How did Black get into Hogwarts in PoA? (Was: Dumbledore on the Dursleys . . . )

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 151677

Carol earlier:
<snip>
> > Carol, who still doesn't understand how Black/Padfoot got into
Hogwarts (twice) in GoF unless he opened the heavy front doors with
his paws right under the figurative noses of the Dementors
> >
> 
deepthi responded: 
> <snip> Surely, it was in PoA (Prisioners of Askaban)as Dementors
came into the 4th book only once and that was with Fudge to see Barty
Crouch Jr.'s body. Then however he was accompanied by McGonagall even
if he had encountered Dementors.
>

Carol again:
Sorry. Of course I meant PoA. So, I repeat, how did Sirius/Padfoot get
past the Dementors to enter Hogwarts and attempt to kill Wormtail (in
PoA, not GoF)? 

Lupin seems to think that all he (Lupin) needed to tell DD was that
Black was an Animagus, as if that in itself would explain how Black
could get into Hogwarts. (He never mentions that he was also hiding
the Marauder's Map from DD as he certainly should not have done if he
were really trying to protect Harry from Black). But neither the
Animagus form nor Black's knowledge of the secret passages fully
explains (to my satisfaction) how Black got into Hogwarts in PoA,
especially the second time.

Pippin says that the Dementors were only guarding the gates, but
surely they were watching the front doors as well? (Does anyone have
canon evidence that they weren't? In PoA, I mean, not GoF.) Even if
the Dementors weren't watching the front doors, surely someone or
something was guarding them. If not, Black could have just walked into
the school any old time, especially at night, and Dumbledore would
have been putting Harry's safety, and that of the other students a
desperate murderer might injure or kill, at needless risk. (I'm not
talking about what Black would really have done, only about the
measures that would have been taken to prevent the presumed murderer
of thirteen people from adding Harry to the list.)

At any rate, simply being an Animagus should not have been sufficient
in itself to enable him to get him into Hogwarts. I don't see how he
could have opened heavy oak doors in dog form, nor could Crookshanks
have opened them for him. I doubt that they were left standing open in
the daytime, especially as DD didn't want either Black or the
Dementors inside the school, and surely at night they would have been
locked. 

Also, Snape thought that Black would require inside help (from Lupin)
to get inside Hogwarts, which again suggests that the front doors were
guarded in some way and that Black could not just walk in. Granted,
neither Snape nor DD knew that Black was an Animagus, but as noted,
Padfoot could not open those doors, and surely any student or staff
member entering the doors would have noticed if a big dog resembling a
Grim followed them inside (as would Mrs. Norris if she were standing
watch). 

I remember that Black first chose the Halloween feast, when everyone
would be in the Great Hall, to sneak inside and try to enter the
Gryffindor common room, and the second occasion was at night (I don't
recall the date). True, those particular times would have helped him
to escape detection once he got inside, but how did he get in? Even if
the doors were unguarded, which seems to me like unconscionable
neglect on DD's part, no one could have opened the doors for him on
either occasion if he was in dog form. (Lupin didn't; Crookshanks
couldn't; he had no other allies.) And if he were in human form,
surely the Dementors would have sensed him and swooped down on him
even if they weren't standing right outside the doors. Also,
canonically, Flitwick taught the front doors to recognize Black in
human form after the first incident, so even if he opened the doors
himself the first time, he could not have done so the second time.

If he didn't use the doors, how did he get in? But he couldn't have
gotten inside via the Shrieking Shack tunnel, which ends at the
Whomping Willow, not inside Hogwarts itself like the other
passageways; he wouldn't/couldn't have used any of the four passages
that Filch knows about as they were certainly watched; and I don't see
how he could have gotten into Honeydukes in dog form to use the
humpbacked witch passage without being seen and thrown out. (It's not
as if he were the size of Scabbers. A dog in a candy store would cause
a commotion.) Maybe the seventh passage was not yet blocked? We don't
know where it begins/ends in Hogsmeade. That's the only means of entry
I can figure out, but it would present similar problems to the
humpbacked witch passage if it leads to a shop in Hogsmeade. He could
not have assumed human form in Hogsmeade or the Dementors would have
attacked him, and I don't see how a big black dog could have entered
any shop undetected.

Maybe it's just one of those questions that JKR will leave unanswered,
wrongly thinking that they've been adequately explained.

Carol, who really does know one book from another but was thinking
about Snape and GoF when she wrote that sign-off and consequently
mistyped the abbreviated title