An introduction, Sirius Black, the four houses

[kiricat2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 59640

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Scott Peterson" 
<sfpeterso at y...> wrote:

Well, the character, and apparent contradictions of Sirius have been 
discussed before.  I'm happy to rehash my thoughts, and toss in what 
others have postulated.

> I, like you, have been thinking a bit about Sirius lately.  His 
> behavior is a conundrum.
> 
> 1)	He and James are as close as brothers, you never saw one 
> without the other (Rosmerta).  If that is the case, why in the 
world would he transfer the secret keeper duty to Peter "the Worm" 
> Petigrew?  The only possible solution was that he knew LV would 
> expect that of him, and come directly after him.  It is almost as 
if he is afraid of this (which is contradiction #1 – fear didn't seem 
 part of his life previously).

My thought on this was that Sirius was setting himself up as a 
decoy.  He says himself he was the obvious choice for Secret Keeper.  
So, instead, he turns it over to Peter and goes into hiding.  The DEs 
would, hopefully, waste time and energy seeking Sirius out.  Best 
case scenario 1: They never find him.  End result: Sirius, Peter, 
James, Lily and Harry live.  Best case scenario 2: The DEs find 
Sirius, torture him, he dies without revealing anything.  Everyone 
but Sirius lives, and I believe, that's a trade-off Sirius would be 
willing to make.  Would Sirius have cracked under torture?  Well, for 
all we know he had experience as a DE toy at some point between his 
years at Hogwarts and his incarceration.  So, yeah, he may have felt 
he could pull this off. 

Plus, every day the Potters were not found was a day bought for the 
fighters of Voldemort. 
 

> 2)	Sirius is extremely angry and Wormtail, and tries to KILL him 
> several times.  He doesn't want to turn him over to the authorities 
> (although that would appear to have cleared his name).  Rather, he 
> wants him DEAD.  Is this the way a sane, good person would act?  He 
> seems almost hurt that Harry refuses to let them kill him.

I don't think that Sirius was particularly sane in most of PoA.  
There have been discussions and disagreements on this list as to 
whether or not he was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. 
I'm no psychiatrist, so I'm not going to go into all that.  However, 
I think that if you've spent 12 years undergoing isolation, 
malnutrition, and mental torture, you'd probably not emerge with all 
of the same facilities you had before all this happened.  You may get 
those facilities back, but I don't know that anyone could bounce back 
quickly, particularly if this person is still without any sort of 
support system.  

Sure, Sirius acted in ways that were not the best.  It makes perfect 
sense to me.

> 3)	In his attempt to get Wormtail, Sirius scares Ron nearly to 
> death, and then drags his across a field, breaking his leg severely 
> in the process.  Nothing or nobody is going to stand in the way of 
> the death he wishes to extract from Wormtail (Lupin even SUPPORTS 
> this action).  Sirius also becomes furious that the fat lady for 
not letting him in, and tears up her painting.  This is stated 
several times that he isn't acting like an innocent man.  Will Sirius 
kill others in order to get to Wormtail?

Ah, here is where I'll give you an OoP prediction, which will neatly 
tie in with Dumbledore's stating that it's our choices that matter, 
that we have to do what's right, not necessarily what's easy. 
(Horrible paraphrase, but I'm sure you get the gist.)  My prediction: 
That Sirius is in a situation where he can either capture Wormtail 
(thus going a long way to providing proof of his own innocence) or 
save Snape's life. And, I think he'll opt for saving Snape.

> In conclusion, I think Sirius has issues with his temper at the 
very 
> least, and possibly has  issues that are not resolved, or have not 
> been published yet.  JKR continues to pound the fact that it isn't 
> our abilities, but our choices that define us.  Given that, is it 
> possible that Sirius, the cute puppy has made choices that will 
> damage the ability of the Order of the Phoenix to reel in the Death 
> Eaters?

Of course, he has issues. See my response to #2 above.  And, that 
indicates some inconsistencies with his character, or perhaps, how 
JKR has written him, for some people on this list.  Sirius shows a 
pretty even keel in GoF. We see none of the extreme behavior or 
burning anger that was evident in PoA.  This strikes some folks as 
too rapid a recovery from the stresses of prison.  Either Sirius is 
superbly resilient, or we're simply not witnesses to his continued 
irrational behavior, or he's locked up those feelings so tightly 
they'd almost have to explode out of him at some point.

Marianne