AD animagus? - Animal artifacts - Alastor

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 18668

My, what an alliterative subject line.

Joywitch wrote:

>It is certainly possible that Dumbledore is an animagus who was registered 
>in the previous century, but I think it is also possible that Dumbledore is 
>one of the 7 Animagi registered in the 20th century.  There is no reason 
>for Hermione to have said "there have only been seven Animagi this century, 
>one of whom is Professor Dumbledore"  It is possible that Hermione did not 
>think it was important (there was an awful lot going on at the time, after 
>all) to mention that Dumbledore was one of the seven.  Another possibility 
>is that the fact that Dumbledore is an animagus is so well known that there 
>was no point in her mentioning it.  Anyway, I have never understood why 
>everyone except me seems to believe that Dumbledore could not be one of 
>those seven.

You're right, of course.  He could be, very easily.  It makes him a bit on 
the old side when he registered, but as I said before, just because 
someone's brilliant at Transfiguration it doesn't mean he's going to rush to 
become an Animagus.  It seems like the kind of thing one might learn when 
the times demand it, e.g. when Grindelwald rose to power.

Catlady wrote:

>Reading FB, I was (and am) irritated by how magical artifacts get their
>powers from being made of magical beasts rather than from the magic of
>the witch or wizard who made them.

We're bound to get this impression from FB, because it's about, well, FB.  
If the book were "1001 Magical Artifacts," I think we'd get a different 
impression.  Lots of magical artifacts get their power from charms or other 
wizard/witch origins, e.g. broomsticks.

>Alastor is a real word. It means a spirit of vengeance (like a male 
>equivalent
of Nemesis) or a spirit that pursues and torments a person.

It's also a long poem by P. Shelley, which I recommend.  The title may not 
be an appropriate one; the poem is subtitled "The Spirit of Solitude," and 
while the title was suggested by a friend of Shelley's who interpreted 
solitude as an evil spirit, it's not at all clear from the poem or anything 
else we know about Shelley that he thought of solitude that way.  I got that 
observation from the preface in my _English Romantic Poets_, ed. David 
Perkins.  Now I have to go reread the poem.

Amy Z
who loves solitude and Shelley
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