Why didn't Sirius apparate?

[wildfire_517]

No: HPFGUIDX 82476

Melinda:

[snipped]
> 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.
 

Actually, in Book 5, Sirius says that the house at Grimmauld Place 
had been empty for ten years after his mother died until he 
volunteered it as HQ for the Order.

p. 83, American edition:

"No one's lived here for ten years, not since my mother died, unless 
you count her old house-elf..." - Sirius

-WF