OOtP: Silver Lining?

[Karen Shepherd]

No: HPFGUIDX 61678

A thought which has been prodded by some of the discussion, and which
I don;t think has been mentioned yet (with so many mails so far, it's
hard to tell!)....

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I have to admit, I was yelling at Harry to use Sirius's gift or go to
Snape when he saw the vision of Sirius being tortured by LV.  I also
believe that the whole fracas that followed is partly Harry's fault. I
was also greatly saddened by Sirius' death.

But despite all that happened, there was one positive thing that came
out of the incident.  The Ministry of Magic had to finally admit that
Voldemort was back.  No more fabrications or explanations, no more
holding their heads in the sand.  Something huge had to happen to get
them to start moving, and this was it.

Certainly they would eventually have had to realise the truth, in some
other way, possibly not even involving Harry.  But how long would it
have taken?  How many disappearances or deaths with shady explanations
would there have to be?  How many of Dumbledore's allies would have
had to be put in Azkaban or die under odd circumstances? How much
stronger would Voldemort get before they finally realized the threat?

I suppose this means something to me because I'm a Titanic buff and
the same refrain comes up in those discussions as well--certainly it
was a tragic disaster, certainly the regulations would have caught up
eventually, but how long would it have taken?  How many lives could
have been lost in the meantime?

Though Harry's actions were somewhat rash and they played right into
Volemort's hands, the consequences of his actions forced the Wizarding
world to wake up to reality, and also deprived Voldemort of a few of
his more valuable followers.  It was awful for Harry, it was
dangerous, and it was fatal for Sirius, but peraps it was also
necessary--both for Harry and the wiarding world as a whole.

 Dumbledore said in PoA that "The consequences of our actions are
always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a
difficult action indeed..." (Cdn. Ed., p.311)   Who can tell what sort
of consequences there may be yet?

--Karen Shepherd
aka "Potions Student"