Harry and Sirius (was: Please pass the tissues )

[D.G.]

No: HPFGUIDX 69810

Wendy wrote:
>>>>Sirius seems a bit too self-involved to really be there for
Harry (for example, with his comments about how Harry wasn't living 
up to James' sense of adventure)...<<<<<


DANG! Wendy, you just hit on something BIG (in my 'umble opinion).  
That comment really cut Harry deeply -- I think it's safe to say that 
after Sirius said that, Harry felt almost desperately compelled to 
brave danger and take risks to prove himself to Sirius, and also to 
prove himself worthy of carrying on the legacy of his sainted father 
(who may not have been as sainted as Harry would have wanted to 
believe, if Snape's Penseive memories are any indication, but that's 
probably an argument for another time).

Is it beyond the pale to suggest that in goading Harry this way, 
Sirius unintentionally sealed both Harry's fate and his own?  With 
that kind of thing still ringing in his head, Harry could not afford 
to turn away from the opportunity to rescue Sirius when believed 
Sirius was in danger.  Had he not been goaded that way, it's very 
concievable that he would have kept a cooler head about him, 
considered (at least) Ron's suggestion that the image of Sirius being 
tortured was Lord V.'s diversionary tactic to lure Harry (and the 
others) into a trap -- and the disaster in the Ministry might well 
have been avoided.

Did Sirius' sharp tongue and apparent arrogance [fueled, perhaps, by 
his own unresolved longing and grief for his old friend] bring about 
his own demise?  If this is the case, we might suggest that one of 
the major lessons (if not THE major lesson) Harry is in the process 
of learning is to ACCEPT death, not to fight it, not to deny it, not 
to try to overcome it, not to try to keep the dead "alive" through 
magic, through substitution (as Sirius was doing with Harry, I think, 
in some ways) -- 

Maybe that was the lesson of Moody's photograph.  Here are the peope 
we loved so much in life:  They're dead.  They're gone.  We have them 
in our pictures and in our hearts.  And that's all.

D.G. ("JazzmanChgo")