[HPforGrownups] Re: OOP: (Sirius) A person is more than the worst thing they have done

[Wendy St John]

No: HPFGUIDX 64032

I don't think anyone else has said this yet (at least the post hadn't come
through before I started writing this), so here goes . . . hoping it won't
prove to be a repeat of what someone else has already said in this
particular thread <g>:


PipSqueak  quoted Sirius's angry comments to Pettigrew in the Shrieking
Shack in PoA:

> "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]>

Then Jenny from Ravenclaw wrote:

"Hmmmm.  Isn't it possible that Sirius said these things out of anger?  
He might not have thought of Peter as weak and talentless back when he 
asked Peter to be the Secret Keeper, but now that he has escaped from 
Azkaban and is *this* close to to proving his innocence, his fury gets 
the best of him.  Remember, Sirius also slashed the Fat Lady when he 
couldn't get into Gryffindor Tower.  He could probably taste revenge 
on the tip of his tongue... I can actually imagine how he must have 
felt, finally being able to tell Peter all the things he couldn't for 
twelve years.  I'm sure I would have said some pretty nasty things 
too."

Now me (Wendy): 

That would seem to be a reasonable argument with what we knew prior to OOP,
but Snape's worst memory in the Pensieve indicates that Sirius and James
both looked down on Peter as early as their 5th year at Hogwarts. They
treat him more like a dog than a friend - Sirius' comment to James asking
him to stop playing with the snitch before Peter "wets himself" is just one
(I won't quote the rest right now as my husband's just arrived with dinner,
and I want to post this before I go eat! <g>). In any case, I think it's
pretty clear that they thought Peter was pretty useless. Which causes me to
wonder why they would ever think of using him as the Secret Keeper at all -
even as a bluff, it seems pretty stupid to use someone so wholly without
talent (as they appear to have thought him). I really do wonder what was
going on . . . was it just a complete error of judgement on the part of
Sirius and James (and Lily, for going along with it, as well)? Did they
think it was so clever they forgot to notice that they were basically
giving their LIVES over to a guy they thought was a loser (and had
apparently treated like one, on at least one occasion)? Or was something
else going on here? I think I am leaning toward thinking they were just
monumentally arrogant (as opposed to this being some evil plot of Sirius'),
but it still doesn't all add up, as far as I'm concerned. 

I have also been thinking a lot today about just which member of the Order
is going to turn out to be the spy (there's just GOT to be one, don't you
think? <g>). At first I thought that Sirius was pretty much out of the
running (being dead and all), but maybe not. Maybe Bella was just helping
him fake his death and he will prove to have been ESE all along. <G> Do I
believe this? No, not really. I think he was blinded by his arrogance (and
I do recognize that spending 12 years in Azkaban is one heck of a
mitigating factor), and made some serious errors in judgement over the
years that have proved to create a variety of problems, big and small. But
it IS fun to speculate. :-)

Wendy