Oviously guilty was Re: JKR/Oprah interview

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 189653

> > Pippin wrote:
> > <big snip>
> >  
> > > As for Dumbledore, if you recall what Sirius says, Crouch sent  a lot of people to Azkaban, many of them  less obviously guilty than Sirius Black, trial or no trial.  If Dumbledore was trying to free anybody, it would be them. There wasn't a reason on earth for him to think that Sirius was innocent before the night of the Shrieking Shack. He wasn't the sort to have eternal faith in the goodness of his friends, not after what happened with Grindelwald.
> >  <snip>
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> No reason at all, except Sirius being a part of Order of Phoenix, part of his supposedly trusted and handpicked fighters. 

Pippin:
So?
Dumbledore knew that one of his trusted Order members had to be the spy.  Sirius and Lupin also believed that and wrongly suspected each other.

Peter was a trusted and handpicked fighter too. He was also trusted and handpicked by James and Sirius,  precisely because no one in their right mind would guess that he was the Secret-keeper and Sirius wasn't. 

Alla:
I do agree though that Dumbledore apparently wasn't the sort to have faith in the goodness of his friends. Poor Lily and James probably sensed it from him and no wonder to me that they could not trust him in turn.

Pippin:
Odd, then, that James trusted Dumbledore with, the I-cloak,  his most precious possession I think that James picked Sirius over Dumbledore because he knew Dumbledore suspected Sirius and he wanted to prove to Dumbledore that Sirius could be trusted. That would work even after the switch, as long as they stayed safe and Dumbledore didn't know the switch had been made.


Alla:
> And while Crouch certainly sent lots of people to Azkaban, I wonder if any of them was less obviously guilty than Sirius Black.  In fact, I am not sure what does less obviously guilty means, since as we know Sirius was completely innocent, so I think it will be quite hard for many people to be less guilty than completely innocent person.

Pippin:
I meant, obviously guilty based on the evidence available. IIRC, Sirius says he has no idea if Barty Jr was actually guilty  -- the evidence against him was that he was found in the company of some people who were known to be Death Eaters. One assumes that many other people went to Azkaban based on circumstantial evidence. In Sirius's case, there was a whole street full of eye witnesses.

Alla: 
> Oh and as another speculation, freeing any innocent from jail so does not lie with me as something within Dumbledore's character, since the only example canon gives us is to not lay a finger to help the innocent person.
> 

Pippin:
Dumbledore definitely freed Hagrid on CoS. He also says he tried to free Hokey and Morfin, although he was unsuccessful. There really is no reason for him to lie about that. If he were going to lie, why not say that he did free them and the Ministry hushed it up? 

Pippin