Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG)

[PJ]

No: HPFGUIDX 151559

Sherry:
> 
> I had never thought of it that way, but now you've got me going.  
You are
> absolutely correct, I think.  

PJ:
I don't honestly know if I'm right or not because I can't mesh what 
JKR says in her interview (she cried when she had to kill him off) 
and what she writes in her books.  

Sherry:
>I was appalled at the way people treated
> Sirius in his own home.  Dumbledore, who is so big on respect 
allowed it,
> though he wasn't present at the molly and Snape moments.  It is 
chilling to
> think of him that way, because it makes him pretty damn cold-
blooded and
> uncaring, which is not supposed to be the impression we have of 
Dumbledore.
> He even sent Sirius off while Harry was still in the hospital wing 
at the
> end of GOF, when Harry so obviously wanted him to stay.  

PJ:
The only thing that made sense to me after reading all the books was 
that Dumbledore was afraid Harry and Sirius were getting much too 
close and that Harry would insist on moving in with Sirius rather 
than go back to the Dursleys.  That would destroy the blood 
protection and leave Harry open to attack.  But yes, I saw 
Dumbledore as rather cold myself.  A slow but progressive change 
between books 1 and 5.  He made somewhat of a turn around in book 6 
but by then it was too little too late for me.

Sherry: 
> My only objection to your post is about Harry's grief.  I do not 
believe
> Harry has gotten over the death of Sirius very quickly, or even at 
all by
> the end of HBP.  <snip> Of course, there's the angle too, that JKR 
probably had to put any on stage
> grieving aside, to get on with the rest of what she wanted to do 
in HBP, but
> I still think she did a great job, in a few sentences of showing 
Harry's
> pain.

PJ:

Maybe you're right but let's face it...She spent so much of HBP on 
something as needless and pathetic as "snogging" <gritting teeth>, 
why couldn't she have shown us a bit more of Harry's (or anyone 
else's for that matter) grief over Sirius's death?  A paragraph, a 
line.... *Anything*!  He may as well never have existed at all.  A 
throwaway character.

PJ