[HPforGrownups] Another Dumbledore Speculation

[Neil Ward]

No: HPFGUIDX 16817

Jenny said:

<<I was just thinking about Harry Potter (what a shock) and got to wondering
about Dumbledore's days as the Transfiguration Professor (which we learned
in CoS, if I'm not mistaken).  Does that mean that he is also an animagus?
<snip> I also remember Dumbledore telling Harry (in SS) that he doesn't need
an invisibility cloak to become invisible.  Any thoughts?

--jenny from ravenclaw, who doesn't want all the oldies to moan and say
"we've discussed this a hundred tim>>


We've discussed this a hundred tim... only kidding!

Milz raised this a while back, and I had this theory that Dumbledore was a
bee animagus, because Dumbledore is an old English word meaning bumblebee
(according to JKR).  I thought that, maybe, in that scene in the room with
the Mirror of Erised, Dumbledore wasn't actually invisible when Harry
entered the room, but the next best thing - very, very small.  Harry had
apparently walked past Dumbledore to get into the room, and Dumbledore makes
a comment about being invisible making Harry "near-sighted".

At the time, Nick Mitchell also quoted the following, from PS/SS - Chapter
1:  "A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so
suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the
ground."  Apparation or transifiguration from something very tiny?

We could argue that Hermione would have spotted Dumbledore's name among the
registered animagi (as Catherine just noted), but perhaps Dumbledore was
registered in a much earlier time (i.e. listed on an earlier page of the
Register), or perhaps - shock! - he's unregistered.  Milz suggested that
this might explain why he was so calm about Sirius being an unregistered
animagus.

Like you, I think any self-respecting Transfiguration teacher would want to
be able to demonstrate the ultimate transfiguration skill to their students.
It's also intriguing to consider the possibility that Dumbledore's magical
abilities may go beyond those of a normal wizard and enable him to transform
into any animal form at will - a sort of beranimagus!

Neil, who wishes Jenny wouldn't make him feel so ancient...
________________________________________

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"The cat's ginger fur was thick and fluffy, but it was definitely
a bit bow-legged and its face looked grumpy and oddly
squashed, as though it had run headlong into a brick wall"
["The Leaky Cauldron", PoA]

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