Sirius' death (was: Dept of Mysteries Veil Room)

[Pat]

No: HPFGUIDX 114506


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "cubfanbudwoman" 
<susiequsie23 at s...> wrote:
> Susan wrote:
> > >I think, children just take Lupin's statement "He's dead" and 
> > > NHN's statement "He won't be coming back" at face value.  We 
> > > adults are more inclined to question or--esp. because she's 
JKR!-
> > > -to look for subtleties which could appear as one thing but 
> > > actually indicate something else.  
>  
>  
> Angie replies:  
> > I didn't remenber Lupin flatly stating "He's dead"?  I remember 
> > that he began to say it, but didn't finish it.  
> 
> SSSusan:
> You're right, Angie.  Lupin said "There's nothing you can 
do", "It's 
> too late", "He's gone...", and "He can't come back, because he's d-
-
> ".  So there was a little Gestalt going on there on my part, I 
> suppose, in completing that incomplete word.
> 
> Siriusly Snapey Susan, who still believes the word is "dead." :-)

Pat here:

I always finished the word the same way.  And later hearing JKR say 
that Sirius is dead (in interviews) was enough for me.  I think one 
of the things she has chosen to deal with is death and how it 
impacts our lives.  I suspect that the death of her mother when she 
was still quite young has had a profound effect on her.  Death is 
final, sometimes unexpected, and never easy for those who are left 
behind.  That seems to be important in the way she handles the 
tragic death of Harry's parents and also of Sirius.

I've never seen the veil as a cause of death. The veil is hung on an 
ancient archway on a dais, rather than a stage.  (A dais is for 
public speaking or for displaying a coffin, etc., rather than 
performance, right?)  The description of the archway seems to show 
that death is mysterious and ancient.  The mystery is something we 
can't know until we "pass through the veil" ouselves. It seems to me 
that it is symbolic of the way death appears to us.  The person we 
love dies, whether by accident, illness, or at the hand of someone 
else, and even if we see it happen, there is nothing we can do to 
prevent it.  Nothing we do can reverse it once it happens.

As for the voices that Harry and luna can hear.  Well, that gets to 
be a very odd subject.  I was quite young (8 and 10) when my 
grandfather and my father died.  I understood it, and knew they 
weren't coming back.  Yet I have the memory of them and the times we 
spent together.  So in a sense, they are still living within me.  
The same goes for my mother, who passed away in 1996.  We were so 
close, and I still hear her voice (not literally) when certain 
things happen.  I can even hear what she would say in situations 
that she didn't live to see.  I think that Harry and Luna might be 
feeling some of the same things.  When you are very close to 
someone, just as DD says, they never truly leave you.  For me, that 
is a comforting thought.  And perhaps that is what JKR is trying to 
impart through her books.

Death is one of the hardest things for us to accept.  I think that's 
the reason so many people have such a hope that Sirius will somehow 
return.  It just seems too cruel for Harry to have lost his parents, 
found Sirius, and then have him taken away.  But death is like that--
there is no fairness or justice in the way someone in our life is 
taken from us.  And I really think that's why JKR has included these 
deaths in the HP stories.

Well, that's quite a bit more than I started to write, so I'll stop 
for now.

Pat (who also likes it that people started adding things after their 
name *g*)