Sirius Black Sheep

[sistermagpie]

Happy birthday millefiori!!

I was reading a thread on HP4GU today--naturally a long-running thread that I think started with the question of Dumbledore's placing Harry with the Dursleys and it echoed Sirius' life in a weird way for me, in a Meta-way. It started as a conversation about just what business it was of Dumbledore's to decide who Harry lived with. Like, if you accept that the Dursleys are just supposed to be the best choice, it still comes down to Dumbledore alone being the one to make it, as if he's got any connection to this kid at all beyond Harry's being really important to his personal plans for the future.

But it kept getting into all these criticisms of Sirius as a guardian to Harry. Criticisms that were really beside the point. The criticisms weren't particularly radical--he's immature, he's reckless--and he was always these things, it wasn't just Azkaban, because remember the Prank. But to me, actually, it seems like what was Sirius doom as a character wasn't only his own flaws but the fact that he

...just wasn't important enough to Dumbledore.

That might sound differently than the way I mean it--I don't mean to imply that it was Dumbledore's job to keep him out of trouble or anything like that. It was just strange seeing how easy it was to dismiss Sirius as a guardian for Harry when the Potters picked him. (Even to the point of questioning whether they really did that officially since we've only got Sirius' word for it, while Dumbledore's own god-like place in the kids' life is just natural.) Everything bad that happened to Sirius was a little too much his fault, imo. He went to jail because he didn't defend himself; he should have gone to Dumbledore immediately, he should have gone to Dumbledore when he broke out of jail, even. That last one's particularly ironic, imo, because how many people who have been unjustly rotting in jail for over a decade have that kind of trust in the system? Why would Sirius think Dumbledore would be so sure to understand and believe him? I asked myself. Just because so many other characters would trust Dumbledore to believe them? Isn't that because they've only really seen Dumbledore deal with people like Harry, who are important to him?

Sirius as a character is known more for being ignored by Dumbledore than anything else. We know DD didn't expel him after the Prank, but from what we've seen so far this didn't seem to be about Sirius himself. Is there a scene where Sirius and Dumbledore ever discuss it in a way that suggests Sirius got one of Dumbledore's famous second chances? Because it seems like that whole thing was more about James. Sirius doesn't seem to feel much about it. Lupin feels he owes Dumbledore for letting him into the school, Snape is bound up with Dumbledore in all sorts of ways, I wouldn't be surprised if Draco had some Dumbledore!Angst now, but Sirius doesn't seem to think about it at all. Even if Sirius himself is just supposed to be thoughtless about it I don't remember any scenes where Dumbledore seemed to feel he should feel some loyalty for him.

Then Sirius is put in jail and Dumbledore isn't there fighting for him enough to even get him a trial. He breaks out of jail and fights his way back into Harry's life, though thanks to Peter's escape he doesn't get a life out of it. (I'm not suggesting Dumbledore is responsible for that, but it's fitting, isn't it, that Peter is far more important to Dumbledore's plans than Sirius?) Then he's in hiding, the last year of which in a place that seems almost intentionally designed to make him self-destruct. So he does the one thing he's ever been able to do in the story, which is suffer and die, and then there's Dumbledore right away with one of the lamest eulogies ever. Compare Sirius to say, Hagrid. I personally can't picture any of that going down the same way. Did Dumbledore just not ever trust Sirius that much? There are times reading that speech where it almost sounds like Dumbledore naturally finds it easier to talk about Sirius' flaws than his good points because he long ago judged and dismissed him on those faults. (And is it creepy that the fact that Sirius seems so little beholden to Dumbledore ever seems like it might be a flaw in Dumbledore's eyes?)

I know I've talked before about how family is important in HP to the point where I never understood people wondering why certain characters didn't just dump their families and expect Harry & Co. to take care of them, and I've always seen Sirius as a tragic example of someone who leaves his family and finds himself abandoned. It's no wonder he's so fixated on James in his last year; James seems like the only person who was truly connected to him like family. Remus is in a similar situation, but of course Remus never expects anyone to think of him as family, so he's okay with it.

Ultimately, this all might make Sirius that much more of an interesting contrast with his brother, actually. Not just because Regulus, too, felt isolated on the side he had chosen, but also he died in a way that was remembered as pointless, the death of a loser. And also he, like his brother, may have finally found that the only acceptable sacrifice he could offer (East of Eden again) was his life.

