DD as Animagus

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182809

Pippin wrote:
<snip> 
> Animal forms are ill-adapted to magic, they can't talk (except
snakes) and they can't use wands -- for wizards like Dumbledore and
Voldemort who live by their wandwork and powers of persuasion,  I
imagine being transformed into an animal, even one with human
intelligence, would feel like being gagged with both hands tied behind
your back.

Carol responds:

Just a comment here. While snakes are the only animasl identified as
having their own recognizable language which some wizards and witches
can speak, usually as an inherited ability (Salazar Slytherin's
descendants), I'm not sure that they're the only animals who can speak
to wizards, at least, to Animagi. It appears that Sirius in dog form
was somehow able to communicate with the half-Kneazle cat, Crookshanks
(yes, Crookshanks seems to have understood human speech, but Padfoot
also understood *Crookshanks.*) Similarly, Wormtail/Scabbers on his
way to Voldemort seems to have found out from his "filthy little
friends" (rats and possibly other small animals) about the shadow that
lived in an Albanian forest and possessed small creatures like
themselves).

I agree that animal forms would be ill-adapted to perform magic. Most
animals couldn't hold a wand. Also, of course, large animals are
conspicuous. Someone pointed out that James couldn't just transform
any time he wanted to like Sirius (a large animal, but one that's
commonly domesticated) or McGonagall or Wormtail or Rita. Imagine
turning into a stag in a London alley (so the Muggles won't see you)
and then wandering the streets of London in that farm. A cow or other
large farm animal would present similar problems. Other forms would be
just as useless. Being a dolphin would be wonderful if you wanted to
swim the English Channel--bit of a dangerous way to travel from
England to America though, and completely useless on land. About the
only really good Animagus form (other than cat, dog, rat or certain
forms of insects--though *most* people would probably be less happy
than Rita skeeter to find that they turned into a beetle) would be a
bird of some sort. How nice to be an owl in the WW, for example.

At any rate, maybe the reason that the WW has so few Animagi
(registered or otherwise) is a combination of related factors. It's
difficult, time-consuming magic. Not everyone can learn it and not
everyone is motivated to learn it (Rita, perhaps, by natural
snoopishness; WPP by the desire to run around with a werewolf).
Similarly, you don't know what you'll become and consequently may not
want to waste years of your life learning to acquire a form that may
be loathsome or useless. Imagine becoming an elephant or a whale or a
goldfish or, as JKR says in separate interviews, a slug or a warthog.
And if your Animagus form, unlike your Patronus, reveals your inner
self, do you really want to know, and want others to know, what that
form is? It's possible that more than one witch or wizard with an
aptitude for Transfiguration (as opposed to Charms or DADA or Potions
or Divination), with sufficient time and motivation to learn the
skill, discovered that his or her time had been wasted. If I turn into
a giraffe, which, given my body build, is most likely what I'd turn
into, what good would it do me? Since I don't care to be placed in a
display in the London Zoo, I think I'll just keep my human form, thanks.

Another sidenote: Alla likes to think that Snape would turn into a
cockroach, but since the only cockroach mentioned in the books, IIRC,
is either somebody's Boggart (with JKR miscounting the number of
students in the class) or a temporary shape that Lupin turns the
Boggart into to conceal his full moon Boggart from the students, I
don't see any canonical support for that idea, nor do I think that
Snape's personality, even in its most unpleasant form, would take that
shape. I can see him as a bat (highly useful for spying at night, and
he wouldn't need LV to teach him how to fly) or as some form of
snake--not a pit viper like Voldemort would be (Nagini is among other
things a kindred spirit if not almost a second self to LV), but a
cunning, nonpoisonous serpent, either a black one (to match his black
robes) or one that mimics the colors of a poisonous snake. And snakes
have been associated with healing in mythology--the caduceus of
Hermes, for example, which even today symbolizes medicine. Phineas
Nigellus, in some ways the quintesssential Slytherin, might well have
had a snake form of some sort, as well. After all, there are many
kinds of snakes, and not all of them are dangerous.

Carol, wondering where everyone was last night when she really needed
the group for entertainment!