Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore

[ladyzenobia.livejournal.com]

This is not so much a theory as a loose collection of ideas and irrational fears. But I am very paranoid about Dumbledore and recently I’ve come to suspect that he sent Sirius to Azkaban, knowing that Sirius was innocent. It’s certainly not what Rowling intended, but this is how it comes across.  

I’m new here, so I apologize if this has been posted before, but I searched the tags and couldn’t find anything, so basically what I’ve noticed is: “I was Junior Minister in the Department of Mag­ical Catastrophes at the time, and I was one of the first on the scene after Black murdered all those people. I — I will never forget it.” - Cornelius Fudge in PoA, chapter 10.

So Fudge was a Junior Minister (And what is that anyway? There’s only one Minister. The Department Heads run the departments.) dealing with Magical Catastrophes, he was one of the first on the scene when Sirius was captured and a mere decade later he is the Minister for Magic. Why was he promoted so quickly? Surely there were better qualified, better connected people clamouring for the job, so why give it to Fudge? Because he captured Sirius Black, perhaps?    

Then there’s this.

“They wanted Dumbledore fer Minis­ter, o’ course, but he’d never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Dum­bledore with owls every morning, askin’ fer advice.” - Hagrid in PS/SS, chapter five.

If Dumbledore was so popular and everyone wanted to see him as Minister, wouldn’t he have had a say in who did become Minister? He’d choose someone completely dependant on him, of course. And also, he’d need to reward Fudge for capturing Black.  

Later, when asked to speak up for Sirius, Dumbledore says:

“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.” - PoA, chapter 21.

It’s been mentioned here many times that there’s no reason why Harry wouldn’t be believed and that Dumbledore just wanted Sirius on the run, so I won’t go into all that again. But what about that “I myself gave evidence” part of his statement? When did he give evidence if there was no trial? Why didn’t he ensure that Sirius got a trial in the first place? Why did he give evidence without first talking to Sirius? Why didn’t he at least speak to Sirius after? He could visit Morfin Gaunt in Azkaban if he wanted to, so why, seeing how Dumbledore believed that Voldemort wasn’t dead, couldn’t he pull a few strings to visit that notorious Death Eater Black who might be able to tell him more about Voldemort. Even if he did believe Sirius was guilty, then why didn’t he at least ask the man what made him betray his best friend?    

It all makes sense though, if Dumbledore wanted Sirius to remain in Azkaban. As for why he would want that, well he needed to raise Harry into the perfect suicide terrorist so he might want Sirius out of the picture. The man would have adopted Harry otherwise, and then what? No Dursleys, no suicidal Harry.  

This might not be reason enough and on it’s own it does sound pretty weak, but when looking at Dumbledore's attitude towards Sirius in general, it’s enough to scare me.  

Dumbledore was probably put out that Sirius was chosen as secret keeper over him and he was definitely (understandably, I admit) mad about the werewolf incident in Sirius’s fifth year, so he didn’t much like Sirius as a person. In GoF, Sirius writes to Dumbledore as well as Harry, yet he is still living in a cave, eating rats. How hard would it be for Dumbledore to order someone utterly loyal to him (Hagrid, McGonagall) to feed a poor homeless dog in Hogsmeade? He could also send food with an owl. I’m not even going into Dumbledore’s humiliating treatment of Sirius in OotP, because that could fill a book.

Like I said, this isn’t really a proper theory and I do make quite a lot of assumptions. I just have a lot of unanswered question and “Dumbledore wanted Sirius out of the way” happens to be the fitting answer for most of them. Really I’m hoping that you guys can convince me that Dumbledore just made a giant mistake and didn’t sent Sirius to rot in prison knowing he was innocent, because as much as I loathe Dumbledore I still don’t want to believe that of him. Or perhaps you can prove that he did do it and at least put my mind at rest.