Bang! You're dead.

[ghinghapuss]

No: HPFGUIDX 86566

Carol wrote: 
<Snip> And AK would require killing for pleasure, in which case 
Sirius and Remus could not have used it against Peter, no matter how 
great their rage toward him for his betrayal. Or would Sirius, at 
least, have derived a grim pleasure from it, deranged as he was? I 
think it would have driven him over the brink to full-fledged 
insanity.

Mandy here:
I disagree partially with your statement above and believe threat 
both Sirius and Remus could have, and would have used the AK on Peter 
at the end of PoA. To both of them killing Peter would have been a 
very great pleasure if you consider the living hell both Sirius and 
Remus lived in after the death of James Potter due to the betrayal of 
Peter Pettigrew.

Sirius had already showed he was capable of killing another human as 
a teenager when he sends Snape after Remus back in school.  I agree 
the manslaughter of a hated school rival is very different than the 
cold-blooded First Degree murder of the AK but I think it shows that 
deep inside Sirius were the seeds of his dark Black ancestry waiting 
to grow into something uncontrollable.  12 years in Azkaban is enough 
to drive any normal guilty person insane, just imagine what it would 
do to an innocent man who has all day, every day, for 12 years to 
dwell on revenge where the only light at the end of the tunnel is 
actually getting to extract it. After all Sirius' motivation to 
escape from goal was to go after Peter and had nothing to do with his 
desire to protect Harry. (Granted the Dementors suck out all positive 
thoughts so if Sirius had any positive thought of love for Harry they 
would have been lost to the negative thoughts to revenge, but the 
fact that revenge was the over riding factor is what is important 
here.) Sirius was living for the day he got to kill Peter and I think 
he was more than ready to use the AK, the quickest and most effective 
method of killing another.  I do agree with you that it would have 
driven him over the edge of insanity, where he had been hovering for 
many years and was still living even up to his death.

As for Remus, and I hate to think about it as I really do like him, 
but I think Remus has killed before, perhaps many times and really, 
*really* enjoyed it.  Of course it was while he was a werewolf and 
I'm sure he carries enormous guilt, not just for the murders but the 
extent to which he enjoyed each killing. Remember Werewolf's are 
rated the most dangerous of all Dark creatures, and humans are their 
preferred pray.  I simply cannot believe that for the entire time 
Remus has been a werewolf he's been successfully kept away from 
hunting humans no matter how hard his parents and his friends tried. 
So even though he is a wonderful, caring and loving man, while he is 
a werewolf he carries the enormous desire to kill and can do it very 
easily.  That desire has to still live within him somewhere even when 
he is back to being Remus Lupin. So I am fully convinced he too could 
have used the AK on Peter as well.  Unfortunately, it too, would have 
pushed him in insanity, after all how could he deal with his werewolf 
guilt when he could just as easily killed a man as a human as well? 

Both men felt enormous pleasure and desperate,longing desire at what 
they were about to. When I read the passage again it seems they were 
both in a state of elation at being reunited and having their mutual 
enemy at their feet before them.  I certainly believe they both would 
have used the AK.  It would have been the beginning of the end for 
both, as both would not have been able to have recovered from the use 
of it, but that is what makes the AK unforgivable. Its use comes out 
of Evil.

Mandy