This essay was written before the release of book six.
As we all know, at the end of Order of the Phoenix, our beloved Sirius fell through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries, thus ending his short, grief-filled life...
OR DID IT??
Okay, the realistic thing to say would be yes, it did kill him. The immediate evidence points to it - Dumbledore called the room with the veil 'The Death Chamber', Dumbledore and Lupin have both said that he's dead and J.K. has implied it very strongly. But where would the fun be if we just took things in these books at face value? Especially when there is evidence to the contrary. Before I go any furthur, though, I just want to state for the record that I don't necessarily believe that he will return. I just never like to be one hundred percent certain with these things.
J.K. Rowling said several times in the run up to the book's release that someone would be dying. But you could just as easily truthfully say that in Prisoner of Azkaban a mass-murderer escapes from Azkaban, even though Sirius was innocent, because as far as the plot was concerned at the time, he was a mass-murderer. Do you see what I'm saying? In the same way, someone died in Order of the Phoenix, but does that mean that they're not going to turn out to the contrary later on? Just as you could say someone is innocent until proven guilty, you could say that Sirius is dead until proven to be alive.
As I said before, Dumbledore and Lupin have both said that Sirius is dead. But who's to say they're right? How does the Ministry know what the Veil does, anyway? Just because when people go through it they never come back doesn't mean they're dead. How is the wizarding world supposed to know what the Veil does unless someone goes through, comes back and tells them? And obviously, no one has ever done that. Of course it is possible that the Veil was created by wizards as a form of capital punishment, but once again how are they going to know that it works unless they test it?
We know from reading these books, plus Fantastic Beasts and Quiddich Through the Ages that wizards are strange, often slightly goofy beings, especially the medievel ones. This is shown by things such as some of the suicidal sports they created, threatening to boycott Quiddich because they couldn't set fire to the baskets or see the Keepers getting flattened anymore and certain wizarding representatives doing things like wearing jellyfish for hats, eating venomous tentacula and training trolls for the ballet. The Veil could have been invented back in those days for the purpose of capital punishment. The wizards of the time wouldn't know whether the people they'd sent though were dead, but they did know that they weren't coming back, which fulfills the same purpose anyway, so really what does it matter what happened to them? Just tell everyone they're dead. Sounds, to me at least, like the kind of thing those medieval wizards would have done. And who at the Ministry would remember that that's what the old wizards did? Nobody knows much about what goes on in that department anyway. So how do Dumbledore and Lupin really know that Sirius is dead?
Even without this matter, the circumstances of Sirius's death were slightly suspicious. The main question is why wasn't there a body? Why didn't J.K. invent the Veil to work so that the person went in alive and came out again dead? It would have been more final, wouldn't it? And then there wouldn't be any question of whether he dead or not. Why has she left this issue open for fans to speculate? To give us something to do in the run up to the next book? I don't think so somehow. Of course it is possible that she's being cruel to Harry by leaving him without any sense of closure, but having that detail for that purpose is a bit pointless because Harry's going to suffer anough as it is without it. The immediacy and unexpectedness of Sirius's life would provide just as much of a shock for Harry. Why deny him, and us, the closure?
If it is passages from the book that point to it that you're looking for, then how about this one:
"... And, anyway, it's not as though I'll never see Mum again, is it?" "Er... isn't it?" said Harry uncertainly. She shook her head in disbelief. "Oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didn't you?" "You mean..." "In that room with the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, that's all. You heard them."
I know it's 'Loony' Luna Lovegood, but I do think she's smarter than Hermione gives her credit for. What did she mean by this statement?
There is even mythological evidence to suggest Sirius might return. Accourding to Egyptian mythology, the star Sirius disappears into the underworld every year, and then returns to the sky again. I think the phrase 'shrouded in a veil of darkness' was even used somewhere in reference to this. And we all know how J.K. likes to get her ideas from mythology.
Of course, even after saying all of this, the fact remains that J.K. has said, "I had re-written the death, re-written it and that was it. It was definite. And the person was definately dead" (the interview she did with Jeremy Paxman for the BBC a couple of days before Phoenix was released). But this kind of does contradict another thing she said in the World Book Day web chat that she did. Upon being asked, "If we ever see Sirius again, what form will he be in?", she replied, "I couldn't possibly answer that for fear of incriminating myself." What did she mean by that? Why didn't she just say that we won't see him again. Is she implying that we will?
Nevertheless, the chances of him coming back are most likely slim. The question of whether or not he is really dead was one of the options for an FAQ poll on her website. It didn't win, but she wouldn't have allowed it to be put on there if she wasn't willing to answer. And if he is alive, she's hardly going to tell us (though she could, of course, have given one of her trademark vague answers). However, while Sirius's fans mustn't get their hopes up, they shouldn't give up hope, either. Until she says something to confirm it, or all the books are done, we cannot know for sure. Sirius is a character who has had no purpose in the series, so unless his death is his purpose, he must still have a part to play.