Dumbledore and the Dementors WAS: Lupin visiting Sirius in Azkaban

[scoutmom21113]

No: HPFGUIDX 112447

Carol:
We know that he [Dumbledore] testified that Sirius had been made 
Secret Keeper. He must have believed that <snip>

Bookworm:
I haven't seen anyone else suggest that maybe the Potters *did*
make Sirius their Secret-Keeper and then changed it to Peter.  If 
this is what happened, then Dumbledore wouldn't have lied during
his statement to the Wizengamot. He could truthfully say that he 
knew Sirius had been made Secret-Keeper

Carol:
But the strongest evidence that he believed Sirius guilty, IMO, is 
his allowing the Dementors--whom we know he detested--to guard the 
Hogwarts grounds.

Bookworm:
What would have happened if he refused to let them on the grounds?  
Whatever Dumbledore knew, popular opinion `knew' that Sirius
had betrayed Harry's parents, and then he killed 13 more people.  

Picture the situation at the beginning of PoA.  This was after Harry 
was suspected of being the Heir of Slytherin, but before the 
Triwizard Tournament, before Rita Skeeter, before there was any hint 
that Voldemort was coming back, before Fudge's smear campaign. 
At the beginning of PoA, Harry was still "The Boy Who Lived". 
Remember Fudge's reaction when Harry arrived at the Leaky
Cauldron.

Sirius escaped from Azkaban and got past the dementors somehow. 
It made sense for the dementors to want to get him back. If 
Dumbledore had tried to refuse having the dementors at Hogwarts, he 
would have been accused of risking Harry's life.  He might have 
battled Fudge over the dementor issue, but at what cost?  What 
reason could Dumbledore have given without revealing some secret he 
had kept for 12 years? (No, I don't know just what it is, but
I'm certain there is much more to this than we have learned yet.)

Ravenclaw Bookworm