Delurking for a moment...

On Mon, 29 October 2001, "Cindy C." wrote:

> Amber wrote:
> I have problems with Harry agreeing so
>readily to live with someone he doesn't know at all.
>
<snip good points from Cindy re Harry's having more reason to feel comfortable with Sirius' invitation in PoA than with Hagrid's in PS/SS>

For me, what makes the scene work is that the significance of Sirius' offer develops as Harry thinks about it. 
Harry's initial response:
"'What--live with you?'...'Leave the Dursleys?'....'Of course I want to leave the Dursleys! Have you got a house?  When can I move in?'" (ch 20)

What he jumps at first is the prospect of escaping his own version of Azkaban. At that moment, he's thinking not about living with Sirius, but about living anywhere other than Privet Drive.  This is the invitation he so readily accepts.  (Sirius, who doesn't yet know Harry's history with the Dursleys, hears only that his godson wants to be with him, and is happy.  This always gives me a little pang.)

The group proceeds through the tunnel, follows Crookshanks out of the Whomping Willow, and sets off across the grounds:
"Harry's mind was buzzing.  He was going to leave the Dursleys. [Still the first thought in his mind.] 
He was going to live with Sirius Black, his parents' best friend.... [Now he's considering the connection Sirius offers him to his parents.] 
He felt dazed....What would happen when he told the Dursleys he was going to live with the convict they'd seen on television? [Back to the opportunity for escape--and the delightful irony of being rescued in such an unlikely way.]"

Lupin transforms, Pettigrew escapes, Sirius runs after him and is trapped by the dementors.  Harry and Hermione follow and Harry struggles to conjure a patronus.
What Harry thinks is:
"'I'm going to live with my godfather. I'm leaving the Dursleys. [Sirius' relationship to Harry now comes first, though escape from the Dursleys is still much on his mind.]' 
He forced himself to think of Black, and only Black, and began to chant: 'Expecto patronum!'...
'He'll be all right.  I'm going to go and live with him.'

As the dementors close in, Harry begins to lose consciousness:
'With a huge effort, he fought to remember--Sirius was innocent--innocent-- We'll be okay--I'm going to live with him--"

Harry's sense of connection with and concern for Sirius, his desire to live with Sirius (not simply to live away from the Dursleys) build over the course of the chapter.  He accepts Black's invitation on impulse, but as someone pointed out recently on another thread, Harry has a talent for doing the right thing at the right moment, before he's thought it through.  It's after he's accepted Sirius' offer that the weight of what Harry has learned about Sirius--his innocence, his loyalty to Harry's parents and his concern for Harry himself, etc.--begins to sink in and makes the prospect of living with his godfather the happiest thought he can conjure.  

Jennifer (who wouldn't have agreed quite so fast to Sirius' invitation, but then again lacks Harry's ability to act well without thinking)



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