Harry's weak spot (was:Re: Choices)

[jwcpgh]

No: HPFGUIDX 86652

> > Laura:
> > 
<snip>You know, I think you may have something really significant 
there.  Harry's Achilles heel has always been his craving for family 
and love.  <snip>

Marianne:
> I have to disagree here.  Harry does crave a family, but IMO he's 
> often unaccountably incurious about his parents. <snip> 
> And that leads me to one of my problems with OoP.  Harry spent a 
fair amount of time in the same location as Sirius.  Yet, there is no 
> canon that they ever talked in depth about Lily and James, that 
Harry ever took the opportunity to even seek out some time with 
Sirius to discuss them or ask questions.  It strikes a dissonant note 
with me.  It just doesn't seem logical that that would happen.  
<snip> 

Laura:

I can think of some very plausible reasons why Harry didn't seek 
Sirius out on this topic during the summer in OoP.  First, Harry had 
more urgent information to collect and process.  Second, the 
atmosphere of tension at GP didn't really lend itself to that sort of 
intimacy-James was already a point of contention between Molly and 
Sirius.  Third, both Harry and Sirius were deeply preoccupied by 
problems of their own and just wanted to take comfort in each other's 
company.  Fourth, it's really hard for me to imagine a 15 year old 
boy sitting an adult down and asking the kinds of questions Harry 
would have had to ask Sirius.  The HP characters tend to be pretty 
reserved on the best of days (with notable lapses, of course).  It's 
not that Sirius wouldn't have answered the questions; I think he 
would  have done so with great pleasure.  But it's very hard for kids 
to begin that sort of conversation, if my experiences are any 
indicator.  Sirius and Remus drop an occasional morsel of information 
about their school days during Harry's stay at GP and Harry gets to 
chew over those.  It doesn't seem to occur to him to ask for more 
right then.  

Harry's reluctance to ask outright about James and Lily is shown by 
the fact that he only does it in a state of emotional upset.  After 
seeing Pensieve II, he's so distraught that he can't think straight 
until he gets some answers about what he saw.  Not that getting the 
answers makes him feel all that much better.