Sneakoscopes (was Unanswered questions)

[davewitley]

No: HPFGUIDX 39513

Marcus, offering prefectorial advice in the manner of Percy:

> > (2) Why doesn't Dumbledore have a real, functional sneakoscope 
> > sitting in his office?  Wouldn't that help root out some of those 
> > those pesky polyjuiced staff members?  Why hasn't Harry cottoned 
to 
> > the value of his?

Grey Wolf, possibly motivated by loyalty to his ever-so-evil role 
model Remus:

> The sneakoscopes don't work at schools: Moody said so, and stands 
to 
> reason. The smaller versions of it aren't trustable enough. 
  
...and we are supposed to believe him?  The sneakoscope is developing 
into a running gag (Cindy, does this count as gadget foreshadowing? 
No, I thought not.)

In POA it goes off whenever Scabbers is around, so they think it's 
defective.

In GOF, Crouch comes up with plausible excuses for either disabling 
the Dark Detectors or explaining why they appear to malfunction.  
They are, of course, detecting *him* - the one clue which I feel even 
I should have picked up first time around, not that I did.

At the end of GOF, Harry and Ron *still* haven't realised that 
Harry's sneakoscope is perfectly all right - thus paving the way for 
JKR to use it yet again.  Presumably this time she will make it go 
off when two people enter the room, and we will pat ourselves on the 
back for figuring out the wrong one of the two - the right one will 
be Hermione under Imperius.

So, really, I think Prefectmarcus' question does stand 

David