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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 115124


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Nora Renka" 
<nrenka at y...> wrote:
 Learning to deal with the death of the person 
> he loved more than anyone (note, who Harry loved, regardless 
of how  we feel about the character) is more important or 
beneficial than,  perhaps, learning what it's like to build a 
relationship of trust and  love, even when the person in question 
*is* unquestionably damaged?  
> It's better to just say 'Oops, well, he was quite a mess, wasn't 
it?   Better for everyone not to have to deal with him!' than to go 
through  the more difficult *yet* ultimately more constructive 
project of  trying to rebuild a damaged soul, of trying to deal with 
things and not make them go away?
>

Good point, but Snape is still around for the "rebuild a damaged 
soul" bit, and he's far more damaged than Sirius. The plot 
reason for Sirius's death is elegant, though I fear few here are 
ready to accept it yet. There is no one else ESE!Lupin could have 
killed, even Harry himself, to make it apparent that there's 
nothing and nobody that matters once a wizard goes to the dark 
side.

Maybe it's because I never idolized Sirius, but I found JKR's 
explanation on the website did help me understand the 
contradictions in this character -- he's someone who often (note 
she didn't say "always") has trouble living up to his ideals 
--especially when there's an antagonist present.


 There's no enemy to confront in "Padfoot Returns", so Sirius is 
calm and supportive...but let Molly or Kreacher or Snape be 
present and Sirius becomes rash and argumentative.

The fact that Sirius didn't hate Kreacher because he was a 
House Elf doesn't mean that Sirius wasn't able to abuse his 
power over Kreacher because he was a House Elf. I think that's 
what JKR was talking about. House Elves have very powerful 
magic; Sirius wouldn't have dared to treat Kreacher the way he 
did if Kreacher had been free to retaliate. 

It never crossed Sirius's mind for example to let Kreacher go to 
the Malfoys before he'd had time to learn the Order's secrets. 
True, that would have been proof positive that Sirius was in 
London, but Sirius himself supplied that anyway not much later. I 
think Dumbledore would have approved; it would have meant 
sending the Malfoys a servant who was in Sirius's debt.

Or Sirius could have offered to abandon part of the house to 
Kreacher --it was certainly big enough--, and let him take 
whatever he wanted to his part of the house--that might have 
even got rid of the painting of good old Mum. But Sirius didn't 
think of those things.


Pippin