Crying wolf?

[slgazit]

No: HPFGUIDX 82121

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Talisman" <talisman22457 at y...> 
wrote:
> Talisman writes now: 
> Problem 1) no story, reasonable or otherwise "came" out before 
> Lupin's supposed epiphany.  Lupin runs into the room, asks "where 
is 
> he?" and then basically says:  Aha! So that means you switched and 
> made him the secret keeper, but didn't tell me, and this means he 
is 
> really the traitor who sold out Lily and James (and that means you 
> are innocent!) Come to my arms my beamish boy! (PoA  344)

That would make a lot of sense to me if Lupin was never convinced 
that Sirius was guilty. I think his attitude throughout PoA indicates 
that (for instance his comment to Harry that no man deserves to have 
the Dementors Kiss performed on them). Let's not forget - Lupin knew 
the three other marauders better than anyone else, and is very 
perceptive. So knowing that Pettigrew is alive and knowing him as 
well as he did, it only took him a minute to put two and two together.

> Sirius is pointing at Ron. (Oh, I see, you are pointing at Ron; 
that 
> must mean you weren't the secret keeper!?) Huh?  [deleted]
> Why doesn't Lupin want to know what Sirius means?

Well, he knew Pettigrew animagus form and he knew (I assume) that Ron 
had a rat - after all he had the rat with him in the train where he 
was sharing a compartment with Lupin (who was awake after the 
dementors came).

> Problem 2) Lupin hasn't seen any missing rat fingers at this point. 
> So on what evidence was he relying? All he has is that he saw 
> Pettigrew's name on the MM.

He knoes Pettigrew is in the shack and he knows Ron has a rat.

> Problem 3) Lupin can NOT tell from the MM that Pettigrew is in rat 
> form.  Yet, in the Shrieking Shack he knows this instantly 1)
without 
> being told, 2) without even seeing Scabbers.

He knew that Pettigrew was there from the marauders map. There was no 
place there for a grown man to hide.

> Also, Lupin had not yet made eye contact with Scabbers/Pettigrew, 
so 
> even if he were a Legilimens, he couldn't know Pettigrew's story 
> before he started embracing Sirius.

The traitor must have been either Sirius or Pettigrew. If Pettigrew 
was innocent he would have presumably shown himself and give 
testimony long before - or at the least he'd do that in the shack.
  
> 1. Lupin says he doesn't actually know how he escaped.  He swears 
he 
> didn't use Dark Magic--and no one else has ever escaped from 
Azkaban-
> -but, weak and wandless, Sirius did it without knowing how or what 
> he was doing.  In a mystery story, that alone should convince you 
> there was outside help.

You mean Sirius, not Lupin, right?
He did not need a wand to transform. And as for him not 
knowing "exactly" how he did it, it is possible that just like his 
emotions change as he transforms, so does a part of his comprehensive 
skills, or perhaps his ability to see or sense the dementors change. 
If so, once he becomes human again he will not be able to explain how 
it happened - because he did it when he was a dog.

> 2. Sirius "thinks" that his innocence saved him from losing his 
> mind.  Funny, being innocent didn't save Hagrid when he was sent up 
> in CoS.  
>  
> Hermione: "Is it awful there, Hagrid?" (PoA 220)
> "Yeh've no idea," said Hagrid quietly.  "Never bin anywhere like 
it. 
> Thought I was goin' *mad*  Kep'  goin' over horrible stuff . . ." 
> (220 my emphasis) "Yeh can' remember who you are after awhile.  An' 
> yeh can' see the point o' livin' at all.  I used ter hope I'd jus' 
> die in me sleep." (221)

I think there is a difference, subtle I admit, but real, in losing 
mind and losing hope. Hagrid was not on the verge of losing his mind 
but lose hope. Also he did not have access to the escape outlet that 
Sirius had - he could not transform into an animal, so he was fully 
exposed to the dementors. I also think that in many ways Hagrid is 
quite fragile emotionally - notice how he falls apart after Rita 
Skeeter's article - and compare that to Sirius' handling of the fact 
that the entire world (wizards and muggles) think he is a mass 
murderer. Sirius is a lot tougher emotionally than Hagrid.

> 3. Sirius alternately says he slipped past the Dementors when they 
> opened his door to feed him, or that he slipped through the bars.

And why could not both be true? He could slip through the bars while 
they opened the door - because maybe he had both a door *and* bars?
Maybe the door was solid and the dementors were standing near the 
bars, so he could only slip through them when they moved away from 
there in order to open the door.

> Odd that they would be confused and bamboozled in close quarters 
> when they are specifically guarding him, but they weren't confused 
> at all when they swarmed after Padfoot as he ran around the 
> spacious, rather populated, Hogwarts grounds on the night of the 
> Shrieking Shack scene. (PoA  382)

There are two possibilities here: one is that in greater numbers they 
have much more power - we have never heard them speak, after all. 
They could have some non-verbal communication and perhaps a way to 
combine their power.

The second possibility is that the dementors were really after Harry. 
They tried to attack him every time they came in contact with him 
(the train, the quidditch game and at the end - they tried to kiss 
him first - ahead of Sirius). This is my suspicion. Who ordered them 
to go after Harry is an interesting question.

> Moreover, it appears that the Dementors have the effect of forcing 
> Padfoot to transform back to his human form: The "yelping stopped 
> abruptly . . . They saw why--Sirius had turned back into a man.  He 
> was crouched on all fours, his hands over his head." (PoA 382)

Yes, when there were 100 of them congregated in one spot. Animals are 
affected by them too, just not as much. But in greater numbers they 
may be able to overcome any wizard.

> Dim-witted as Harry can be, even he thinks something is 
> fishy: "there was something extremely odd going on . . .  this 
> didn't tally at all with Harry's past dealings with the Ministry of 
> Magic." (PoA  45)

I don't agree that Harry is dim-witted, but I agree that something 
fishy was going on. Why are the dementors going after Harry each time 
they get close to him? At that point they are not yet allied with 
Voldemort, or are they? We know that Fudge is under Lucius Malfoy's 
control since CoS (see their scene in Hagrid's hut). Could Malfoy 
have convinced him to send the dementors there and then added a few 
extra instructions to them? I would not put it past him - after all 
he engineered the entire diary thing in CoS and led the DE's at the 
world cup in GoF and again in the MoM in OoP.
 
> Moreover, as Harry wanders around the shops of Diagon Alley, all by 
> his lonesome, JKR gives us another POV that we can use in assessing 
> Fudge's behavior; that of an actually caring parent who 
> says: "Personally, I won't let any of my children out alone until 
> [Black's] back in Azkaban." (PoA 50)

Ah but I don't think that Tom is the only one asked to watch Harry. 
Remember the ice cream guy feeding him a constant supply of sundaes 
in PoA? I think all the shop owners were asked to look out for him. I 
agree that Fudge is suspicious, but I don't see him as the engineer 
there - I think he is a small man manipulated by Malfoy.

Salit