House Elves / apparating / Sirius

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161215

Jodi in VA wrote:
> 
<snip>
> I have always wondered how Sirius got into Hogwarts after he escaped  
> Azkaban.  He can't apparate there.  Well, this post made me somehow  
> think that perhaps he could apparate into the Shrieking Shack (it
has no doors right?) and then take the pathway down under the Whompin  
> Willow to get inside Hogwarts.
> 
> What do you all think?

Carol responds:
I've wondered the same thing. The problem with your explanation is
that Apparating into the Shrieking Shack and following the tunnel
would only lead him as far as the Whomping Willow. He could get onto
the grounds that way and probably did, but it wouldn't take him into
the castle. That means he either had to get into Honeydukes (which
undoubtedly has anti-Apparition protections and intruder alarms) and
follow the passage to the hump-backed witch or get into some other
unblocked passage that wasn't being watched--unless he simply walked
into the castle when the doors were unlocked and he was pretty sure he
wouldn't be seen (Halloween night, for example). 

I don't recall the front doors being watched until Flitwick put a
spell on them so they could recognize a picture of Black, and the
Dementors weren't allowed on the castle grounds to guard them, yet
Dumbledore and Snape seem to think it would be impossible to sneak
into the castle in PoA and are puzzled as to how Black managed it. And
surely DD wouldn't leave the doors completely unguarded and unlocked
after the students were in bed, especially after the first attack (on
the Fat Lady). Maybe there were protections we aren't aware of, such
as portraits watching the door if anyone entered. They might not have
reacted, though, if Black transformed into a dog just as he opened the
door a crack. (He couldn't have opened it in Animagus form, and
Crookshanks, of course, can't open doors, either.)

So that pretty much leaves Honeydukes, the only question being how he
could sneak in there in Animagus form. Lupin seems to think that
Black's being an Animagus explains everything. I disagree. I think the
passages on the Marauder's Map were involved, and Crookshanks may also
have been on the alert for unwatched passages. (Filch and Mrs. Norris
together can only be in two places at once.)

At any rate, Lupin seems to think that being an Animagus accounts for
it, but I don't think so. I think Black's knowledge of the castle is
equally important. He must have used one of the secret passages,
probably the Honeydukes one. How he managed it, we'll probably never
know, but it couldn't have been through the Shrieking Shack.

Carol, who thinks that Lupin should have turned in the Marauder's Map
to Dumbledore as soon as he confiscated it