The other Blacks (was "The Animagus Black!")

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 80018

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
> Because both "Sirius" and "Black" are ambiguous. If you heard 
> someone shout "I was fighting Sirius Black!" you might think,  
> "serious black what?"  One of the reasons for  military jargon is  
> to avoid problems like that. 


Apologies if this posts twice--my browser did something funny the 
first time around, so I wasn't sure.

I had another theory about the comment, "the animagus Black." 

If it was written with a comma, it would read: "you know, the 
animagus, Black" as opposed to the other pesky animagi LV knows like 
Prongs and Wormtail (and perhaps others to be revealed?).

As it's written without a comma, I read: "the animagus Black, as 
opposed to the other Blacks who aren't animagi," i.e. Regulus or 
Andromeda.

We can pretty much assume LV knows Regulus is dead since Sirius and 
others know, and it was on LV's orders. More likely the comment could 
refer to Andromeda, who is presumably still alive as Tonks talks 
about her in the present tense when they are cleaning Harry's room.

Another point: someone on this thread mentioned that LV classifies 
people by their magical abilities that are important to him, thus 
Sirius is "the animagus". I would take this even farther to say that 
the Marauders and perhaps others who are animagi (i.e., the 
Longbottoms?) were succesful in defying Voldemort longer than their 
peers *because* of their animagi abilities. So LV is particularly 
interested in who has this ability and who doesn't.

Jen Reese