The Knight of Walburga

[Goddlefrood]

No: HPFGUIDX 169490

> Jen:  

> I hesitate to discount Sirius not noticing anything was 
> amiss with the portrait of his dear mum since he serves an 
> expository role in sections of POA and GOF.  He can be very 
> dismissive of those he doesn't like though and when OOTP 
> starts, Sirius is in a self-absorbed funk and thinking only 
> about the bad memories connected to his family. Any other 
> ideas how to reconcile that piece of information?

Goddlefrood:

Sirius and his dear old mum have had an acrimonious falling 
out somewhere back in their history. Sirius left home to go 
and live with the Potter parents before he finished school. 
That may or may not have something to do with the prank, I 
believe it does, fwiw.

Extrapolating from that we could divine that Sirius has no 
respect for his mother, and that is also reinforced by his 
attitude towards her portrait as well as by certain things 
he says. He has burned his bridges where his mother is 
concerned methinks. Therefore he would not care what her 
portrait looked like and make no comments on it. iirc Sirius 
does not refer to the appearance of the portrait of his mum 
at all in OotP.

Or perhaps he saw it as a representation of her inner being ;-)

> Jen:  <Snip>

> As an aside:  no matter what's revealed about Walburga's 
> involvement or not with a Horcrux,  I believe she learned 
> more about Regulus' death than Sirius did as he was her 
> favored son and she had the means to get information.

Goddlefrood:

Quite right, she would have been far more in the know about 
what happened to Regulus and that may well have increased her 
resentment towards LV, if she made a link between his death 
and LV. Belonging as she did to the Black family, with their 
fierce pride, which IMO is easily discerned from what we do 
know of them, she would have taken some steps against LV I 
think.

> Jen: <Snip>

> Why did Regulus say in his note that he would be dead?

Goddlefrood:

It's a tricky one indeed. He may have been already wanted by LV 
for leaving his service by the time he went to the cave and 
knowing ewven more about the DEs than would his brother, who 
has told us that being a DE is a lifetime of service or death, 
or thereabouts, Regulus feared he would be found and killed by 
those who perceived he had betrayed them.

Quite a resonable fear as it turned out, IMO.

Goddlefrood