Over Kill with Dementors/Azkaban

[kiricat2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 98420

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat2001" 
<Zarleycat at a...> wrote:
> > Kneasy wrote:
> > 
> > > I  use the word "supposedly" deliberately.
> > > 
> > > Consider the sequence of events:
> > > Fudge visits Azkaban the *night before* Sirius' escape.
> > 
> > Marianne:
> > 
> > I'm not sure that's true.  Fudge gives Sirius the Daily Prophet, 
but 
> > I haven't found any indication that Sirius escaped the day after. 
> 
> Ah! You've missed it.
> PoA chap 4 p.54 (UK ed). It's where Harry is eavesdropping on 
> Arthur and Molly:
> Arthur - 'They didn't report it to the press because Fudge wanted
> it kept quiet, but Fudge went out to Azkaban the night Black 
escaped."
> 
> True, it doesn't look possible that Fudge handed over the Daily 
Prophet
> on that occasion, but  I doubt Sirius has a subscription for a daily
> delivery. Someone made sure he got hold of a copy of that 
particular 
> edition. 
> 
> The guards told Fudge (do Dementors talk? Or are there other guards
> knocking around the place?) that Black  had been talking in his 
sleep
> "..for a while now..." But his escape is the night Fudge turns up.
> 
> What else can a poor conspiracy theorist think - the  worst, 
obviously.
> 

Marianne:

Thanks for fishing that tidbit out. 

Okay, how about this?  Fudge does indeed make sure Sirius gets that 
particular edition of the Daily Prophet.  He then goes back to the 
Ministry, rubbing his little, gloved hands together and waits for 
Sirius to do his (Fudge's) dirty work.  Days...weeks go by and 
nothing happens.  The ungrateful wretch sits there in that cell.  So, 
Fudge goes back to Azkaban to get things moving and helps engineer 
Sirius' escape on whatever night he actually gets out.  Sort of gives 
him a figurative shove out the door.

However, being the dull, boring soul that I am, what it also could 
mean is that Fudge went to Azkaban the night Sirius escaped simply 
because he was informed that his most infamous prisoner had indeed 
flown the coop.  Being the Minister on whose watch Azkaban has now 
been shown to be vulnerable, Fudge goes out there to be on the scene 
and act like he's actually a capable, involved Minister concerned 
with the public safety and not merely his own reputation.

On the guard question, I always had the sense that there were wizards 
posted to Azkaban, too.  I have absolutely no canon to back this up, 
but it seems like someone would be in charge of the bureaucratic 
niceties of running a government installation - checking to see the 
prisoners were put into their proper cells - high security like 
Sirius or short-termers like Hagrid, handling provisions, writing up 
the proper reports when someone died, etc. The Dementors never struck 
me as particularly capable or interested in that sort of thing. 

I imagine Azkaban being run day-to-day by a small crew of wizards, 
Aurors perhaps.  Several of them are in charge, assigned there on a 
rotating basis.  And, for their crew, they get other Aurors that need 
a little negative reinforcement or who have screwed up somehow and 
are sent to do a stint as Azkaban overseers as a punishment.  I don't 
see Azkaban as a plum assignment for anyone, nor do I imagine that 
anyone is posted there long-term. What a depressing career that would 
be!

Marianne