGUIDX 36347

Greetings!

Some quick observations:

First, Sirius Black. Eledhwen asks:
> There is one thing that really 
> bothers me about his actions though. It is when Harry attacks him and 
> Sirius tries to choke Harry. If he went through so much trouble to 
> save Harry from Pettigrew, why did he tried to choke him? 

And Jo Serenadust supplied:
> The way I read this is that they are locked in hand to hand combat, 
> (Harry having attacked him in a blind rage)and the only way he can 
> get Harry off him is to grab him by the throat and squeeze until he 
> lets go. Remember that Black is in a starved, wasted condition, and 
> as such, Harry could *really* injure him if he continues to go at 
> him.  Of course it's very upsetting to read but it's meant to be an 
> very intense scene.> 

While this has been discussed before, I believe Sirius is in fact not too
sane at this point in time. I attribute his condition to a form of
Post-traumatic stress, and at this point, Harry is in his way. He isn't
thinking about it being Harry, he isn't thinking about the consequences.
He's only processing the fact that Harry is preventing him from reaching his
stated goal: to kill Peter Pettigrew.

Another of Sirius's violent actions occurs when he is prevented from doing
what he wishes to do: he slashes the portrait because the Fat Lady will not
let him in. I don't have time to construct arguments for his other violent
acts: Ron's leg and slashing Ron's curtains, except that these are actions
he takes as means to ends. He slashes the curtains in his haste to reach
Pettigrew; he breaks Ron's leg because he has to get Ron into the tunnel and
Ron is fighting. 

In short, Sirius's thinking during PoA is very linear, not allowing for a
lot of options. If something gets in his way, he strikes out to go through
it, rather than around. Crookshanks is the one who allows him other methods
of doing, like stealing Neville's list of passwords.


And a brief moment to strike down Dave's theory linking Florence and TM
Riddle:

Florence cannot have been kissing Riddle because Bertha Jorkins saw and
reported Florence and her Lothario (be he Snape or someone else). Bertha is
a contemporary of Sirius, Snape, and Lupin (a few years ahead of them, acc.
to Sirius in GoF), and as we know, that generation is about 40 years (give
or take) behind Riddle. Riddle left the school in 1944 or thereabouts;
according to the timeline, the Marauder generation attended Hogwarts from
about 1970 to about 1977.


Gwen