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

[Catherine Coleman]

No: HPFGUIDX 64188

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Wendy St John" 
<hebrideanblack at e...> wrote:
> 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>:
> 
Yes, it's extremely difficult to keep track right now,isn't it :-)

> 
> 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.  > 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)? 

I'm not sure I agree with this analysis, and would go more with what 
Jenny has already said.  Yes, in Snape's Worst Memory, Sirius does 
tease Pettigrew - but really, that just struck me as typical 15 yr 
old teasing.  What was more telling for me was the way they treated 
Pettigrew generally.  Yes, he wasn't as talented as the rest of 
them, but he *was* their friend - to the extent that James and 
Sirius helped him become an animagus.  It would probably have been 
much easier to just exclude him from their monthly exploits.  And 
furthermore, look at one of the other things Sirius says in the 
Shrieking Shack scene:

"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" roared Black.  "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY 
YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!"

That line always struck me - it seemed clear that they *did* trust 
Pettigrew, and *did* expect him to be overlooked by Voldemort - and 
it also shows the level of friendship Sirius at least believed 
existed.  And Sirius seems truly bewildered as to why Pettigrew 
behaved in such a way.

So, yes, I do think they believed the bluff to be fool proof.  
Sirius was putting himself at great risk by *not* being the secret 
keeper.  I don't think this was arrogance, but a false belief in 
Pettigrew.

Catherine