Dumbledore and the Dementors WAS: Lupin visiting Sirius in Azkaban

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 112606

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:

> Carol:

<snippity>

> 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.

To play the contrarian: this is all predicated on DD having the 
ability to go and speak to Sirius.  Given the Barty Crouch system of 
institutional justice, and the knowledge that Sirius didn't get a 
trial, how could Sirius have asked?  This is, of course, so far 
unsupported in the text, but there's also the potential problems of 
sheer Ministry obfuscation and refusal to allow Dumbledore free 
reign, as it seems that visits to Azkaban are highly restricted.  
Perhaps this is at a period when DD is either unwilling or unable to 
get around the Ministry's bureaucracy and obstinancy?  For all his 
careful planning and watchfulness, I think DD is likely guilty of a 
certain complacency in the wake of Voldemort's first fall.

> 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.

(my emphasis added)

I don't need to mark this as presently qualified, do I?  Oh, for some 
concrete information...

<snip>

> 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.

I think the unanswered proposition of Ministry influence is also a 
possible factor here--not that both can't have some sort of play, but 
I think it's really more a case of Dumbledore reluctantly bowing and 
letting Fudge do what he wants, rather than engage in an OPEN feud 
with the Minister of Magic.  Now, with hindsight, we can really see 
this incident, Fudge's willingness to pull out these vile creatures 
in order to recover the escaped convict and restore his own prestige, 
as completely in-character for Fudge.  His increasing subsequent 
blindness and resentment of Dumbledore should cast new light on how 
we see the beginning of it, in PoA.

> 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.

Not quite enough information to tell what was really going on in the 
events that actually transpired.  I think what's being expressed is a 
general disappointment that Dumbledore, who often seems so willing 
and ready to help the abject who wouldn't be given a second chance by 
many other people *cough*, seems to have dropped the ball on this 
one.  If we take Dumbledore as the parental figure to the Order 
(which he so is), he has an obligation to work through events like 
this fully, by actually going out and getting some personal empirical 
evidence, and not simply engage in the kind of half-informed logical 
train of thought that would lead him to do nothing.  In the light of 
that problem, I think the obstruction proposition makes a little more 
sense.  This is one question I'd love to ask JKR, though.

-Nora, who wonders if sometimes we don't overestimate character 
complexity or the complexity of plot events simply out of a lack of 
information