Managing Dead Sirius (was Debatable ethical issues in OotP and HBP)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 142527

Marianne:
> Maybe Wizard culture says that if there's no body, there can be no 
> service. If that's the case, they should rethink that, IMHO.
> 
> Towards the end of HBP Harry muses about going to see his parents' 
> graves at Godric's Hollow.  My thought then was that the idea
> would occur to him to do something himself, such as place some
> sort of marker/stone for Sirius near his parents' graves. I can 
envision
> this happening early in Book 7, thus providing Harry with an
> additional boost in his determination to bring Voldemort down. Or I
> can see this at the end of the series, as a way to mourn and say 
> goodbye not only to Sirius, but to everyone else who was hurt by
> Voldemort's depredations.

Jen: That's a lovely thought, Marianne. I so hope you're right as 
even though Sirius might not feel he deserved to be memorialized 
with James and Lily, Harry would believe he belonged with them.

That reminds me--how did Harry suddenly know in HBP his parents had 
graves in Godric's Hollow? I don't remember anyone telling him that. 
It makes sense, but as Marianne pointed out upthread, no one seemed 
bothered to have a memorial for Sirius. Surely the WW treated James 
and Lily more respectfully, but I would have liked to have a 
character moment, when someone like Hagrid mentioned attending their 
joint funeral and that led to Harry wanting to visit their graves.

It's really interesting to me that for a series with possibly THE 
primary theme about death, according to the author, the one scene in 
a graveyard was the resurrection of a demon, including a cracked 
gravestone and the rest. I suppose Dumbledore's funeral was meant to 
be the anithesis of Voldemort's 'birth' in a way, a moment for a man 
who lived an incredibly full life and didn't use his immense power 
to try to cheat death when the end came. And I'm talking there about 
the fact Dumbledore also had a path to immortality via the stone and 
chose not to use it. At least I've always believed that was the 
point of his talk to Harry in PS, that unlike Voldemort, he made the 
choice not to fear death but consider it the natural course of 
events and to embrace it when his time came. 

But the rest of the folks who have died along the way....James and 
Lily, Cedric, Sirius....well, I was pleasantly surprised we even got 
to see Dumbledore's funeral. I do think an adult Order member may go 
with the Trio to Godric's, my choice would be Lupin for the personal 
connection to James and Lily, and Harry will learn some of the less 
plot-involved memories that way--a few moments about their life as a 
married couple, their immense love for Harry, the funeral...Sigh, I 
hope.


Jen, thinking of whatever wise person said 'funerals are for the 
living'.