Why Dumbledore WANTED Sirius to ROT in Azkaban - Harry Potter Theory

Hey guys,

Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In this video, we’re going to be once again discussing Sirius Black, Albus Dumbledore, and Azkaban prison.

In one of my last videos, I discussed Sirius Black’s imprisonment, and why I felt that he was never properly exonerated for his ‘alleged’ crimes- crimes which were of course committed by Peter Pettigrew. In 1981, shortly after Voldemort had just been defeated, Black tracked Pettigrew down and found him in a small muggle town. It was in this town that 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. After this happened, Pettigrew cut off part of his right index finger, and escaped in to the sewers in his animagus form - a rat. This is how Sirius Black was framed for Pettigrews crimes.

However, more specifically, I addressed why I thought it was that Sirius was kept in Azkaban for such a long time - 12 years. Sirius was a member of the order of the phoenix, and Dumbledore was its leader- surely Dumbledore, one of the wisest wizards of all time- and a legilimency master, could have figured out Sirius’s innocence. Unless of course..He didn’t want to. In this video, I’m going to be exploring the possibility that Dumbledore knew of Sirius’s innocence all along, but allowed Sirius to rot in prison. It’s a bit of a morbid theory, but I think that it has some merit- and honestly may have been possible.

After Sirius was sentenced to his crimes, the whole wizarding world turned on him. He was immediately featured on the front cover of the daily prophet, and the whole wizarding world was exposed to ‘Sirius Black - Mass Murderer’. However, I feel like Sirius got no slack when it came to his sentencing- particularly as up until that point in time he had lived a fairly normal life. Sirius began attending in Hogwarts in the year 1971, along with fellow Marauders Peter Pettigrew, James Potter, and Remus Lupin. He was a good student, though a bit of a troublemaker, and was sorted in to Gryffindor house when he started at the school. After graduating, he joined the Order of the Phoenix, which was founded by Albus Dumbledore, and helped with the opposition against Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters. So, my question is, how could everyone truly believe that Sirius was a murderer? He had spent a considerable amount of time with his fellow order members, and during his time at Hogwarts surely would have made an impression on some of his professors. So, why did everyone suddenly believe that he had the capacity to murder 12 muggles and his lifelong friend?

Unfortunately, when Sirius was initially caught for his alleged crimes, he sort of sealed his own fate, when instead of pleading his innocence, his first reaction was to burst out laughing. With a pile of dead muggles and the index finger of his friend in front of him, Sirius should have taken his situation very seriously- but in times of extreme stress, it’s hard to predict how one will react. Unable to process everything that had just happened, Sirius had a mental breakdown. The Potter’s were dead, he had just witnessed the murder of 12 muggles, his childhood friend (Pettigrew) had changed allegiance, and from that point onward he would have to live knowing the recommendation that he made to the Potter’s to make Pettigrew secret keeper. Sirius was possibly the main reason that the Potter’s had died- and he couldn’t process everything that had just happened.

Sirius was of course the initial choice for the Potter’s secret keeper- a witch or wizard designated to hide a secret, secured by the fidelius charm which conceals the secret inside of the secret keepers soul. However, Pettigrew was later chosen as secret keeper in his place, as Sirius felt that he would have been a more likely target for Voldemort.

However, this was a fatal error on Sirius’s part-as Pettigrew, after being made secret keeper, showed his true colours. Because Sirius and the Potters had never revealed to anyone else the change in secret keeper, from the outside it honestly looked as though Sirius had first given up the Potter’s location to Voldemort, then murdered a bunch of muggles, then killed Pettigrew.


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