Faking Sirius' Death?

[sophierom]

No: HPFGUIDX 91498

Entropy wrote:
<snipping lots of good theory for space's sake>

This means that Dumbledore and the Order need to come up with a new
way of hiding Sirius. How? Perhaps by faking his death.

In a later post, Entropy adds: 
 <snip>
 In any case, "properly dead" keeps ringing in my ears.  I think if 
she wanted us to know that Sirius was "properly dead," she would have
provided better proof, rather than leaving us with lots of ambiguity.


Sophierom:
Entropy, I also like your theory but I'm torn ... as much as I agree 
with your above statement, and as much as I would like to see Sirius 
alive, I feel like it would be a little cheap of JKR to pull Sirius 
out of a hiding place somewhere and say, "Tada! He's been alive all 
this time!"

I wonder if the ambiguity surrounding Sirius's death is instead 
meant to make us feel like Harry: we're always hoping, beyond all 
hope, that Sirius isn't really dead.  Although Harry's seen death 
before (his parents, Cedric), I think Sirius's death really dealt 
Harry a deep, personal blow.  When Harry's parents died, he was too 
young to remember much of their deaths.  When Cedric died, Harry was 
upset, but I think his distress came from seeing someone cruelly 
murdered, not losing someone close to him.
But with Sirius's death, Harry, for the first time, really 
experiences the death of someone close to him.  And this death is so 
unexpected.  At least, I sure didn't expect it.  Sirius was 
confident; he seemed so strong, so invincible as he was fighting 
Bellatrix.  And boom, he's gone.  Harry can't believe, so he 
searches out Sir Nick, he talks into the mirror that Sirius gave 
him ...  but in the end, none of this works.  We can't believe it, 
so perhaps we look for clues that he might really be hiding, lurking 
in one of the great plot surprises that JKR inevitably provides. And 
maybe you're right; maybe he will turn up again.
I just think that if it does turn out that Sirius has faked his own 
death, we'll have been let off easy. Sometimes people do die 
unexpectedly.  I'm always scared of that in my own life.  And in 
those cases, the dead don't come back, at least not in our physical 
world.  I know Harry's had a rough life, and he deserves some 
happiness and good fortune.  I just wonder if JKR should provide it 
to him in this way.
I would tend to interpret the "properly dead comment" as a way to 
explain why there are ghosts.  Sir Nicholas suggests that he didn't 
die properly when he explains that "I know nothing of the secrets of 
death, Harry, for I chose my feeble imitation of life instead" 
(OotP, UK ed., 759).
One last reason I think it would be wrong of JKR to fake Sirius's 
death: it would mean that Dumbledore and the Order (Lupin and 
Sirius, most prominently) would once again be keeping essential 
information from Harry. Dumbledore spends a whole chapter basically 
apologizing to Harry for keeping him out of the loop about the 
prophecy.  He watches Harry suffer and blame himself for Sirius's 
death.  I don't care how strategically important Sirius is ... all 
of the father figures in Harry's life (DD, Lupin, Sirius) will be 
betraying his trust, and I just can't believe JKR would do that.

Most of my "evidence" is an emotional reaction ... but I'd like to 
think that these feelings, combined with the major themes of the 
series, as well as the canon we already have (many characters say 
that Sirius is not coming back), suggest that Sirius did not fake 
his death.

Still, very interesting and creative theory, Entropy.  Thanks!

Sophierom