[HPforGrownups] Sirius and Buckbeak

[Michelle V.]

No: HPFGUIDX 24499

Hello, newbie here.  With all the discussion about the list 
membership over on Chatter, I figured that I should at least delurk 
for a bit to add my two cents.

Robyn wrote:

>	My next question is about Buckbeak, and hypogriffs in general. How
>intelligent is he?
>He doesn't seem to get it when Harry and Hermione are trying to save him,
>he keeps trying to go to Hagrid. But he seems more intelligent in GoF
>with Sirius. What gives?

I've been wondering about this also, and I've come up with a 
satisfactory answer, at least for me.  My theory is that animagi 
(some of them, at least) are "sensitive" to regular animals, and this 
sensitivity gets stronger the longer the animagus is in animal form. 
Since Sirius spent most of PoA in his dog-form, his mind had been 
habituated to that of a regular dog.  Even when Sirius is back in 
human form, some residual effects of this phenomenon are still 
present.  The result of all this is that Sirius garnered a special 
rapport with Buckbeak.

I've had to limit this phenomenon to Sirius only (so far), since the 
other animagi mentioned in the books (Professor McGonnagal, 
Pettigrew, Skeeter) don't seem to exhibit the same behavior. 
Pettigrew was Scabbers for years, and I didn't see any difference in 
his behavior towards regular animals.

I'm not sure where lycanthropes like Lupin (I love alliteration :) ) 
would fit into this theory either.  Considering that they're not 
aware of what they do in their wolf-forms, I'm guessing that they 
wouldn't have the same rapport with animals.

Sirus is a special case in more ways than one, it seems...

-- Michelle V.