Dumbledore and the Dementors WAS: Lupin visiting Sirius in Azkaban

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 112598

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "scoutmom21113"
<navarro198 at h...> wrote:
> 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

Carol:
I wasn't really suggesting that Dumbledore *knew* Sirius had been made
Secret Keeper but didn't know the SK had been changed. That's
possible, I suppose, but all I meant was that he knew James *intended*
to make Sirius the SK and that DD doubted the wisdom of that choice
and offered himself in Sirius' place. He knew that James had refused
that offer and made someone else Secret Keeper. He had no reason to
believe that that someone was anyone other than Sirius, which is why
he testified that Sirius had been the SK. He also knew that Peter and
Sirius had had a confrontation after Godric's Hollow, that Sirius had
survived but twelve Muggles were dead. He had every reason to believe,
as the rest of the WW did, that Peter was also dead.

Now if Sirius had come forward and asked to speak to DD then as he did
near the end of PoA, DD could have used Legilmency or any number of
other tests to determine his veracity. But Sirius remained silent. DD
knew from Hagrid that Sirius had shown up at Godric's Hollow hoping to
take his godson away on the flying motorcycle, that he had followed
his failure there by pursuing and confronting Peter, that he had
laughed madly when the aurors took him away. That on top of his
"knowledge" that Sirius was the Secret Keeper must have convinced him
that Sirius, who had always been reckless and arrogant and had once
tried to murder a classmate, was now dangerously insane. There was no
point in visiting him in Azkaban, especially since the Dementors would
presumably strip away any remaining vestige of sanity.

That, to me, is the only explanation for his testimony and his refusal
or failure to visit Sirius in Azkaban--he believed that Sirius was
guilty on all counts. It also accounts for his reluctantly allowing
the Dementors to guard Hogwarts, endangering not only Sirius but his
own students. He had no reason to suspect that Sirius was innocent.
And Sirius seemed to confirm not only his guilt but his intention to
murder Harry with every action taken from that point forward, from
attacking the Fat Lady's portrait to slashing Ron's bedcurtains and
flourishing a twelve-inch knife. "Sirius has not behaved like an
innocent man" is an understatement. He behaved like a homicidal
maniac, which Dumbledore and everyone else had every reason to believe
he was.

Let's not blame Dumbledore for thinking what Mr. Weasley and Professor
McGonagall and Remus Lupin also thought--that Sirius Black betrayed
the Potters to their deaths and murdered Peter Pettigrew. As far as I
can see, there's nothing else he could think.

Carol