The Grim?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 92993

[This is a repost to correct an error: I forgot to mark the beginning
of my own thoughts and the end of Kathy's. The old post is being
deleted. Carol]

Kathy King wrote:
 
We know that Harry saw a book in Flourish and Blotts that showed a
Grim right after seeing the big black dog (which we later learn is
Sirius). We know that in Trelawney's class Harry had the Grim in his
tealeaves. Harry  immediately recalled the dog in the shadows of
Magnolia Crescent and also  the cover of the book Death Omens. So the
big black dog wasn't a Grim at all but was the animagus Sirius, or was
it that Sirius was a Grim? Was Sirius bad luck? The Black Manor is
called Grim-mald Place.
  
You can't choose what patronus or animagi you become, it comes from
within you. So did Sirius turn into a big black dog or a Grim? Did the
Black family curse him when he left at 16? That was about the time
that the Marauders turned into Animagus.
  
Also, Grimmald sounds very much like the dark lord that Dumbledore
defeated in 1945, Grindelwald. Wonder if there's anything with that?
 
Carol: 
The Grim/Grimmauld Place connection is interesting, but if Sirius's
animagus form were really a Grim (and if there *is* such a thing in
the Potterverse--Hermione seems to doubt it), wouldn't James, Remus,
and Sirius all have died within twenty-four hours of first seeing him?
I think that Trelawney did actually see a big black dog (Sirius) in
the tea leaves and the crystal ball, but she only thought it was a Grim.
 
To go off track a bit here, Trelawney may have more magic in her, or
more abilities as a "sibyl," than she's been given credit for. She
can't possibly have seen the real Sirius in his dog form and
associated the dog with Harry. She'd have died of a heart attack
thinking *she'd* seen the Grim! So she didn't invent the black dog in
the tea leaves and the crystal ball; she actually saw it but
interpreted it as anyone with her training would, as a Grim.
 
So, to return to Kathy's post, I don't think Sirius was a Grim or that
he was cursed by his family, but I do wonder if there's more to
Trelawney (and her tea leaves and crystal balls) than she's been given
credit for. I'd almost think that she was the person who's going to do
(or has already done) magic late in life since she seems almost
Squiblike, except that she's already given two real prophecies,
neither of them in desperate circumstances. Maybe McGonagall and
Hermione (McGonagall, Jr.) were a bit too hasty in their judgment of her?
 
Carol, with apologies to all for double posting, but if I'm confused
by my own post, I know others will be also. Besides, I've made other
corrections and clarifications, so maybe people will respond to the
post this time.