Harry as godfather (Was: Sirius Black's role in DH -- why?)

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 179206

zgirnius:
> I can't agree on this one. If Sirius had any legal leg to stand on 
> (and the books do not make it clear whether he did, Petunia was 
> Harry's next of kin), his decision to go after Peter meant he lost 
> any chance to fight for Harry.
<snip>

Dana:
The discussion about legality has nothing to do with it. DD himself 
specifically states his reasons in OotP for placing Harry with his 
aunt and maybe I missed it but an explanation that he had no other 
choice to place him there because the law required Harry to be placed 
with his next of kin wasn't one of them. He specifically states that 
he placed Harry with Petunia because he put his trust in his mother's 
blood and he didn't want to place him in a wizard family of fear 
Harry would become a pampered prince. 

Wizards do not live by muggle law so I really doubt that guardianship 
would follow the laws as you know them in RL. 

zgirnius:
> Heck, he should have *expected* Dumbledore not to want Harry in his 
> power. By his own brilliant plan, Sirius was believed to be the 
> Potters' Secret Keeper. Which meant that their deaths pointed the 
> finger at him as a traitor and Death Eater. The implications of 
> this seemed to have escaped Hagrid, simple, kind soul that he is, 
> or maybe he did not even know who the SK was. Could anyone 
> reasonably suppose Dumbledore had missed this?
<snip>

Dana:
Really? And how much time did Sirius actually have to think about any 
such strategy?  He found out about the Potters death the moment he 
arrived and Hagrid was already there with strict orders to take 
Harry. Also that is assuming that DD would not believe him if he 
talked to Sirius but by this time DD had already made his decision 
even without making any inquiry about the truth. 

You might think it is okay to make such decisions based on the 
assumption on what James had told DD about who was going to be the 
SK, but everybody is innocent until proven guilty in my perception, 
still DD did not even bother to confirm Sirius' guilt. He says time 
was of the essence but why? LV was gone and he knew that perfectly 
well, so why could he not talk to someone that was formally one of 
his own resistance group and Harry's suppossed guardian? It was only 
when Sirius went after Peter and it was assumed that Sirius not only 
killed Peter but 12 muggles that people considered him to be guilty 
of betraying the Potters as well but Harry was already with the 
Dursley's by then.  

The only reason I can think of why DD did not question Sirius is 
because he himself was once betrayed by someone he thought to have a 
close relationship with, but nevertheless he still owed it to Harry 
to find out if his Godfather was really guilty of betraying his 
father. DD simply didn't care, it was just one obstacle less to 
overcome. DD tells us so himself that he had a plan and that only 
when he started to care for Harry (and that was only after Harry came 
to Hogwarts 10 years later) did he seem to falter on his plans.  He 
would have made sure Sirius was out of the picture if Sirius had not 
done so himself. 

Personally I do not find it reasonable for DD to have missed this, 
for the simple reason that DD claims to be such a great judge of 
character but he misjudged Sirius, not only once but several times. 
If he (DD) really was that close to James, as he later claimed to 
Harry, then he should have known the improbability of Sirius's 
betrayal. He didn't miss the improbability of Hagrid really having 
anything to do with Myrtle's death, he noticed the behavioral 
perversity of young Tom Riddle and yet he totally missed Sirius 
loyalty to his friend(s)? And no I do not care about what Sirius did 
at age 16, DD himself was disloyal to his own family once without 
really whishing them harm but still with far worse consequences than 
what Sirius did at age 16, to a Snape already in the know what he 
could find behind an off limit murderous tree.   

I do not blame DD, I blame his creator for the need of getting Sirius 
out of the way and putting him on ice so he can enter the story at a 
later date. Many of the things that surround this part of the story 
have massive plotholes and improbabilities to begin with. For 
instance why was an external SK even needed, while in DH we see two 
instances of people being their own SK? It was needed because JKR 
wanted Harry to be an orphan and without his parents' death that was 
not likely to be. Lupin being absent from Harry's life by choice 
while she now at the same time claims Lupin was financially supported 
by his parents; how believable is that? JKR wanted so much for Harry 
to not know anything about his wizard heritage that every logical 
reasoning of the probability of specific events happening as they 
did, went straight out of the window to serve the plot she 
envisioned. It was all nice and dandy when we still did not know all 
the particulars of it but now it is actually downright ridiculous and 
unbelievable. 

It is funny to see that she actually portrayed DD as a malicious 
puppet master but at the same time wants us to love him so dearly in 
the end because all his meticulous planning went so well for Harry. 
(according to her latest Dutch interview) and all those that died are 
so happy in the afterlife so why should anyone care about all those 
DD sacrificed to further his plans? 
There are a lot of things about this part of the story that do not 
sit well with me concerning DD's actions after DH. DD the most 
powerful wizard the WW has ever known, isn't able to protect the 
house the Potters were living in but a bunch of Order Members 
together with the MoM are able to keep LV not only out of one house 
but actually out of two. Riiight. 

