Dishwashers , Puppy hunts and werewolf excursions

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 39890

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "naamagatus" <naama_gat at h...> wrote:
> Pip said:
> 
> I have always assumed the 'werewolf' excursions stopped after the 
> Prank. I don't think there's any canon evidence either way; but I 
> would assume that after the near-death of a student, James and 
> Sirius would have been very strictly forbidden, on pain of  
> expulsion,to go near Lupin in his werewolf state. There would then 
> have been no real risk in the Maurauders being Animagi.
> 
> Then, in reply to my objections, Pip said:
> 
> Again, I repeat, Dumbledore finds out *after* the Prank. I do not 
> mean *after* in the sense of 'immediately following'. I mean 'at 
> some time following' - which could mean quite possibly months after.
> 
> [grin]
> 
> I admit it may have been the Prank which started Dumbledore 
> wondering. <Snip>But at the time the Prank was hot news, 
> Dumbledore didn't know.
> 
> 
> Naama replied:
> 
> So, if I undertand you correctly, the timeline is this:
> 
> ====
> 1 The Prank
> 
> 2 Dumbledore forbidding James and Sirius from going near 
> werewolf!Lupin. (Dumbledore still doesn't know about the Animagi 
> stunt.)
> 
> 3 James and Sirius stop their nightly escapades as Animiagi
> 
> 4 Dumbledore finds out that they are Animagi
> ====
> 
> 
> Problem: if they have stopped their Animagi activities, how did 
> Dumbledore find out about it? 
> 
> Puzzled!Naama

Yup, we are now working on the same timeline. One more go on this and 
then I have to get back to working on the Graveyard scene (otherwise 
Grey Wolf will be making a special journey from his frozen wastes to 
put an Imperius on me :-) )

I can think of at least four possible ways Dumbledore could have 
found out about the Maurauders as Animagi (long) after the Prank.

One: Severus Snape told Dumbledore he had seen James transform during 
the Prank. At the time Dumbledore didn't believe him, but then he 
started to wonder. While the Maurauders stopped the 'werewolf' 
excursions, it didn't stop individual Maurauders occasionally 
transforming (Dumbledore hadn't forbidden that, because he didn't 
know about it). Dumbledore was by then looking for evidence of 
transforming, and so spotted it.

Two: Snape knew nothing about the Maurauders Animagi abilities, but 
individual Maurauders did continue occasionally transforming - so 
Dumbledore spotted it at that later point.

Three: Dumbledore knew nothing about the Maurauders while they were 
still at school, but we know from canon that James Potter was helping 
him in the Voldemort-Potter war after he left school. James had to do 
some piece of work and found he needed to transform into Prongs.

Dumbledore then (thinking back to the Prank) realised that this may 
have been why Sirius thought playing with a werewolf was a joke, and 
asked James if he was the only Maurauder who could transform. 

Dumbledore then asked James not to tell the other Maurauders that 
Dumbledore knew about their abilities because he thought one of them 
was a spy - see PoA for this [and in an information war, information 
about a spy that the spy doesn't realise you know is like gold-dust].

Four: James Potter told Dumbledore in a 'there were some things you 
never guessed when we were at school' conversation. Dumbledore then 
asked James not to tell the other Maurauders that he'd revealed their 
secret for the reasons given in Three above.

I'm quite sure there are more than four possibilities...

Pip (who thinks that the real question we should always ask about 
Dumbledore is not "why *didn't* he tell someone that information?', 
but 'why *did* he tell someone that information? ')
Squeak