Do we really get our closer?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 177133

Sharon wrote:
<snip> Also in PS, McGonagal transfigures into a cat and back again
without a wand. It is conceivable that very powerful wizards may
perform magic without wands. There's nothing in the books that I
recall that says it's impossible. Sirius had a long time in Azkaban to
work out how to do it.
> 
Bart replied:
> I think it's even simpler than that. I'm not sure we have canon
saying that a wand is necessary to activate animagus abilities. We DO
have canon showing that Tonks can change her appearance without a
wand, and Harry doesn't need a wand to speak parseltongue. In other
words, if a wizard has an innate ability, s/he does not need a wand to
activate it. <snip>
> 
> Therefore, it is not unreasonable to conclude that when a wizard
becomes an animagus, it is not so much the ability to turn into an
animal but to turn BACK into a wizard without aid (as very few animals
can handle wands properly). And, given the fact that animagi have to
be registered, it is also a quite reasonable conclusion that the
animagus spell gives the wizard the INNATE ABILITY to change to and
from animal form.

Carol responds:

A spell can't give a person an *innate* ability, which is by
definition inborn, but it might enable the wizard to develop innate
*potential*. Tonks and her son Teddy are born metamorphmagi (an innate
ability); James, Sirius, Peter, and presumably McGonagall and Rita
Skeeter have to *learn* to become Animagi (an acquired skill that may
or may not involve a degree of inborn potential or talent, rather like
becoming a musician in the RL).

Harry's ability to speak Parseltongue is also not innate; it's
acquired through the soul bit. Tom Riddle and the Gaunts, however, did
have that innate ability, which, as you say, does not involve a wand
but doesn't seem closely analogous to becoming an Animagus (more like
being born a Metamorphmagus). As an aside, Tom Riddle could perform
telekinesis and something resembling a wandless Imperio and Crucio
before he was eleven, so there's some validity to the theory that a
really powerful wizard doesn't need a wand. (See the boy Riddle's
response when DD asks him what he can do in HBP.) Becoming an
Animagus, however, does not seems to be an innate ability, considering
that it took WPP three years to learn (and, if Lupin is reliable here,
it took a lot of help from James for Peter to master the skill; as an
aside, I think Peter's talents are consistently underestimated, in
part because he wants them to be).

I agree, however, that the tricky part of becoming an Animagus is
learning how to change back into human form without a wand, not only
because a dog or a beetle would be unable to manipulate a wand, even
if they kept their full human intelligence, but also because there's
no wand on the animal's body (no pocket concealed by the fur, if the
animal even has fur, as a beetle doesn't). The wand would also be
considerably bigger than Beetle!Rita and about the same length or
longer than Scabbers, minus his tail. If a wand were tucked in an
inside pocket, it would presumably transform along with the robes,
just as Rita's glasses transform into markings around her beetle face,
but a wand held in the hand would have to be dropped since most
animals other than primates can't hold one (that includes dogs, stags,
rats, cats, and beetles) unless an object that the Animagus is
holding, like whatever he or she is wearing, becomes part of the
animal. I tend to think it doesn't.

In any case, a wand is not required for an Animagus to transform. We
have canon that Peter Pettigrew did *not* have a wand when he changed
into a rat in PoA. When he is forced to transform (PoA Am. ed. 366),
he's wandless and at the mercy of Lupin, who is using his own wand,
and Black, who is using the unconscious Snape's wand (366-380). When
Lupin transforms into a werewolf (381), dropping his own wand,
Wormtail seizes it (which he would not have had to do if he had his
own wand or Voldemort's with him) and knocks out both Ron and
Crookshanks before Harry disarms him. Then the wandless Wormtail
transforms and runs off to find Voldemort (381). Black transforms into
a dog (381) but does not use Snape's wand to do it; he is consequently
helpless against the Dementors because he can't cast a Patronus
without a wand (382). (Snape finds his wand outside the shrieking
Shack after he regains consciousness and uses it to conjure stretchers.) 

To return to Wormtail, when we next see him in GoF, he seems to be
wandless unless he's using Voldemort's wand, which he uses to kill
Cedric Diggory and to obtain the bone for the restorative potion.
Apparently, he doesn't have his own wand until the kidnapped
Ollivander is forced to make him a new one, as we learn in "The
Wandmaker" in DH. 

What happened to his old one, the one he used to blow up the street
and frame his friend Sirius Black for murder? I've always believed
that he left it, along with a finger and a bloody cloak, as "proof"
that he'd been "murdered." It would have been suspicious if his wand
had disappeared with him, and had it done so, Black, instead of
laughing hysterically, could have yelled, "He's an Animagus! Look! His
wand is missing!" Or maybe he dropped it because it wouldn't transform
with him and his little rat hand couldn't hold it. Apparently, he
didn't have time to stuff it into an inside pocket.

I realize that so-called wandless magic, for example, Apparition (per
DH) is usually performed by a wizard who is carrying a wand and seems
to require one, but apparently self-transformation, whether innate or
learned, is an exception (as are accidental magic performed by
children and flying, with or without a broom--Voldie stays airborne
after Lucius Malfoy's wand blows up in his hand. I won't get into the
question of Snape's bat transformation in DH, but McGonagall is no
Snape expert and could be wrong that he needed a wand to do whatever
he did). 

I forgot to mention that Sirius Black doesn't have a wand in Azkaban
but regularly transforms into a dog while he's there to protect
himself from the Dementors, nor does he have a wand when he's in
hiding in GoF. I suppose that in OoP, he's using his mother's or
father's old wand, or maybe one he owned as a child and left behind at
12 GP. I don't know how the escaped DEs acquired the wands they used
in OoP and DH, either, since theirs were presumably confiscated by
Aurors when they were arrested. (Travers does tell Bellatrix!Hermione
that new wands require breaking in, but Ollivander hadn't been
captured yet when the DEs tried to steal the Prophecy Orb in OoP. Best
not to ask where all those wands came from, but I'm getting OT again.)

Carol, who thinks that the Shrieking Shack chapters of PoA provide all
the evidence we need that no wand is required for an Animagus to
transform into an animal and back again