Why it had to be Sirius

[mhershey2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 75670

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "that space cadet glow" 
<explodingstar at a...> wrote:
> My theory on why Sirius had to die has to do with the fact that for 
> the first time, we really see Harry screw up and fail. It's because 
> of Harry's actions (as well as DD's) that Sirius wound up being in 
> the DoM and getting killed at all. We saw Harry fall into a trap 

Now me:
  I agree that your theory makes a lot of sense as far as the reason 
why "someone" had to die, but I think there were other people besides 
Sirius who could have died because of a mistake of Harry's just as 
easily.  For example, JKR could have killed off any of the students 
who went along with Harry without changing any of the plot and the 
impact of Harry's screwing up leading to the death would have been 
the same.  I am trying to decide if there are specific reasons that 
it was Sirius, as opposed to someone else.  Maybe there isn't a real 
reason, other than an emotional loss for Harry.  I have been reading 
the "second guessing JKR" thread and a lot of it makes sense to me - 
certain things are in the story just to move the plot along 
generally, not because they have some big, symbolic significance.

Mhershey