Animagus Transformation / Snape's Animagus (was DD as Animagus)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182839

I just lost a whole post thanks to Yahoo!mort, which is unfairly
picking on HPfGu this morning but leaving the other groups in peace.
<grumble>

Carol:
> <HUGE SNIP>
> 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.
> <SNIP>
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Well, that's the beauty of speculation, isn't it?  I do not believe
I need much canon support for  this speculation.
> 
> There are animagi in canon, I believe that Snape's personality is 
just as nasty as I consider cockroach to be. That's enough for me to 
speculate, in my mind he is cockroach if I choose to imagine so. 
<snip>

Carol again:
I'm attempting to reconstruct my lost post, so I hope that I'm not
forgetting anything.

First, Alla, I understand your feelings about Snape. I really do. The
character that I would most like to crush under my shoe and squish
into a jelly is Barty Crouch Jr. How *dare* he Crucio that spider in
front of Neville, deliberately prolonging its agony for his own
sadistic enjoyment, after having helped to Crucio Neville's parents
into insanity, knowing the effect that it would have on Neville and
using Neville's anguish as an excuse to "comfort" him and give him the
book that he hoped would help Harry survive the Second Task, with no
benevolent intentions toward Harry? Squishing this piece of vermin
like a cockroach is too good for him!

And yet, feelings aside, I don't imagine for a moment that Barty Jr.'s
Animagus form would be a cockroach, loathsome though I think he is. He
was exceedingly clever, posing for almost a year as the paranoid
ex-Auror he was keeping in the ex-Auror's own trunk. If I were to
assign Barty Jr. an Animagus form, it would be a chameleon.

By the same token, I would assign the other character I loathe,
Dolores Umbridge, the form so frequently associated with her: a toad.
Much as I would love to squish her underfoot, I don't see any
characteristics of a cockroach (living in squalor, mating
promiscuously, whatever cockroaches do besides crawl out of sinks in
the middle of the night, shudder!) associated with her.

By the same token, even if I hated Snape instead of pitying the
promising boy who ruined his own life and contributed to the death of
the only person he loved through his own mistakes and half-pitying,
half-admiring the bitter but supremely courageous man who spent his
adult life atoning for them, I wouldn't associate him with a cockroach.

And while I would consider the idea of his having a bat Animagus form
and understand the reasoning behind Magpie's spider hypothesis, I
think that the associations with snakes (and Slytherin) are more
pervasive than the rest (the spider imagery appears, IIRC, only in SWM
and the web-spinning implications of "Spinner's End"). His very name,
Snape, suggest "snake," and the sibilant initials SS recall the
initials of the Parselmouth founder of Slytherin House, Salazar
Slytherin and are themselves suggestive of the hissing of a snake.
Bellatrix accuses Snape (probably with good reason) of "slithering out
of action" in DE-related activities, and Harry thinks of Snape, the
supposed murderer of Dumbledore, as a snake in the grass.

Given all that, combined with Snape's ambiguous loyalties and
motivations for most of the series and the ambivalence of Western
culture toward snakes (treachery and trickery on the one hand; healing
and cleverness on the other), as well as the need to conceal himself
and move quickly, I think that a snake, most likely the toad eating
black snake, would be the perfect Animagus form for Snape:

http://www.wettropics.gov.au/st/rainforest_explorer/Resources/Images/animals/snakes/RedBelliedBlackSnake.jpg

> Potioncat:
> Disregarding JKR's interviews, using only canon interpretation, I
disagree.
> 
> In the first place, the Marauders and Rita all display the
attributes of their individual Patronuses. Of course, JKR is having
fun writing them, I'm sure---but it is canon.
> <SNIP>

Carol:
Erm, you meant "their individual Animagus forms," right?
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Here I agree with your vision. I mean I take interviews into 
consideration, but even without them, dog to me is who Sirius is 
indeed, I think revealing your inner self to the extent cannot be 
controlled. IMO of course.

Carol:
On this point, we all agree. Sorry, Mike! <grin>
 
> Carol, picturing Snape's snake Animagus swallowing Umbridge's toad
Animagus and smiling coldly afterwards