Sirius Black Sheep

[sistermagpie]

Happy birthday millefioriI 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.

Comments

[arclevel]

You make a good point about the mothers; the fathers are frequently easier to notice, but in book 6, especially, the mothers predominate. And now wandering *completely* off-topic ...

Molly Weasley taught Percy that doing what you're told is the way to earn praise and admiration, and ultimately, to succeed. She taught him to prize success in the most traditional venues -- climbing the ladders of authority positions in school and with a government job. We don't directly see it, but Molly seems to be very much a fan of traditional authority; I imagine that through GoF, she would definitely have taught him to respect and obey the Ministry. On the other side, and possibly more importantly, Molly Weasley taught Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny that Percy was better than they were. She taught them that what he was, they should be. She taught them that he was separate from them. And with each lesson, they liked their big brother less and less, and in turn, they taught Percy over and over that he was NOT part of their Happy Family.

I agree completely that Molly's treatment of her "remaining" kids has shaped each of them, but Percy is *exactly* what she wanted her kids to be, except for that little detail of being completely estranged from the rest of the family. While that can't be laid entirely at Molly's door, a big part of it is that Percy was estranged from part of his family long before he moved out, and that was deepened, if not actually caused, by Molly's treatment of all her kids.

Re: Percy, Sirius, Regulus and Harry

[myfatbudgie]

Word to everything you said about Percy. I think 75% of his character can be laid at Molly's door, and the way the other children reacted to him. (I think Molly does the best she can under extremely trying circumstances, but I've seen other families with this exact dynamic, and those families ended up with the same estrangement problems.)

I think Wallburga created a similar dynamic between Sirius (the never good enough son) and Regulus (the Perfect Slytherin), only far worse because Wallburga doesn't try to be a decent human being to most people from what we see of her from her portrait self, and Molly despite her human failings, most certainly does her level best. The difference: both sons ultimately felt estranged from their family's twisted values.

Wallburga Black reminds me strongly of Petunia, except Petunia seems nicer. (Harry doesn't feel as much venom toward Petunia as Sirius does toward his mother, so she must have been horrible, especially when his perception is combined with that Awful Portrait's bleatings.) Makes me wonder if Dudley will ultimately reject them and their values as much as Regulus did his mother's because he'll find out his mom was wrong about everything, and he's not prepared to survive in the real world. Of course, the Dursleys are meant to be satirical so perhaps we won't see that. Would be interesting.