Sirius - who is right?

[Fides]

No: HPFGUIDX 73655


> I think that Dumbledore is getting a bad rap here.  Everyone 
> complains that he bungled as far as Sirius goes, that he should have 
> known better, done things differently, etc.  I have to ask, just 
> WHAT was Dumbledore supposed to do?  He states plainly the reason he 
> did what he did: to keep Sirius alive.  And Harry's response, and 
> that of a lot of Sirius fans is basically 'Thanks for nothing.'  
> What would have been the better solution?

I think part of the problem is that Dumbledore is held to a higher
standard because he is the 'puppetmaster'. He critisises (probably
correctly) Sirius' attitude to Kreacher but I think many similarities
can be drawn between the way the two people trapped in Grimmuld Place were
treated.

Dumbledore is keeping Sirius in the house to keep him alive. Sirius is 
keeping Kreacher in the house because the alternative is killing him 
outright or sending him away perminantly/out of the house which Sirius 
believe will kill him (this being the reason they didn't get rid of him 
*before* he knew too much). So both are being kept their for the good of 
their health, and both have... issues.

I don't have the book to hand so I can't remember the exact quote but
Dumbledore tells Harry that indifference can be worse that dislike. Now 
we only have Harry's pov and he is obviously missing some infomation but 
Sirius seems to spend a lot of the book being treated with a similar 
indifference. For example, Dumbledore's reaction to Harry's complaint 
about Snape's taunting of Sirius is pretty much "he's a big boy - he 
wouldn't let it bother him" but all the evidence we have from Harry's 
observations suggests the comments are bothering Sirius an aweful lot.

Where is the kindness to Sirius that we are told Sirius should have 
shown to Kreacher?

Personally I like to think Remus was doing whatever he could for Sirius 
when he wasn't sent away by the order (but that is my personal bias) and 
that is was entirely possible things were being done for Sirius that 
Harry didn't know about and therefore the reader doesn't see but I think 
there is a certain irony that the critisism leveled at Sirius by 
Dumbledore over his treatment of Kreacher could potentially be made 
about Dumbledore treatment of Sirius.

 >  Give Sirius more
> interesting things to do at GP?  It didn't matter WHAT he was asked 
> to do there, Sirius wanted *out*, and nothing less.  So if he'd been 
> given his way, he could have died in August, before Harry even got 
> to GP - would that have made everyone happy?

Given a choice between Siri being killed doing something useful for the
order and being locked up in another prison by his friends and dieing a
bit each day until he finally died knowing he has been used to draw his
godson into a trap I must admit I would go for the quick death sooner.

I think for Sirius fans nothing that ended in his death would make them 
happy but torturing him first does make it worse.

 >  Let's face it, some
> situations, just like some people (Snape, for instance), can't be 
> fixed.  If the point of the books is about making choices, what
> happens when the choice isn't between good and bad, but between bad 
> and worse?

That is quite true. I think the objection by the aforementioned Sirius
fans is that the choice made in this case was 'worse' or at least that 
the choices available and the information on which those choices where 
made seem to have been artificially limited by our seeing from Harry's 
pov and so it is hard to understand why the decisions that were made 
were made as they were and like Harry we can no longer blindly belive 
Dumbldore (and indeed the adults/order) will get it right.

;-)

Fides