What if Sirius Hadn't Escaped in POA?

[Barbara D. Poland-Waters]

No: HPFGUIDX 102070

I don't usually engage in debates about why such-and-such happened or why
this character did this or that, because ultimately the answer is the same
in my mind. . . because that's the way JKR wrote it! But now that I have
some more information about DD, I was thinking about how things went in POA
and how they might have gone better. Bear with me. . .

Suppose Sirius, after having seen the Daily Prophet with Peter on it, kept
his need for revenge in check and somehow got Fudge to allow DD to visit him
(or get word to him that Sirius needed to tell him something). DD goes to
Sirius, Sirius tells him that Pettigrew is alive and is Ron's rat, DD calls
Ron to his office, requesting (as nonchalantly as possible) that he bring
his pet, DD forces Pettigrew to reveal himself and then uses his Leglimens
(sorry if I'm not spelling that right) skills to determine that Pettigrew
did indeed betray the Potters and Sirius is innocent.

In fact, if DD is so all-knowing and all powerful, how come he can't do this
more often? I mean, now that I know he has these abilities, I assume he has
used this power whenever he has talked to Harry after Harry's been in
trouble, and that's why he trusts Harry, because he knows that Harry hasn't
lied about the important stuff. Moreover, I would assume that Snape would
also use this ability on his students to check if they're lying, but then, I
don't get the feeling he WANTS to know that Harry is truthful at the times
Snape is accusing him of being otherwise.

But then again, I'm only in the beginning of OOTP. While I vaguely remember
reading in some of the posts on this list that the ability to do that
Leglimens thingy is rare, I don't know if it's frowned upon in the WW as an
invasion of privacy. If that's the case, that would explain why it's not
done more.

Any thoughts?

Barbara, who's disappointed that nobody has yet responded to her post "Some
comments/questions about GoF"
bd-bear