[HPforGrownups] Who is Harry's guardian? WAS: Re: Identifying with Muggles -

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 158378

Julie:

So, even though Dumbledore was told directly by James that Sirius was the
secret-keeper, and he knows that nobody BUT the secret-keeper can give away
the location of the Potters, thus it HAD to be the secret-keeper who
betrayed the Potters, (and it WAS--only that secret-keeper had been changed
to Peter unbeknownst to DD), that Dumbledore should have thought, "Hmm,
while there seems to be very damning evidence against Sirius already, and if
the evidence is true Harry's life will likely be forfeit, still I can't be
100% *absolutely, postively certain* so given that very small chance
something totally unexpected has happened, hey, why don't I just hand over
baby Harry to Sirius anyway, and if the most likely thing indicated by all
the evidence I now possess occurs--poor baby Harry bites it for good--ah,
well, at least I can say I didn't overstep my bounds as a top Wizard,
headmaster, war general, close friend, all-around decent person concerned
for the welfare of a helpless child. And my defense for not acting on the
obvious can always be 'Who do you think I am anyway, God???'"

And remember, we're not talking of convicting a man in court (which is what
"innocent until proven guilty" references) but of protecting a child to the
best of one's ability. It is the latter that is DD's concern immediately
after GH. 




Sherry now:

Is there anywhere in canon where it says definitely that James told
Dumbledore that Sirius was the secret keeper?  I've always thought it was an
assumption, a good assumption, based on the fact that James and Sirius were
such good friends.  But even based on that assumption, couldn't Dumbledore
have taken the baby to Hogwarts or somewhere else safe and actually tried to
investigate if Sirius was really the traitor or not?  Even after Sirius was
caught he did nothing but help to send an innocent man to a terrible fate.
He certainly gave Snape a lot more slack than he gave Sirius.  Dumbledore's
hands are not clean for me in the matter of the imprisonment of Sirius
Black, a completely innocent man who suffered a horrible fate because nobody
bothered to even try to find out the truth.  and Harry suffered years of
abuse as a direct result of that.

Sherry, who still loves Dumbledore, but does not believe every move and
judgment he made was right or justifiable.