#i’ve read all sorts of dumbles characterisation from kooky harmless old man to full on GG evil and i liked all of them lol

[padfootastic]

Waittt not sure if you’ve talked about this before but I am loving your answers to anon asks and I want to hear your thoughts on Sirius and Dumbledore. I rly like Dumbledore as a character but I also rly rly think that what happened to Sirius doesn’t work unless we accept that Dumbles was actively disinterested in him at best and perhaps trying to move him out of the way at worst. And I kinda think Sirius knew that.

hello anon! >.< thank u for being here, reading the piping hot garbage i’m screaming into the void, and liking it lol

i actually have talked a bit about dumbledore and sirius before!! (it was slightly controversial tbh) but i have so many more thoughts about that omg!!! i love dumbledore as an arrogant, manipulative because the way he was playing with lives was,,,damn. i think i read a fic once where he realised that he was treating the war like a game because he was bored and it horrified him bc he had the power to do so much more than what he did. it was interesting.

anyway, it’s so maddening because i get it, people often ‘fall through the cracks’ in the justice system, that’s a proven thing that happens, yes, but i just absolutely cannot see it happening to sirius black for so many reasons (gonna put it under a cut bc i sense a rant incoming and i’m assuming if you’ve read all the asks so far u don’t have a problem w me rambling lol)

for one, he was directly involved in a situation dumbledore had personal interest in. he was the supposed secret keeper for the prophecy child’s family. he was harry’s literal godfather. why would he not enquire further into wtf happened here?

second, his friendship with james was so fkn prolific that everyone from mcgonagall to fkn rosmerta talked about how close they were. does that not raise *any* doubt?

third, sirius was an order member who was actively fighting in the war. that is on top of loudly & proudly denouncing his family and running away from them (i always imagine his actions in 5th year would’ve caused a minor scandal if it was public). combine that with the abundance of personality/behaviour modifying items like potions, spells, artefacts in the WW, and again, no questions were asked?

fourth, i feel like if dumbledore had assumed a role of leadership in the war, to the point he was giving orders and dictating people’s actions—that also puts the onus of seeing that through til the end. if someone on his watch became a spy, or a DE, then it’s his basic responsibility to find out why, if only for safety purposes and to prevent it happening in the future. why wouldn’t he want to find out how much sirius could’ve told voldy or if he did anything else that was harmful to the war effort?

so, all that in mind, your spectrum of active disinterest to deliberate sabotage is so on point for me.

for dumbledore to not even take a look into his case (which is when inconsistencies would definitely be highlighted) implied he did not care, at all. and i think as the years went on, it was easy for him to put that out of his mind because why should he care?. i also feel like, subconsciously, there was a part of him that recognised he wouldn’t be able to keep harry at the dursleys if sirius was in the picture so he never tried to find out bc ignorance was better in this case (am i part of the camp that thinks he was deliberately creating a martyr? 👀🤭)

when u look at poa, it becomes even more horrific tbh but i talked about that in the other ask. i think sirius’ disillusionment with dumbledore started way before when he was in azkaban—alone, grieving, his brother & lily dead, godson in someone else’s custody, and realising no one was coming for him. that at the end of the way, no matter how much he tried, he was still a black. and it would’ve just been more compounded as he didn’t get a trial, was sent off to recruit for the order, saw harry’s condition, and was kept locked up in the house of his nightmares. the cherry on top of the cake was all the restrictions that were placed on his interactions with his godson, and having to talk to dumbledore for permission on everything. and i think this slowly deepening mistrust made him feel even more helpless because he couldn’t *do* anything about it, he had no power or agency, and his godson was getting more and more involved in the chess master’s convoluted game every day.

fom dumbledore’s end, the man would’ve been a fool not to realise how powerful and intelligent sirius was but more importantly, the influence he had on harry. the beginning of ootp is literally filled with so much content where sirius is telling harry to be careful and harry absolutely hates it (who is he, an escaped convict, to tell me who i am?) but he still listens to him bc he respects his godfather/recognised the merit in his words. and that kind of unconditional support would’ve been, hm, let’s call if troublesome, right? dumbles come off as someone with severe control/trust issues to me, so another influential player on the board who’s not in his control? well. that’s a problem.

(i also think this entire conversation becomes so much more interesting if u think that dumbledore never entirely liked/trusted sirius because of his innate prejudice but that’s speculation for another time)