Interesting that you bring up the fact that Sirius claims guilt for the Potters however- because isn't the knowledge of his innocence the touchstone that kept him sane in Azkaban?
But we're talking about two different innocences here. Sirius sat in Azkaban for all those years knowing that he was innocent of the crime that the wizarding community sent him there for - killing Peter Pettigrew and a bunch of muggles. And that was enough to keep him sane. But he didn't resist being arrested for it and sentenced, because he thought he was guilty of something else: of having failed to adequately safeguard James and Lily, of having trusted the traitor and not trusted the one who was true, of being the one who by trying to be too clever and outguess Voldemort, finds himself ultimately responsible for the death of his friends.
Everybody else would lay that charge at Voldemort's door, since he was the one actively in Godric's Hollow waving a wand at them. But Sirius was in shock at their deaths when Peter framed him for murder, and that made him passive, self-condemnatory, and depressed.
If Peter had framed him six months later, when he'd had time to get a grip on himself and adjust to the reality of his friends' deaths a little, it might have been a different story.
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Date: 2004-05-21 08:56 am (UTC)But we're talking about two different innocences here. Sirius sat in Azkaban for all those years knowing that he was innocent of the crime that the wizarding community sent him there for - killing Peter Pettigrew and a bunch of muggles. And that was enough to keep him sane. But he didn't resist being arrested for it and sentenced, because he thought he was guilty of something else: of having failed to adequately safeguard James and Lily, of having trusted the traitor and not trusted the one who was true, of being the one who by trying to be too clever and outguess Voldemort, finds himself ultimately responsible for the death of his friends.
Everybody else would lay that charge at Voldemort's door, since he was the one actively in Godric's Hollow waving a wand at them. But Sirius was in shock at their deaths when Peter framed him for murder, and that made him passive, self-condemnatory, and depressed.
If Peter had framed him six months later, when he'd had time to get a grip on himself and adjust to the reality of his friends' deaths a little, it might have been a different story.