What if Sirius Hadn't Escaped in POA?

[huntergreen_3]

No: HPFGUIDX 102229

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Barbara D. Poland-Waters" <bd-
bear at v...> wrote:
>>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.<<

HunterGreen:
I think the answer lies more in the personality of Sirius than 
anything else. He does quite a number of things that don't really 
make sense, unless you remember two things, one being that his own 
innocence is not his motivation, and two being that he wants to deal 
out revenge on his own (simply having Peter arrested is not good 
enough). Sirius is also very implusive and lets his emotions make his 
decisions for him (IMO). Obviously, it would have made a lot more 
sense if after he realized that Peter was the traitor that he hung 
back and sent an owl to Dumbledore immediately (or just gone to the 
Dursleys--since he knew that's where Dumbledore was going to be--and 
talked to him personally). But he doesn't. His reaction is "I'm going 
to get that Peter!", without thinking of the fact that it apppears 
that its HIM that sold out the Potters. 
Later on, when he escapes from Azkaban, if he managed to sneak into 
Hogwarts and break into the Gryffindor commmon room, certainly he 
could have found a way to send a letter to Dumbledore. But he 
doesn't. At that point, I think he wasn't thinking beyond killing 
Peter, his life after revenge doesn't seem to occur to him until 
after they decide not to kill him (perhaps Azkaban did leave him a 
little 'not with it'). Its not as extreme, but he acts the same way 
in GoF when he rushes back to the Hogwarts area to look after Harry, 
this was a more sensical choice (since he had managed to elude 
capture while living nearly a year in that area), but altogether not 
the best one for his own safety.
This is the only way I've managed to think about it, otherwise it 
does seem like a rather huge plothole.