Order of Phoenix's Most Tragic Part Was All Dumbledore's Fault, Fan Theory Claims
Of all the deaths in the Harry Potter series, Sirius Black's was one of the saddest, and what led to his demise was nothing but a chain of unfortunate events… Or was it?
Reddit user internet_czar doesn't think so. According to their theory, the events that took both Harry and Voldemort to the Ministry of Magic were orchestrated by none other than Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts.
Let's follow their lead and see if this theory has any grounds.
We know that the Headmaster is ready to use other people to achieve his goals and often willingly puts them at risk: he forced Snape to kill him, kept Harry alive to die at the right moment, etc.
So this is out of the question: no matter how noble his cause was, Dumbledore often saw other people as resources for his goals.
The theory follows the canon plotline of Dumbledore being aware both of Voldemort's ability to read Harry's mind and of the Dark Lord's interest in the prophecy.
But this is where the distinction begins: according to this theory, the Headmaster actually wanted Voldemort to go through with his plan.
By ignoring Harry for the entirety of the year, Dumbledore was continuously making Harry more and more emotionally unstable and susceptible to Voldemort's mind.
The same goes for the occlumency lessons: the Headmaster was certain that Snape would exhaust and weaken Harry's defenses instead of improving them.
After Dumbledore's attempted arrest (which was a pretty ridiculous idea, to be honest), he likely stuck somewhere close to Hogwarts to never lose sight of the events — perhaps, in his brother's pub, the Hog's Head.
Since he was close, Snape instantly relayed Harry's message about Padfoot to the Headmaster and the latter decided to wait out instead of acting immediately.
But why would Dumbledore do that?
One of his greatest obstacles was the Ministry's agenda of public denial of Voldemort's comeback. He needed the wizarding community to learn about it, and baiting Voldemort out while also alerting the Order of Phoenix was an amazing plan.
While the Dark Lord thought he was baiting Harry to go to the Ministry, in reality, it was Dumbledore baiting both of them to ensure Voldemort is seen by the Ministry's officials and the press, thus making the Headmaster's further fight easier.
This checks out since during their duel, Dumbledore simply kept Voldemort pinned down for just enough time until the press arrived.
For those potentially shocked and wondering: no, Sirius' death was not part of the plan. It had no use for Dumbledore either way.