Ron's Rat.... or was it???

[GulPlum <plumeski@yahoo.com>]

Scott wrote:
> argh! can't remember who, but *someone* wrote:

('twas me) :-)

> "The way I look at it, the whole thing is a wonderful bit of 
> misdirection. Why should only the HP books be entitled to such 
> narrative devices? The movies are just as entitled to allow us to 
> jump to conclusions and believe one thing while another is acutally 
> the case..."
> 
> me:
> This makes sense to me, and they could easily clear it up with some 
> PoA dialogue along the lines of-
> HERMIONE: But Ron, your rat *can't* be an animagus! I mean, you've 
> transfigured him before, haven't you, and you that's not possible 
> with a human.
> RON: No, I've never done magic on Scabbers. McGonanagall always 
> gives us animals in Transfigurations...but it doesn't matter does 
> it? I mean *look* at him!
> 
> ...or something along those lines. However I also doubt thatthey'll 
> take precious screetime for it, or that they'll even remember. 

I don't see the need for them to do so. As I pointed out earlier, I 
don't see any need for them to point out the misdirections (Riddle's 
recapitalisation of Ginny's activities at the end of CoS, accompanied 
by flashbacks, grates on me just a little bit). We book fans are (or 
at least *should be*) used to not jumping to conclusions, and as I 
said, there's nothing in the CoS scene to confirm that the rat Ron 
transforms is Scabbers. Movie viewers probably won't have remembered 
the precise circumstances of the scene anyway. 

Furthermore, there's more than enough plot and dialogue to be 
compressed into a workable screenplay without adding to it. :-)

> Yet I'm still confused, which, though I'm oft times confused, does 
> have a point...*why* have we decided that Rat!Peter couldn't 
> transform? Is there canon evidence that I'm overlooking as to the 
> impossibility of Human to nonliving transfig? 

You raise a good point. ;-) I certainly can't remember any specific 
canon on that point, although I am ... uncomfortable... about the 
possibility that Rat!Peter could be transformed into an inanimate 
object. 

After all, it took both Sirius and Remus acting together to force him 
back to human form, and the notion that second-year Ron (with his 
faulty wand!) could transform him yet further seems extremely 
unlikely. It could be argued that as Rat!Peter was willing to be 
transformed (in order to maintain his cover), so it required less raw 
magical power to make it happen. However, as far as we know, Rat!
Peter is wandless and thus not in a position to assist Ron in the 
transformation.