<div id="ygrps-yiv-1334829216">Deborah wrote:<br>
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<div>I might be channelling the girl who kicked the
hornet's nest, but I can't think it would have been
better for Harry to have been brought up by Sirius
rather than the Dursleys. Sirius is charming, dishy,
lovable ... and irresponsible. He acts before he
thinks, and if this only brings trouble on his own
head, then fine - he's brave and resilient enough to
cope. But he shows no signs of having moved on from
being the boy who tried to get his enemy killed by
using his friend as an unwitting weapon. Yes, he loved
Harry. He loved James, James's parents and Lupin. Did
he love Lily that much, I wonder? She must have got
between Sirius and James, and her moral superiority to
Sirius was what helped James to become worthy of her
love and, surely, opened something of a rift between
them. Remember also the way Sirius shows signs of
depression in OP? Not a stable personality. Not what
you want in a single parent.<br>
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Now I'm taking on the Beatles: love is not all you need.
The Dursleys showed Harry the absence of love, granted,
but they provided a safe environment - inadvertently,
but in their home Harry was protected. When did Sirius's
parents die - after Harry's birth, presumably. So,
imagine Sirius, living with Harry in his old home
complete with house-elf heads mounted on the walls, a
screeching portrait and bedroom walls covered with
Playboy centrespreads. Imagine Sirius, innocently no
doubt, using Harry's admiration for his late father to,
well, lead him astray frankly! To do things that James
would have thought were fun. Would Harry have had
anything resembling a 'saving-people thing' after a few
years of that? As a teenager he can stand up to Sirius;
as a toddler, surely his character would not be
undamaged in spite of Lily's sacrifice. Seeing how
Dudley turned out as a result of excessive and misguided
love, I'm inclined to think that Harry was actually
pretty lucky, spiders in the cupboard and all.<br></div><br></div></div></blockquote><br><br>arisboch:<br>Mere trifles. Sirius would teach him to stay safe and kick ass (and
probably get laid, once he is old enough for that).<br><br>
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