Sirius and Dumbledore (Was: Pensieves objectivity & Dumbledore's integrity)

[abigailnus]

No: HPFGUIDX 79727

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote: 
> There is this feeling on the list that Sirius ended up at the 
> Department of Mysteries because he was so stir-crazy with 
> being taunted and cooped up at Grimmauld Place that he 
> suicidally disregarded the danger he would face. That is illogical. 
> Sirius understood the danger well enough, otherwise he 
> wouldn't have wanted to rescue Harry in the first place. 

I completely agree, Pippin, and this actually ties in to something that 
I've been thinking about for a while.  There seems to be a consensus 
on the group that Sirius is dead because Dumbledore forced him to 
stay at Grimmauld place.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  
This is the tragedy of Sirius' death.

Sirius gives Harry the mirror when Harry returns to Hogwarts after 
Christmas break, in a chapter so loaded with gloomy foreshadowing that 
I spent the rest of the book convinced that JKR would never do something 
as obvious as killing Sirius.  Harry decides never to use the mirror 
because he fears that if he causes Sirius to leave Grimmauld, Sirius could 
be caught and killed.

Sirius does indeed end up leaving Grimmauld Place, and he is killed, but 
not because he was caught.  Sirius' death in fact has nothing to do with the 
reason he was hiding.  Any one of the rescue party might have been the one 
to die.  Sirius chose to leave Grimmauld - whatever his reasons were - but 
his death had nothing to do with that choice except in the most basic way, 
that if he had stayed home he wouldn't have died.  Sirius was not, as Harry 
feared, recaptured because he left his hiding place.  He died in battle, which 
could have happened at any time.

Dumbledore knows this.  He never apologizes for keeping Sirius in 
Grimmauld - he only offers an explanation.  Dumbledore's failing is not 
towards Sirius but towards Harry - by not giving him complete information 
Dumbledore allowed Harry to be manipulated by Voldemort, and that was 
the cause of Sirius' death.  If someone else - Tonks, or Moody, who were 
always going to be in the rescue party - had died instead of Sirius, it still 
would have been Dumbledore's fault for the same reason.

Abigail