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

[ornadv]

No: HPFGUIDX 158400

>Sherry now:

>Well, of course Sirius is impulsive and irrational. He's been in 
>prison with dementors for 12 years! He never had the chance to grow 
>up the normal way and to mature in the natural course of time and 
>life. He's damaged emotionally by the time we meet him. That 
>doesn't mean he would have been that way if Dumbledore had ever 
>bothered to try to determine the truth, and if he hadn't been sent 
>to Azkaban without a trial.

Orna:
We know him to be impulsive before - his trick on Snape - also you 
might say – he was just a teenager. Still – he was endangering 
Snape's life, and also Lupin's, in a way.  His act of changing 
secret-keepers – again – something impulsive, not too well-thought 
of. So it seems his impulsiveness, and recklessness didn't start 
from Azkaban. And the way he fought with Bellatrix, teasing her to 
do better – also seems like enjoying a bit too much danger, and 
extremes. (But that was after Azkaban, you might say). 
Having said that, I agree that he deserved a just trial, and that I 
agree also with Magpie, that it is surprising that DD didn't try to 
see what his side of the truth was, not before he was arrested, and 
not throughout his 12 years of imprisonment.

>Alla:
>What I am saying is that IMO Dumbledore had no right to take Harry
>away based **only** on the fact that Sirius was secret keeper.
>At the very least he had to investigate more IMO as I mentioned
>before maybe go there himself and not just rely on hearsay.

Orna: 
That's where I disagree, and agree. I think that if there is any 
chance that the guardian is in league with the person who murdered 
your parents, DD had the duty to secure Harry away from him, until 
further inspection. But he had to investigate it more closely, I 
agree. And his being arrested as a mad mass-murderer doesn't change 
this duty. But it makes this neglect easier to understand. 
Actually I do wonder if Sirius would have got released in a fair 
trial. What could happen there?  He would say – he changed secret-
keeper - no witness for that. And Hagrid witnessing him to be on the 
spot, unhurt.   PP would be thought dead from Sirius' hands – just 
strengthening the evidence against him and – again no witness for 
him being alive, and many witnesses for hearing PP accusing Sirius, 
seeing him laugh, and PP + muggles disappear
The only thing he might 
be able to prove, was himself being an unregistered animagus
That 
would send him to Azkaban this way or the other. Ironically – had he 
succeded in killing PP in the first place – he would never been able 
to prove his innocence. (In RW-court, perhaps in WW they just use 
Verisatrum - but I'm not sure...).

That leaves only DD wanting to hear from him his version for this or 
other reason.


>Magpie:
>I'm pretty surprised DD didn't seek Sirius out and find out exactly 
>what happened and why--even if he thought he was guilty I think 
>he'd need to know why. DD is somebody who seems known for 
>understanding why people do things, even if it's after the fact, 
>and there honestly never seemed to be any understanding with 
>Sirius, even a fake one. What did people think about why
>he was the traitor? With Peter, once the truth was out, people 
>could see how he would have gone to LV.

Orna:
It does look surprising, I agree. I think that most people didn't 
know about the Fidelius, Sirius being secret-keeper. So they had to 
understand "only" how come Sirius attacked PP and 13 muggles, or was 
a DE. Hagrid didn't know it, and he wasn't the only one IIRC. It 
seems they just thought him "mad", which is what people do, when 
they are reluctant to think about something – they just label it 
as "mad". Perhaps they also thought that it was part of Voldemort's 
evil ingenuity – to have such an influence on people, having spies 
everywhere, where you wouldn't suspect it. Perhaps, since Sirius was 
Black, many people weren't surprised to find one brother DE, and the 
other - too. And people were used in VWI to distrust everybody, or 
find Des everywhere – so perhaps they just thought that they had 
been mistaken in Sirius all the time. Lupin admitted he thought 
Sirius was the traitor, Sirius admitted he thought Lupin was the 
one. So it seems the atmosphere was one in which you never knew who 
to trust, and never would be really surprised to find "your best 
friend" belonged to Voldemort. It still leaves DD and what we expect 
from him as an open issue.
 
Orna, who is not much of a Sirius-fan, but that doesn't mean he has 
to rot in Azkaban.