Sirius/Tonks

[Berit Jakobsen]

No: HPFGUIDX 93639

Kathy wrote:
 
I think you may have hit on the very reason they did change. If the 
ministry officials were to have captured Tonks as Sirius, all Tonks 
would have to have done is switch back. In fact, she could be very 
slippery to catch being able to inpersonate anyone at will.
As far as putting Tonks in danger, I never gave it a second thought 
seeing as she is an Auror and should no just as well as Sirius how to 
fight. I wouldn't think that Sirius would feel that he was 
endangering her in the least.

Berit replies:

I understand why you'd very much like Sirius to still be alive :-) 
You're assuming Tonks would not be seriously endangered posing as 
Sirius in the face of Ministry officials/aurors. Do you think an 
auror who happened to come across what looked like Sirius breaking 
into the MoM would think it would be sufficient to just zap him 
gently with a harmless disarming spell? Do you think the auror(s) 
would step back politely, giving Tonks that extra second of time to 
switch back to herself before any harm was done to her? Remember what 
the orders were concerning Sirius in PoA: Bring him in, dead or 
alive. Preferably dead... The Dementors had permission to administer 
the "kiss" the moment they caught him. No chances were taken with 
this convict. The Ministry thinks Sirius is an extremely dangerous, 
scrupulous DE. Not just with a ruthless killer's mind, but also an 
extremely powerful dark wizard. How else could he, as the only one 
ever, have successfully escaped Azkaban?

Also, I don't see Tonks (as Sirius) swithing form when fighting the 
DE's in the MoM to protect herself. The DE's would most probably be 
tempted to fight dirtier with Sirius than with an auror like Tonks. 
They would have know him from the war, and knew he had the experience 
and the skills (and the guts) to pose as a dangerous threat. Tonks is 
just an auror barely out of auror school with no fighting exprerience 
from the "old" war with Voldemort. At the MoM the one posing as Tonks 
was knocked out and disarmed long before the one posing as Sirius 
was. I'd find it a bit odd if Tonks was a better and more fierce 
fighter than Sirius was considering their background and experience.

I understand why you want Sirius to still be alive :-) But what kind 
of Sirius would we be stuck with? At best, a Sirius who sank even 
further down into depression, despair and his own misery. He would of 
course have felt deeply responsible for Tonks's death. Like he felt 
personally responsible for James and Lily's death fifteen years ago. 
And to be honest: I'd rather have a brave, dead Sirius than a live 
whimp who escaped trouble by having his niece take the blow. Snape 
would be delighted of course at such a scenario; he has already 
hinted Sirius is a coward, and then it turned out he was right :-). 
Imagine Sirius's shame...

My two knuts: Sirius is dead *because* he's not a coward. A live 
Sirius in this scenario would not be "our" Sirius as we have learned 
to know him in the HP series. Either way, it means you can't have 
your Sirius :-(  Let the poor guy rest and enjoy the memory of him :-)

Berit
http://home.no.net/berjakob/snape.html