How did Sirius know??

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 57490


>fridwulfa wrote:
>
>Well, one more question about Sirius. How did he know Ron was a
>Gryffindor?? The night he entered the castle he went straight away to
>the Gryffindor Rooms, but how could he know that Ron, and therefore
>Pettigrew, were in gryffindor house?. In the daily prophet article
>about the weasleys, the one Sirius read and gave him the clue about
>Pettigrew, it wasn't mentioned they were all gryffindors, only that 5
>of the children attended the school.

and CGBrennan answered:

>Sirius told Harry, Ron, and Hermione that he had become friends with
>Crookshanks; I just assumed that the cat told him! (...finally, I
>managed to communicate to him what I was after, and he's been helping
>me..." p. 364 "...so he stole the passwords into Gryffindor Tower for
>me..."

True, except that it took some time for Sirius and Crookshanks to arrive at 
their "understanding". The attack on the Fat Lady was on Hallowe'en, whilst 
the password incident wasn't until February.  I assume that fridwulfa is 
referring to the first incident.

Let's look at what immediately preceded the end of that quote from Sirius: 
"He's the most intelligent of his kind I've ever met. He recognized Peter 
for what he was right away. And when he met me, he knew I was no dog. It 
was a while before he trusted me...."

Whilst it's unclear when they met or just how long "a while" is, 
Crookshanks was constantly trying to get at Scabbers, and the fact that 
Sirius tried to break into Gryffindor Tower by brute force two months into 
the school year would indicate that he didn't have someone "one the inside" 
helping him at that stage. It certainly sounds to me unlikely that Sirius 
and Crookshanks will have met and agreed strategies by that time. Sirius 
tries to get past the Fat Lady during the Hallowe'en feast because he knows 
that all the pupils would be in the Hall during that time, which again 
makes it unlikely that he already had Crookshanks on his side.

Back to the original question, though: as I said above, I assume that 
"fridwulfa" is referring to that first attack, as by the the time of the 
second, Sirius has been around for half a year and would've seen the 
Weasleys among the Gryffindors at some stage (especially as he's interested 
in Harry for separate reasons and would've watched him, and Harry and Ron 
are rarely far apart).

Whilst that's a pretty safe assumption, a possibly less safe one is that 
the first attack *does* occur two months into the school year, and whilst 
Harry hasn't noticed the black dog hanging around the grounds by that stage 
(the first time he notices Snuffles is during the Hufflepuff match), Sirius 
has been hanging around the Hogwarts grounds all that time. In those two 
months, he could easily have ascertained that Ron was a Gryffindor. Dogs 
have good hearing, and people say all kinds of things.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, getting ready for bed, so no more tonight on several 
other posts lined up for replies.