OOP: A person is more than the worst thing they have done

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 63782

Pip!Squeak:
> >>Sirius is more than his lousy temper, 
> or his past and present bullying.>>
> 
Andrea:
> Sorry to nitpick!  But...who exactly does Sirius bully as a grown 
> man...?  Snape?  Don't recall him bullying Snape.  They hate each 
> other, yes.  They will glare threateningly, swap witty insults, 
> and on ocasion pull out their wands at each other(though, IIRC, 
> Snape pulled out his first at #12).  *shrugs* Maybe we just see 
> bullying as a different thing, though.  Kreacher?  I don't recall 
> Sirius being any more nasty to Kreacher than Kreacher was to 
> everyone else.  I think I only remember one display of actual 
> physical violence against the thing, and that was it being thrown  
> out of the room.  Which it deserved.


Have you considered Peter Pettigrew?

Go through PoA. You will find that at no point in the screaming 
recriminations about Traitor!Peter is there any suggestion at all 
that Peter asked for the job of Secret Keeper. Or wanted it.

The full post was back in March 'Poor snivelling little Peter'
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/53453

But a few quotes:

>>
The Fidelius charm asks an awful lot of its Secret Keeper. Basically 
the Secret Keeper has to be willing to risk death or torture to 
protect the recipient. James and Lily Potter had to ask someone to 
be prepared to die for them.
>
>
There is, however, no evidence whatsoever that Peter volunteered to 
be Secret Keeper. Sirius *never* says that the switch was Peter's 
plan. Quite the opposite; he blames himself for the idea:

"James and Lily only made you Secret-Keeper because I suggested 
it ... I thought it was the perfect plan ... a bluff ... Voldemort 
would be sure to come after me, would never dream they'd use a weak, 
talentless thing like you ... "[PoA p. 271, Ch. 19]
>
>
I keep going back to: *why?* What qualities did Peter have that 
would make him a good Secret Keeper? The least talented of the four 
boys. The kid who was always tagging around. The boy who hero-
worshipped Black and Potter [see PoA Ch.10, p.154]. He wasn't even 
good at duelling ... [p.155]

Precisely *what* qualities did Peter have that would make it obvious 
to Sirius that *this* was the person best trusted with the lives of 
three people.

And the nasty thought keeps occurring to me: Peter was the person 
most likely to be bullied into it.

Does either Peter or Sirius ever say that Peter 'asked', or 'wanted' 
or 'offered' to be Secret Keeper? Not that I recall. Sirius never 
once, in his self-mortification at the deaths of Harry's parents, 
blames himself for agreeing to *Peter's* suggestion. Peter seems to 
have been, err, 'volunteered' for this not-exactly-safe post. 

>>
>>
End quotes of old post.

So there is some suspicion that Sirius was still capable of bullying 
as an adult.

And no, I don't like his behaviour to Kreacher at all. I think 
Sirius's tendency to feel contempt for other people who he saw 
as 'his inferiors' was his 'tragic flaw'. Ultimately, it led to the 
deaths of his best friends (he thought Peter was a good choice as 
Secret Keeper because he was so 'weak and talentless' that nobody 
would suspect him) and his own death. 

What would have happened if he'd shown a little understanding of 
Kreacher? If instead of snarling at him he'd said something like 'I 
don't want to see it, but if that [object] means so much to you, 
then just make sure it stays out of my sight.' Would Kreacher still 
have betrayed him?

Another disturbing instance is Sirius's contempt of his younger 
brother, who died when he wanted out of the DE's. This kid made 
basically the same choice as Sirius, except that *his* choice was 
made when he was in too deeply to be able to run somewhere safe. And 
Sirius talks of him with contempt.

Don't get me wrong - Sirius is much, much more than this character 
flaw of his. He's brave, he's loyal, he's prepared to fight to the 
death, he clearly loves Harry and he picked 'right' over 'family'. 
But he's a natural bully. And there is no evidence that he ever 
really understood that this character trait was wrong and something 
that needed to be overcome.

Pip!Squeak