Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory.
In today’s video, we’re going to be discussing Albus Dumbledore, Azkaban, and the false imprisonment
of Sirius Black.
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Let’s dive in to it.
Sirius hailed from the powerful wizarding family, The Blacks- and while many of his
family members were advocates of blood purity, Sirius did not share this same belief.
Many members of the Black family would follow very dark paths, and Sirius was an exception
to this.
Sirius Black started at Hogwarts in the year 1971, the same year that Peter Pettigrew,
Remus Lupin, and James Potter began attending the school.
The quartet of boys would eventually form a group called the Marauders- and one thing
that they all had in common was that they were all Gryffindors.
Before long, the boys were graduating from Hogwarts, and went on to join the Order of
the Phoenix - a secret society founded by Albus Dumbledore that opposed Lord Voldemort.
The entire purpose of the order was to oppose Voldemort and the Death Eaters, and they were
a vital defence against their opposition during the first wizarding war.
However, it turned out that not all members of the Order were good-as Sirius’ old friend,
Peter Pettigrew, would go on to frame Sirius for a heinous crime.
In 1981, Pettigrew murdered 12 muggles using a dark and powerful blasting curse- simultaneously
destroying hundreds of feet of sewer system and leaving a 40 foot crater in the ground.
Someway, somehow, Sirius Black was blamed, and was promptly sent to Azkaban.
After being banished to Azkaban, seemingly the whole world turned on Sirius, even the
ghost-portrait of the fat lady, and he was left there to rot for an astonishing 12 years.
He was eventually able to escape the island fortress by turning in to his animagus form,
a black dog, and squeezing through the bars.
There are a few things that I always found interesting about Sirius’ imprisonment.
First of all, why didn’t he get a proper trial?
All of the death eaters did:
Bellatrix:
“The woman with the heavy-lidded eyes looked up at Crouch and called, “The Dark Lord
will rise again, Crouch!
Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait!
He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters!
We alone were faithful!
We alone tried to find him!”
And then Karkaroff:
“Crouch is going to let him out,” Moody breathed quietly to Dumbledore.
“He’s done a deal with him.
Took me six months to track him down, and Crouch is going to let him go if he’s got
enough new names.
Let’s hear his information, I say, and throw him straight back to the dementors.”
And even Snape, who switched sides towards the end of the war and pledged allegiance
to Dumbledore, was simply acquitted of his crimes on Dumbledore’s word:
“Snape has been cleared by this council,” said Crouch disdain­fully.
“He has been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore.”
So..My question is this: If Dumbledore’s word was enough to clear a former death eater
of all charges - why couldn’t he have freed Sirius?
Sirius was a former member of the Order - his own organization, why couldn’t anything
have been done to help him?
Was Dumbledore convinced of Sirius’ innocence?
Or was a veil pulled over his eyes, just like everyone else?
If we look at the text further, we can derive some answers from Dumbledore himself:
"It is your turn to listen, and I beg you will not interrupt me, because there is very
little time," he said quietly.
"There is not a shred of proof to support Black's story, except your word -- and the
word of two thirteen-year-old wizards will not convince anybody.
A street full of eyewitnesses swore they saw Sirius murder Pettigrew.
I myself gave evidence to the Ministry that Sirius had been the Potters' Secret-Keeper."
"Professor Lupin can tell you --" Harry said, unable to stop himself
"Professor Lupin is currently deep in the forest, unable to tell anyone anything.
By the time he is human again, it will be too late, Sirius will be worse than dead.
I might add that werewolves are so mistrusted by most of our kind that his support will
count for very little and the fact that he and Sirius are old friends --"
"But --"
"Listen to me, Harry.
It is too late, you understand me?
You must see that Professor Snape's version of events is far more convincing than yours."
"He hates Sirius," Hermione said desperately.
"All because of some stupid trick Sirius played on him --"
"Sirius has not acted like an innocent man.
The attack on the Fat Lady -- entering Gryffindor Tower with a knife -- without Pettigrew, alive
or dead, we have no chance of overturning Sirius's sentence."
"But you believe us.
"
"Yes, I do," said Dumbledore quietly.
"But I have no power to make other men see the truth, or to overrule the Minister of
Magic...."
This tells us a few things:
First of all, Dumbledore was still under the impression that Sirius Black had been secret
keeper for the Potters- and if this is the case, it makes total sense that he would believe
that Sirius was guilty up until this point.
That would have meant that HE would have been the one to reveal the Potters location.
Next, it looks like Severus Snape, who had recently changed allegiances, had told Dumbledore
his own story about the events of the night- and I would imagine that he too was tricked
by the stunt that Pettigrew pulled off, as at this point he was being completely honest
and transparent.
He hated Sirius, but I don’t think that he would have gone as far as to frame him
for that sort of crime.
Even when Harry says to Dumbledore ‘But You believe us’ and he responds ‘yes,
I do’ - there is what seems to be a lack of authenticity present.
Every other part of their conversation still seems to suggest that Dumbledore believes
he is guilty.
It is not until he is given irrefutable evidence that he firmly believes Sirius’ innocence.
Pettigrew’s framing of Sirius was really quite impressive-it was the perfect crime,
and I think that that is why he was even able to convince the likes of Snape and Dumbledore.
Pettigrew knew right away that he would need to be the one to frame Sirius for the betrayal
of Lily and James-as Sirius was the only other person that knew about him being secret keeper.
Everyone else was still under the impression that it was Sirius.
Pettigrew baited, or allowed himself to be ‘found’ by Sirius- who was still furious
after discovering what had happened to the Potters.
Pettigrew was in a muggle town, surrounded by muggles, which ensured that he wouldn’t
have any proper witnesses nearby for the crime that he was about to commit.
When Sirius arrived, Pettigrew feigned grief over the loss of the Potters-but his tune
quickly changed, and he promptly produced a powerful blasting curse:
“Then before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the wand behind his
back, killed everyone within twenty feet of himself — and sped down into the sewer with
the other rats..”
Besides the Marauders, only Remus Lupin knew that Pettigrew was an animagus, and so he
really would have been Sirius’ last hope.
However, Lupin, who was unsure of what to think anymore, felt that the evidence against
Sirius was too strong, and didn’t say a word.
Pettigrew had cunningly chopped off his own finger before departing in to the sewer, which
he left behind as evidence of his death.
Because he was ‘dead’ to the world, his innocence was implicit, which ensured that
all fingers pointed at Sirius.
There he was, in a street full of dead muggles, with his former ‘friends’ finger on the
ground in front of him - surely he was guilty.
Because Fudge was the first to appear on scene, Sirius was never given a trial or any possibility
of exonerating himself.
In the books, he recalls the aftermath of that evening in great detail:
“A crater in the middle of the street, so deep it had cracked the sewer below.
Bodies everywhere.
Muggles screaming.
And Black standing there laughing, with what was left of Pettigrew in front of him…”
a heap of bloodstained robes and a few — a few fragments —”
And what’s most interesting about what Fudge saw was that Sirius was laughing.
From the outside, he truly came across as a crazed murderous lunatic that took pleasure
in the heinous crimes that he had committed, where in reality he was a man that couldn’t
help but laugh as the world he knew crumbled around him.
One of his childhood friends was dead, the other had switched sides, he was surrounded
by the bodies of muggles, and now he would have to live knowing the recommendation that
he made to the Potters to make Pettigrew secret keeper.
Sirius’ story is truly a tragic one, and Pettigrews framing of him was exceedingly
well done- convincing even Albus Dumbledore.
And that’s it for this video!
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Until next time,
Remember
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live