Marauders learning to be animagi....

[kiricat2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 35689

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Fiat Incantatum" <fiatincantatum at a...> 
wrote:
> On 23 Feb 2002 at 8:23, Felicia Rickmann wrote:
> 
> > Looking at the animagus throughout the HP canon, it strikes me 
that the
> > actual creature an animagus turns into always seems to reflect 
something of
> > their character.
> > 
> > Dreadful Rita Skeeter becomes a creepy crawly beetle (GoF),  
Pettigrew a
> > lowly rat and James Potter a noble stag (PoA).   So I  would 
think that
> > while the actual process of becoming an animal is
> >  proably a magical skill that could be learned, the magic takes 
the
> > personality traits of an animagus into account and governs to a 
large extent
> > what the person turns into.  
> 
> er ... do we want to explore why McGonagall turns into a cat then?  
Cats being 
> the insatiably curious, hedonsitic little beasts that they are?  
Maybe there's 
> more to her than meets the eye?

I think there is definitely more to McGonagall than we've seen.  IMO, 
she's been one of those characters who has hovered on the sidelines, 
popping up now and then when the coach calls for the second string to 
come in when the main players need a rest.  I hope we'll get more 
depth to her in the upcoming books.

As to why a cat, well, sure, maybe McGonagall is famous for spending 
her vacations at Club Med, lounging in the sun and picking up pool 
boys...But, there are other cat qualities that she may have:

 -The ability to sneak up on an enemy or prey silently.
 -Patience to stalk prey and wait for them to make a foolish move.
 -The uncanny knack to disappear into thin air.  Trust me.  I live 
with four of these other-worldly beasts and they do have the knack of 
disappearing.  I'll be looking for one in particular and will look in 
her favorite hiding places.  She won't be there, but when I look 
again, thirty seconds later, there she is.  I don't know how she does 
it. 
 -Lightning quick reflexes.  Maybe McGonagall has an amazingly fast
wand hand.
 -Spine-twisting agility.  
 - The perverse insistance of doing things as the cat wants to do 
them, when the cat wants to do them, without any consideration given 
to the human the cat lives with.  This doesn't seem at all McGonagall-
ish, as she seems, so far, to be a team player, and not one who is 
prone to going off on her own way.

Okay, so, we haven't seen these feline traits yet in McGonagall, but, 
maybe this cat thing has been a neon sign that's been hanging out 
there for all of us to see, so that when she does something truly cat-
like, we'll all hit ourselves in the head and say, "Of course she 
could do that - she's a cat!"

Marianne