I can only say that many of the things that are suggested happened in 
relation to the Potters and Sirius in particular are not story driven 
but exclusively to serve the plot and I already didn't like much of 
it but still hoped after OotP JKR would convert me back into a 
believer by making things more probable. Well I missed the boat on 
that one. 

zgirnius:
> Sirius did not know about the blood protection when he made his 
> choice, he knew only that Hagrid would not turn Harry over to him, 
> because Dumbledore had other plans. He should have gone to 
> Dumbledore and explained the Secret Keeper fiasco.
> Quite possibly, Dumbledore would still have wanted to do the blood 
> protection thing instead of letting Sirius care for Harry. If 
> Sirius is half the dedicated, salf-sacrificing godfather his fans 
> suppose, he might even have agreed to the plan as safer for Harry. 
> Visitation, presents, and correspondence by him with his godson 
> would still have been an option, I would think. Or, if he had a 
> legal leg to stand on and chose to in spite of the blood 
> protection, once his name was cleared, he could exercise his legal 
> rights.
<snip>


Dana:
Sirius knew enough to make his conclusions after he pleaded with 
Hagrid multiple times to give Harry to him and Hagrid refusing, 
stating he was under orders to deliver Harry to his aunt and uncle. 
DD had no business of interfering with Harry whatsoever, the Potters 
even rejected his offer to be their SK. DD can sit on his high horse 
and make easy claims about what they should or shouldn't have done 
but the Potters never asked him to intervene in Harry's life, they 
asked Sirius to do so. 

Sirius tried to act out their wishes but Hagrid and thus DD prevented 
him from doing so and only after he knew that all was lost did he go 
after Peter. Essentially Sirius did not have to proof to anyone that 
he wasn't guilty of betraying the Potters to be allowed to take care 
of Harry. DD made his decision to intervene and therefore it was up 
to him to be sure Sirius was actually guilty before making such a 
profound decision to cut Sirius out of Harry's life. He did not take 
it upon himself to provide extra safety pre-cautions while he felt 
there to be a traitor and we see it is possible to keep LV out of the 
premises by magical intervention besides the need of an SK. 

In my opinion you should not have to proof your innocence, if you are 
suspected of a crime then there should be enough evidence to proof 
you are guilty, not the other way around. DD found the suggestion of 
Sirius's guilt enough to give testimony but he never made an effort 
to talk to the guy himself; even while he was one of those people who 
actually had means enough to discover the truth even if hidden deeply 
behind memory charms as we saw in HBP.
 
I do not buy the Sirius should have gone to DD idea to explain the 
cause of events. Hagrid already had specifically told what was to 
become of Harry and thus it would seriously have no effect at all on 
the execution of DD's plan. Even if Sirius had explained it all to 
DD, DD would still have been convinced that it would have been the 
best thing for Harry to be under the protection of his mother's blood 
and not in custody of Sirius Black. He therefore already went ahead 
before anything could have been done about it. When Hagrid delivered 
Harry to DD at Privet Drive, Sirius had not encountered Peter and 
thus was not an assumed mass murderer yet. It was DD who owed Sirius 
an explanation for his actions not the other way around, no matter 
how much DD thought he knew. 

The issue is not that Sirius would not have agreed on what was to be 
the best for Harry, the issue is that Carol stated that Sirius 
actions is what coast him his connection with Harry (and visa versa) 
and it wasn't. Sirius would not have been allowed to contact Harry 
during the time he was with the Dursley's as we see no one else, not 
accused of betraying the Potters, did either, not even DD himself. 
His arrest or even his supposed guilt had nothing to do with it 
whatsoever and neither did his did his decision to go after Peter. 

The SK switch plan was not a plan based on reckless arrogance but was 
a very sound plan in hindsight to what happens to the secret if the 
SK dies. Everybody knew that Sirius would be the Potter SK and if he 
died then all in the know would have become SK themselves which would 
increase a security breach. The plan also allowed the Potters to not 
exclude anyone from their inner circle, - and thus alert the traitor 
of something being amiss - because even if Sirius would have died 
none of them would turn into a SK themselves. It was a solid plan 
that would not even have put Peter into any danger because no one 
would know they switched to him and so he would not be on anyone's 
radar. If someone is to blame for the plan to go wrong it was Peter 
and no one else's. 

Personally and sorry to rant on and on. I do not like the mixed 
messages JKR sends out about trust. It is never known when you can 
trust a person until that person betrays that trust and so I can't 
blame the Potters or Sirius for not seeing Peter's untrustworthiness 
and thus not knowing they put their trust in the wrong man. I was 
very offended by DD's comparison of the Potters trust in Peter to 
Snape's trust in LV. Not because of an improbability of putting your 
trust into someone unworthy of such trust but because DD himself 
betrays people left and right while no one actually knows they are 
betrayed by the one person they are expected to trust blindly. And if 
that isn't bad enough it is even worse that the author wants me to 
accept that betraying your own is right in the light of the greater 
good. It gives me the creeps it really does. 

I am no longer convinced that DD would not have betrayed the Potters 
himself if he thought it the only way to defeat LV, hence he sealed 
Sirius faith with his testimony without ever finding out the 
particulars of what really happened. That is what the picture JKR 
sketched, has come down too. Before DH I said JKR would do anything 
to make the entire story a lie and although I do not think she really 
had any intention of doing so, it became just that for me. 

JMHO

Dana