[HPforGrownups] Re:DH: The silver doe as Lily's patronus?

[Maria]

No: HPFGUIDX 172947

Kit wrote:
>
>
>
>  > Bart:
>  > 1) Where was it ever established that James' Patronus was a stag?
>
>  I wondered why this point wasn't being raised! I don't believe it ever
>  has been explicitly established. We know James's animagus was a stag,
>  obviously, and we know McGonagall has a patronus which matches her
>  animagus form, so there's some support for the idea. But if one's
>  patronus changes, does the animagus form change? And then if James's
>  was a stag, that would mean Harry simply inherited James's
>  patronus...yet every one is supposed to be unique....
>
>  > 2) I suspect that Lily's patronus WAS a doe, in that she was in love
>  with an animagus stag.
>
>  But what was Lily's patronus before she fell in love? Of, if Lily
>  always had a doe patronus -- did James then change his own to become a
>  stag? (Or did each just happen to have a patronus of "matching"
>  species -- who knows, maybe that hints at why they were so
>  compatible.) If all these patronuses are changing left and right
>  (Tonks, Snape, possibly Lily or James), it does seem as though
>  reliable confidential communication could be impaired.
>

Now Maria:

I find this whole patronus business very interesting, and this is what
I think about them:

To start, we are told by Lupin that the Patronus charm is incredibly
difficult and way beyond Harry's age when he learns it, and even some
of the older DA members do not know it, so we can safely assume that
it is some magic one learns either for NEWT DADA level or even
afterwards. So by the time Lily learned how to produce a patronus,
probably in her seventh year, she was already close to James.
Therefore, her patronus didn't have to change at all. It probably was
a doe from the start.

We are also told that the witch or wizzard does not choose the form
the patronus takes, but it does take the shape of a favorite or
significant animal in the person's life. So it makes sense that
Harry's patronus is his father's animagus (even though at the time he
didn't know it), that Lily's is the partner of the stag as well, and
that Snape's was Lily's. We can't extract that James's was a stag just
because his animagus was, but it could be. I am trying to remember how
much choice one had in the animal one tranform into when becoming an
animagus. There is some degree of choice, I am quite sure, as I recall
Sirius or Lupin saying that Sirius and James transformed into big
animals and could keep Lupin under control. Maybe someone can remind
us about this detail. But independently of whether James choose to be
a stag animagus or he simply became one, we can't assume the shape of
his patronus. But it is a good starting guess. It would be interesting
to find out whether he became an animagus before he learned how to
produce a patronus charm (as they became animagus in their fifth year,
and based on what I said earlier about the age at which usually the
patronus charm is learnt), or the other way around (we hear that James
and Sirius were brilliant students, so they might have learned the
patronus ahead of everyone else, the same way they became animagi
independently).

And the patronus can be unique even though it is not the only one from
its species. I have had several dogs of the same breed and each was
distinct and recognizable, unique.

Mmmm, there was more about patronuses inside me that I expected!

Maria, who should be working on her CV rather than writing these
posts, but couldn't resist