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

[julie]

No: HPFGUIDX 158388


>
> 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.  

Julie:
Dumbledore says James told him Sirius was the secret-keeper.
I suppose the validity of that statement depends on whether
you as the reader take Dumbledore at his word or not.

Sherry:
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.

Julie:
On the subject of Sirius's fate, I do think Dumbledore and
everyone else is proven humanly fallible in accepting the 
available evidence--that Sirius was the secret-keeper and
killed Peter as well as 12 Muggles--at face value. Certainly
Dumbledore, if he knew Sirius well enough to consider such
a traitorous act very out of character, should have gone
to see Sirius in Azkaban to get his side of the story. I
don't know though that we have certain evidence Dumbledore
knew Sirius that well. James he knew quite well, but Sirius?
I'm not sure. (McGonagall apparently did though, as she was
his head of house, so one must wonder why *she* didn't go
see Sirius to get his side of the story.) So I'm not 
prepared to consider Dumbledore's hands "not clean" in 
this matter, though I will consider him quite humanly 
fallible in retrospect. 

On the subject of where to take Harry, I'm thinking one's
opinion on that is also tied to one's opinion of Dumbledore.
Dumbledore has said more than once that the Dursleys' home
was the safest place--in fact, the only *completely* secure
place--for Harry to be. Some fans have expressed doubt about
this, believing Dumbledore is exaggerating perhaps, or 
outright lying, or that there could have been some place 
"safe enough" if not quite so ironclad safe as the Dursleys
to place Harry. Hogwarts, for example, or with another 
Wizarding family, or with Sirius (if he'd been able to 
avoid Azkaban, and one wonders what would have happened to
him if he'd done as some believe was his right and grabbed
Harry, placing his focus on protecting his godson rather 
than on chasing the Rat to avenge the Potter's deaths).

Really, I guess it boils down to two choices--

Either Dumbledore took it upon himself to place Harry
where *he* wanted the boy, because he wanted an ironclad
safehouse to keep his future weapon against Voldemort even
though there were other almost as safe (i.e. "safe enough")
places Harry could have been raised where he would have 
been happier and subject to less abuse,

or...

Dumbledore took it upon himself to place Harry where he
believed was in the *best interests of the child* (i.e.,
he believed it was better for Harry to grow up completely
safe under his mother's protective charm than to grow up
in a happier yet potentially less secure environment). In
this case it wasn't because Harry was destined to defeat
Voldemort as much as it was so Harry would reach adulthood
alive, if with memories of an unhappy childhood, that made 
the choice for Dumbledore. 

There is no doubt the second argument means taking Dumbledore's
words at face value as well as JKR's writing, and ignoring the
urge to pick apart the logic of Dumbledore or others not being
able to find *some* way to protect Harry at Hogwarts or another
wizard home (like the unplottable Grimmauld Place), etc. But 
applying absolute logic to events in HP (or almost any novel)
is a slippery slope, and pretty soon the whole construct starts
to fall apart!

Since I don't have any expectation that Dumbledore will be
revealed ESE or a completely Manipulative!DD, and I accept 
JKR's assertion that he is her "epitome of goodness" in intent
if not always in action (given his self-admitted human flaws),
I take Dumbledore's words at face value and accept that he 
placed Harry at the Dursley's for Harry's sake and Harry's 
sake alone. And I think Sirius knew that to be the case (part 
of the reason he allowed Hagrid to take Harry, and turned his
own focus to chasing the Rat). Which speaks well of Sirius in
a sense, that he so quickly put Harry's welfare ahead of his
own (presumably) wishes. 

As for the legality of it all--and leaving out the oft-ignored
fact that legality in the RW and the WW are *very* different
on most matters--I don't really care if Dumbledore had a legal
right to take Harry or not, as long as he acted FOR Harry.
And I believe he did :-)

Julie