Not-so-omniscient Dumbledore??

[pigwidgeon37]

No: HPFGUIDX 31260

Edblanning wrote (referring to Snape's hate of Harry):

>I rather assume that D knew a lot of what the marauders got up to 
>(although not the Animagus bit) and as with Harry, turned a blind 
eye or even 
>gave tacit approval (what was D like at school?). I think he felt he 
never 
>got the recognition he deserved, unlike the marauders, who had 
everything.

Now here you hit something that's been lurking in my subconscious: 
Dumbledore seems to know almost everything of major and minor 
importance that's going on at Hogwarts. Not that I want to see him as 
God-like, but he appears to have his little ways of finding out 
pretty much.
The fact that he doesn't have a clue about fake Moody never bothered 
me, for after all, he's not God (see above).
But how could he possibly have remained ignorant about MWPP? IIRC, 
Peter, James and Sirius were full-fledged animagi in their fifth 
year, which means two more school years of unbridled marauding. It 
seems unthinkable that the regular absence of three notorious 
pranksters, at nighttime during every full moon, should have escaped 
*everybody's* notice, above all Dumbledore's. I mean, he knew that 
Harry was sneaking out in the night to look into the Mirror of 
Erised! 
And Lupin himself says that sometimes, during their outings, they got 
very close to provoking some major incident. Surely, some rumours 
would have arrived from Hogsmeade about four strange animals haunting 
the village at the full moon. And D. didn't put two and two together?
I know it's important to the plot, for if Dumbeldore had known that 
Black is an Animagus (without knowing necessarily that he transforms 
into a dog), catching or at least preventing him from breaking into 
the castle would have been far easier. But the whole affair makes a 
strange dent into Dumbledor's shining armour.

Susanna/pigwidgeon37