Weeping for Sirius (Spoilers, duh)

[tigerpatronus]

No: HPFGUIDX 68033

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "darrin_burnett" 
<bard7696 at a...> wrote:
> I must confess that, I too, upon first read, was not horribly 
> affected by the death of Sirius.
> I attribute that to the speed with which I read it the first time, 
> my expectation that it would be Hagrid and my preparation for that, 
> and the almost perfunctory way it was handled. One blast and a fall 
> through a mysterious veil.<SNIP> 
> So yes, I did not mourn for Sirius the first time through. Maybe I 
> was glad it wasn't Hagrid. <SNIP>
> Darrin

Now me:

It's interesting that all our reading of OotP was colored by the fact 
that we knew a major character was going to bite it. Imagine how much 
more shocking it would have been if we hadn't known, if we were just 
plodding along, dumb and happy, through the book and not looking at 
the volume of pages remaining, thinking, "Well, she'd better kill 
whoever it is, soon. She's running out of space," and then, during a 
big wizard duel, Sirius falls through the veil. 

I did really admire the way she wrote Harry's reaction, though, 
through the full five stages of mourning (denial, bargaining, anger, 
depression, acceptance) though I'm not sure he got all the way 
through #4. Perhaps that's for HP6. 

TK -- TigerPatronus