Over Kill with Dementors

[huntergreen_3]

No: HPFGUIDX 98042

Kneasy Wrote:
>>If the Dementors were attracked by the large crowd, why did
they concentrate solely on Harry?
"At least a hundred Dementors, their hidden faces pointing
up at him, were standing below."
[snip 2nd example of this after they leave the shrieking shack]

It also begs the question - how was it that they didn't have the same 
effect on Sirius while he was supposedly escaping from Azkaban?

I use the word "supposedly" deliberately.

Consider the sequence of events:
Fudge visits Azkaban the *night before* Sirius' escape.
He has with him a newspaper with a photograph of Peter in
animagus form which somehow ends up in Sirius's hands.
Sirius escapes.
Fudge lets the Dementors loose.
Who seem a hell of a lot more interested in Harry than in
Sirius.
[snip]
On the surface PoA is an atypical book. It's the only one
in the series where Harry is not threatened by Voldy or one
of his minions. Or is it? The only difficulty is in deciding who
is the baddy - Sirius or Fudge? Or both?<<

HunterGreen:
Interesting theory, Kneasy. I recently re-read PoA as well, and this 
would answer one of my questions. It struck me as odd that they would 
stop the train HALFWAY through to search it, rather than doing it at 
the beginning of the trip. Obviously, if Sirius was on the train, he 
would have got to Harry long before the Dementers came to look for 
him. Of course, they could have searched it BEFORE it loaded with 
students, but that makes searching it several hours later sort of 
useless, doesn't it? And their search is a little odd too. Its a fair 
estimate that the Dementer searched each compartment of the train, 
ending with the last one, where Harry was. The door opens, Harry 
passes out, then the Dementer just stands there for a moment. Lupin 
asks it to leave, but it doesn't move until he uses (I'm guessing) 
expecto patronum on it. Now why is that? Its clear just opening the 
door who's in there and who's not (especially since the 
dementer 'senses' rather than 'looks'), and certainly no one else on 
the train had to use a charm to get the dementer to leave (since none 
of them know it), so why does it just stand there? Perhaps they were 
dispatched on the train as soon as Fudge could get them there (which 
was halfway through), with orders to find Harry, and that's why it 
didn't leave until Lupin *forced* it to (this is all just guessing, 
of course).

Well, Kneasy, as for *who* would be using the dementers to kill 
Harry, I really can't believe Sirius had anything to do with it, if 
only because there's hardly any place in the plot for it. At this 
point Sirius has been shut off from the world for 12 years, and he's 
a little off (of course the book asserts that he's sane, but any 
rational person looking at his actions in PoA can see that he's 
acting strange). Not only that, but none of his actions after escaping
support anything but his wanting to kill Peter explanation. 

I do agree, however, that there may be something up with Fudge. We 
could work on the theory that he thinks that Sirius really is out to 
kill Harry, which would mean that he may be going at killing Harry 
from both ends, without getting his hands dirty on either side. His 
actions are a little odd, having a conversation with Sirius and 
giving him a newspaper, then not telling Harry the truth (and he had 
two chances, the first being when Sirius escaped, then the more 
obvious one when they met in the Leaky Cauldron), not only does he 
himself not tell Harry, but he orders others to do so as well (and 
he's rather evasive when Madam Rosemerta asks what they think Sirius 
is going after, even though NO ONE was being evasive at all during 
that whole conversation). If Sirius really had been out to kill 
Harry, he probably would have suceeded. On the night when he runs 
away from the Dursley's, it would have been *easy* for Padfoot to 
grab Harry and maul him to death. 
So he helps Sirius escape, which accomplishes two things: 1-Sirius 
might kill Harry, and 2-He has an excuse to dispatch the dementers to 
Hogwarts and have *them* kill Harry. We don't know what is motivating 
Fudge though, it could be a ESE!Fudge or just him being 
influence/threatened by anyone. The case for an ESE!Fudge is right 
there, its like its *too* obvious. (now I keep thinking about how odd 
it is that the dementers not only attacked Harry at the end of PoA 
but tried to perform the "kiss" on him, even though Sirius was lying 
feet away).