CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 5: The Dementor

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 189520


> Alla:
> 
> Granted it had been some time since I reread DH, but this is not how I remember the events. I was under the impression that Grindelwald was *always* on dark side, where Dumbledore temporarily traveled too (all this muggle domination for their own good) and then left. I do not remember Dumbledore being in shock that his best friend and object of his affection suddenly got all those Dark Lord desires and started killing people.

Pippin:
If Grindelwald was *always* on the Dark Side, he wouldn't have been a welcome guest in Bathilda's home and Dumbledore wouldn't have wanted to be associated with him. Dumbledore says that he knew in his heart was Grindelwald was, but he closed his eyes to it. It wasn't until the argument with Aberforth became a fight that Grindelwald lost control and what Dumbledore had sensed in him sprang "into terrible being."

Certainly Dumbledore was shocked by  the fight -- he wasn't expecting an attack on his brother, or his sister's death. He wanted Gellert to use "only the force that was necessary and no more" and he made himself believe that Gellert was capable of restraint. 

I think Dumbledore  believed that he sensed a similar darkness in Sirius, to which James was closing his eyes. It was an illusion, just as Snape believes the illusion that Harry is as arrogant as James, and Dumbledore is closing his eyes to it, or Harry believes the illusion that Draco is like Lucius and Dumbledore is closing his eyes to that. 

Of course Sirius never showed any ambitions towards gaining political power by force, but Dumbledore hadn't had such ideas until Grindelwald put them in his head -- and then he encouraged and aided Grindelwald in them.   He might have feared that Voldemort had done the same thing with Sirius. 

Alla: 
> And yes, since all it took for Dumbledore is one conversation with Sirius in PoA to believe in his innocence, I am also under opinion that Dumbledore never happened.

Pippin:
There's more than a conversation. If Sirius had wanted to kill Harry or take him to the Dark Lord, he'd had the chance already. That at least proved that Sirius was not a crazed murderer who was out for Harry's blood, and the shape of Harry's patronus gave evidence that the story of the animagi was not a fabrication. 


> Pippin:
> <SNIP>
> Don't
> forget that Sirius wasn't sent to Azkaban for betraying the Potters, he was sent
> there for the daylight murder of thirteen people. If he was capable of that, who
> could doubt that he'd set up the Potters as well? <SNIP>
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Huh, I always thought he was sent in Azkaban for both events. What about Dumbledore giving "evidence" that Sirius was Potters secret keeper at the hearing?

Pippin:

What hearing? There was no trial. Dumbledore would have been questioned by the Ministry, rather as Harry was after Dumbledore's death. Dumbledore gave evidence of what he knew, which was that James had insisted on using Sirius as his secret keeper, despite Dumbledore's warnings that someone close to the Potters was passing information on their movements to Voldemort. 

That was not a lie, so far as we know. The liars were James and Sirius, who pretended that Sirius, not Pettigrew, was the secret keeper. It all fit together, or seemed to. Sirius was the spy, he had betrayed the Potters, and then he had gone berserk and murdered thirteen people. There really was not, at the time, any other credible explanation for how those people had died. 

Even though Sirius says it should have been obvious to him what Peter was, the fact is it was never obvious to anybody. Everyone thought that Peter was utterly loyal to Lily and James -- *he* was the one whom everyone considered unthinkable as  a traitor. If Sirius seemed to Dumbledore to be another Gellert, then Pettigrew probably seemed another Elphias Doge -- a dim but loyal friend. 

And indeed it doesn't seem that Peter ever killed or betrayed anyone out of malice -- only out of a desire to spare his own wretched skin. 

Pippin