Drabble: A Matter of Appearances

[attackfish]

Disclaimer: JKR doesn't mind fanfiction writers I hear.

A Matter of Appearances

Black Sentenced to Azkaban The newspaper headline proclaimed, and Walburga scanned the first line, chest fluttering.  Notorious mass murderer Sirius Black was sentenced to life in the Wizarding prison yesterday evening...

Her firstborn was a credit to the family after all.

She pulled out a peace of parchment and wrote the letter needed to re-inherit her son.

With both her sons disgraced, for the right reasons, she could bear her own disgrace and wile away her remaining years knowing she raised them well.

And even if Sirius couldn't touch a knut of it in Azkaban, it was the appearances that mattered.

Comments

[fionawishmaker.livejournal.com]

I think Rowling just didn't think things through here. You're not the only one who is thoroughly baffled by why Sirius inherited his house and, also, how he managed to pass it on to Harry.

The person behind Red Hen Publications theorized that Dumbledore was covering up the fact that Sirius's brother was still alive, which of course turned out not to be true (as far as we know... come to think of it, where's the actual proof?), but it was a good theory that at least tried to explain the otherwise silly premise that the house could pass to Bellatrix.

Here's an excerpt:

I’ve been grousing ever since HBP came out over how JKR could overlook such a fundamental point of British common law — which long predates a separate wizarding world — that clearly states that you cannot legally benefit from committing a murder. This is one of the fundamental principles of all murder mysteries, to which the Harry Potter series bears way too close a resemblance in form for JKR to be unaware of. Three quarters of mystery fiction is engaged in finding out who secretly benefits from the murder (or in what way they benefit) in order to figure out who did it.

There were any number of witnesses — on both sides — who watched Bellatrix knock her cousin through the Veil. She killed him. Publicly. She cannot inherit from him! Not if the wizarding world has the slightest expectation of functioning as a just society. You cannot have a just society if your citizens are periodically murdered and society just hands their goods over to the murderer without protest. That is just plain immoral! The ww that we’ve become acquainted with obviously hasn’t got a clue about ethics, but it does seem to have morals.

I like reading Red Hen's stuff. Even the things that didn't turn out to be true in canon are such interesting ideas or at least make you start thinking in a different way.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Wait, the Wizarding World has any hope of functioning as a just society? that's news to me. They don't go in for due process at all. (sorry, that's just snark) Dumbledore didn't seem much worried about the actual law but about the possibility that the magic in the house itself might consider Bellatrix its owner. The Blacks don't strike me as a family that cares much about legalities. Dumbledore might have been worried that they cast some sort of spell on the house that determines the heir regardless of the law. My theory is that while such a thing was not the case, Dumbledore might not have known Walburga re-inherited Sirius and feared that such a spell was the reason he had.

Or it could all be a case of Did Not Do Research on Ms. Rowling's part. But even if it is, that doesn't mean I can't try to explain it.