Are Lily and Harry Animagi?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 123929


Tonks wrote:
> > 
> > OT Chatter had pictures of cats. Looked at pictures and saw green
 eyes. Thought of Harry and Lilly. Pondering if they could both be
animagi.  Which leads to this thought. 
> > 
> (huge snip)
> 
> 
Becky responded:
> Just to straight answer the question the subject title asks, no
Harry is not, and will not be an Animagus, at least for the duration
of Hoggwarts. The reason I think that is because JKR says so <snip>
> http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/1999/1099-pressclubtransc.html

(Carol notes that the URL should link this time because I unchecked
"Wrap message text.")
> 
> Which I think deals with Harry, but Lily is different. I feel that
however great a witch she may be, she won't have become an Animagus
because (and now I'm into my own speculation) it being such a hard
thing to do, you would want a reason. <snip> (Interestingly, all the
others we know of are unregistered and therefore illegal. Just a thought.)
> 
> The mauraders reason is simple - to keep Lupin company.
> Rita Skeeter is also fairly simple - to get her stories without
being seen, to get the gossip no-one in their right mind would tell 
her to her face.
> 
> <snip> back to Lily. I see no real reason for her to have become an
Animagus. Perhaps she has one that we don't know yet. Also, it's clear
that it takes time to learn, even for a very powerful witch or wizard,
and she has been busy having a child and also with the OotP. So,
overall, I don't think it's very likely, although it's certainly not
impossible.
<snip>

Carol adds:
I agree with Becky that Lily had no reason to become an animagus and
almost certainly would not have done so illegally. Also, we learn in
SS/PS that James's wand was excellent for Transfiguration, our first
hint that he was an Animagus. Her chief talent, suggested in that same
conversation with Mr. Ollivander, was for Charms ("nice wand for charm
work"). So we have at least one important hint that she could have
placed the Fidelius Charm on Peter Pettigrew (DD certainly didn't do
it) and that her "ancient magic" involved something beyond
self-sacrifice, presumably a charm, but nothing to suggest that she
had any special affinity for Transfiguration. And, as a Prefect and
Head Girl, she would (IMO) have devoted her time to setting a good
example and studying for her exams, not to conducting illegal
experiments on herself. I doubt that she would have approved of what
MWPP were doing had she known about it, based on the little we've seen
of her in canon. Her courage can't be doubted, but she's neither
mischievous nor rash. (Voldemort might disagree about the rashness,
but I think he's dead wrong.)

Also, it would be very difficult to learn to become an Animagus by
herself. McGonagall must have had someone's (Dumbledore's?) help so he
could turn her back into a person when she was first learning, just as
James and Sirius would have transformed each other and Peter back to
human form. We have no evidence that Lily had any close friends who
would have helped her turn into an illegal animagus, and if McGonagall
had helped her turn into a legal one, we would surely have heard about
it. (She'd have been on the list of registered animagi and Hermione
would have informed Harry, for one.)

Just my opinion, but I will be very surprised to find that Lily was an
animagus, as well as annoyed with JKR for not dropping any clues to
that effect.

Carol, suspending her disbelief to imagine Unicorn!Lily running with
the boys on full moon nights--or with her female friends at some other
time of month