Comments

[ellecain.livejournal.com]

The relationship between Dumbledore and Sirius was a bit peculiar, wasn't it? You said that Sirius seems so little beholden to Dumbledore, but in OOTP, whenever people counsel Sirius against leaving the house, they always resort to "Dumbledore said so"; and that shuts Sirius up.
But why should it? What did Sirius owe Dumbledore? Why was he loyal to him?

Other characters like Snape, Lupin, etc were given a Second Chance. But, as seductivedark says, we never saw this with Sirius. Sure the Prank could be interpreted that way, but as you said, it never seems to register with him at all; it was all about James and Snape. So to me, it is quite unclear why Sirius obeyed the edicts handed down by Dumbledore. I never saw much warmth between them in their scenes together. (In fact, when DD and Sirius are in the same room, Sirius gets very little attention from him.)

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I think static_pixie had a good point, that the way Sirius saw the Prank had a lot to do with the way Dumbledore treated him from there on out. Unlike James, he was missing that little spark of something that tells him when a joke has gone too far. This can be a dangerous thing after all, and not necessarily a good thing when one is being considered to raise a child, as Sirius was considered by the Potters to be Harry's guardian: an inability to see danger, not just thriving on it or going after it for the thrill.

I think Sirius obeyed Dumbledore because he was really trying to be a part of the Order, and his staying at Headquarters was deemed to be the best thing. He does seem to have a problem in knowing when something is too dangerous. Maybe he was becoming mature enough, after being out of Azkaban for a while, to realize that he needed to follow rules like kids recite multiplication tables by rote, in order to learn safer behavior. Just speculating there.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

The more I think about the more I wish I knew what was going through Sirius' head in OotP. He obeys Dumbledore's orders also in giving Harry to the Dursleys--Hagrid says he argued with him when he came to take Harry, but Sirius eventually agreed. Ironically, some seem to hold this sort of against Sirius as guardian, basically saying that he was more interested in finding Peter than fighting for a claim on his godson, but to me it seems like the opposite might be true. If he was level-headed enough to give Harry up because Dumbledore thought it would be safer, he may have been spurred to go after Peter that much more because of that need he had to do something. That's what seems to be at the root of a lot of his recklessness. Sirius seems kind of ultimately doomed by the combination of his faults and his attempts to do the right thing. As many characters are.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you chould bring up that Sirius seemsed more interested in finding Peter than fighting for a claim for his godson. Because it is absolutely true. Hagrid is pretty immovable when he "has his orders" but Sirius could have *gone with* Hagrid, couldn't he, and *explained* things to Dumbledore? Or at least *tried* to?

So where else have we seen somebody in the series do something like that? Oh, yes. Wasn't there something about a new mother who chose to die rather than raise and protect her kid, because her husband (who she tricked into marriage) had walked out on her, perhaps?

Well, perhaps

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

Sirius could have *gone with* Hagrid, couldn't he, and *explained* things to Dumbledore? Or at least *tried* to?

But Dumbledore might have still been smarting from the fact that Sirius was the supposed secret keeper and not him and that Sirius' cock up wouldn't have necessarily swayed him either way.

Besides, Sirius gave Hagrid his bike, no? So that Hagrid could take Harry away in some sort of comfort, because 'he wouldn't be needing it.'

I can sympathise with Sirius because his family died that day, when Voldemort came to the Potters' house. He had to find Peter and get his vengance.

That's far from Merope who slips the Wizarding equivalent of roofie in Tom Riddle Sr.'s drink, and takes his sperm and incubates it into a child. Merope literally rapes Riddle because she gives him no choice.

I can see your point - about people thinking of themselves instead of the children in their care, but Sirius Black and Merope Gaunt's reasons are chalk and cheese here.

Sirius' loyalty was to Harry, not Dumbledore

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

Which the only thing which held him [Sirius] in check for as long as he did. For all of Sirius' good traits, he was still a Black, in the sense that he seemed to very much know his place and his worth. Dumbledore might have been a good wizard, but Sirius definately saw him as a man. Sirius probably felt betrayed by the fact that Dumbledore, greatest wizard of his age as he was did not insist on priori incantatem or some other spell that could have proven his innocence. So, Sirius definately knew his place, what he was about and did not feel behoden to A. Dumbledore.

This in a way that Lupin, the Weasleys and others don't.

Sirius' stir to action (and our introduction to him - when he goes from being discussed to just being) is due to him wanting to get back at Peter for what happened to James. Sirius starts to do what he can for Harry, because of his bond with James, his best friend.

Dumbledore definately knows this, that Sirius was not loyal to him. Sirius was loyal to the cause, and to Harry and Dumbledore knew this, so he made Sirius impotent.