Peter, Sirius, or Lupin: who was the spy again?

[quigonginger]

No: HPFGUIDX 131794

Kathryn Jones wrote:
>       Another thing that drives me crazy is that it is constantly 
> expressed that Sirius loved Harry, and Harry loved Sirius.  They 
hardly 
> had a chance to get to know each other.  

Ginger:  I'm snipping a lot out of your post to touch on this one 
little issue.

It has been questioned often how the two could "love" each other 
after knowing each other for less than an hour (my guess-feel free to 
correct me) in the Shack.  Not to mention that they had a few 
distractions which limited the bonding to the chat in the tunnel.

Let's look at it first from Sirius' side.

He knew Harry well when Harry was a baby.  He was appointed 
Godfather.  The Potters went into hiding "barely a week" week before 
their deaths, (according to Fudge, PoA. US paperback p.205) so Sirius 
would have had plenty of time to get to know baby Harry.  

True, this isn't the same as knowing 11-year-old Harry, but as a 
Godmother, I know the bond that one forms with a baby, especially one 
to whose parents you are close friends.  The added responsibility 
and/or honour of the title heightens the bond.  

After James and Lily died, he had 12 long years to think about 
Harry.  Memories of baby Harry.  The knowledge that he had a 
position, an obligation, granted to him by his best friend to protect 
the child.  Worry about LV's followers coming after Harry while he, 
Sirius, was unable to defend him.  These things must have been in his 
mind.  The roots of the love were there for Sirius.

Later, when he escaped, he got "snapshot glimpses" of Harry's life.  
Watching him on Privet Drive and at Hogwarts would have given him 
some idea of what Harry was like.  Add these to the obligation and 
the memories, and I do think we have love.  Not as familiar of a love 
that would have formed had they not been seperated, but love 
nonetheless.

Remembering my Godson as a baby, I know if we had been seperated for 
12 years, I'd still have the same love for him, even if I didn't know 
the current person that he would be.

>From Harry's side, it's less clear.  He had those first 16 months, 
but how many of us remember that age?  

When we first meet Harry in the second chapter of PS/SS, he is being 
rudely awakened from a dream about a flying motorcycle.  Since Hagrid 
brought Harry to the Dursleys on it in the first chapter, we assume 
the dream is about that incident.  But it was night.  Harry fell 
asleep over Bristol.  He hadn't had a pleasant evening before that.  
Even if he didn't realize at the time that his parents were dead, he 
would still have been upset by the house being reduced to rubble, and 
the noise that would have accompanied it.  I'm not sure if the 
placement of the scar caused him pain or not, but I'd bet a knut that 
it wasn't uneventful.  Was this dream a memory of a single incident 
or of the motorcycle from happier times?

Harry also mentions in the second chapter that he had "dreamed and 
dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away" from the 
Dursleys.    

Were these subconscious memories of Sirius?  His flying motorcycle?  
His almost-familial connection?  Was this JKR foreshadowing?

Whether or not it was, Harry had, deep inside him, the memories of 
Sirius and the hope that someone who cared for him would take him 
away from the Dursleys.  Then he finds out that his deepest hope is 
true, and that it is someone his parents loved and trusted.  

Again, it's not the familiar love that would have been built over the 
years had they not been seperated, but it is a love.  

On both sides, there are a lot of missing pieces, but both also 
realize that this is not the beginning of their special relationship, 
but a continuation of a love that once was, many years ago.

They are not entering a relationship, but rebuilding one.

Ginger, who thinks there are many types of love, and this is one of 
them. 
Oh, yes, the usual JMO stuff.