Why didn't Sirius apparate?

[meltowne]

No: HPFGUIDX 82453

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sylviablundell2001" 
<sylviablundell at a...> wrote:
> My 12-year-old has asked me a question I find difficult to answer.  
> Perhaps someone could help.  The question was: why did Sirius go 
> through all that trouble, swimming for miles and then journeying 
> north when he could have simply apparated once he was outside the 
> prison and re-appeared outside the grounds of Hogwarts.THEN he 
could 
> have slipped in disguised as a dog.Would he require the wand he 
> presumably didn't possess to apparate? It all sounds too simple, so 
I 
> suppose there must be some good reason why he didn't use this 
method.
> I'm probably overlooking something obvious, but would be glad if 
> someone could tell me what that is.

Perhaps because he didn't know if it was safe to aparate into 
Hogsmead.  The only place he could apparate there unseen would b the 
shrieking shack, and having been in Azkaban for so long, he wouldn't 
know if that was safe.  Remember also that he first went to Privet 
Drive, presumably a place he had never ben before, so he couldn't 
aparate there.

Presumably he could have gone to Grimauld Place as well, but that 
might not have been safe either - we don't know exactly when his 
mother died.

Melinda