20 to 1 / Luna / An Animagus here, and an Animagus there, ee-eye-ee-eye-oh

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 182863

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182852>:

<< I wonder, I counted 21 members of the original order, it is a bit
more than I remembered and that brings me to another math question
connected to Lupin's overpowered 20:1 remark. So, 21x20 that makes it
420 Deatheaters. Huh, JKR? Did I miscount? >>

If the Order being outnumbered 20 to 1 included opponents acting under
Imperius as well as voluntary Death Eaters, I'd think 420 seemed a bit
too *small*, not too large. And the people who were under Imperius in
the first war would be no more likely to flock to LV's banner in the
second war than any average wizard. Once the Ministry fell in the
second war, there were surely more than 420 people who would have at
least reported any Undesirable they saw.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182854>:

<< I expected a connection with Mr. Ollivander (nothing like the two
of them as prisoners in the Malfoys' basement, however!) based on her
silvery eyes. I was sure that they were related. (Mr. Ollivander
doesn't seem to have an heir--another Pure-Blood family dying out? Too
bad Luna couldn't have been his granddaughter and taken over the
family business!)  >>

This is a forbidden "I agree!" post.

Even tho' she's not his granddaughter, I think she should become his
apprentice and inherit the wand-making business, and be a naturalist
only as a hobby in her time off. I believe that her spiritual insight
into people would help her match people to wands that not only would
be powerful for those people, but would influence those people a
little bit to goodness.

Altho' until the end of DH, I was sure she was going to die because
she's too good for this world.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182809>:

<< 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? (snip) 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? >>

You could take giraffe form when you needed to rescue a frisbee that
had landed on your roof.

I'm sure that a wizarding politician would get a lot of votes if
his/her campaign consisted of going around to block parties etc and
turning into an elephant or a giraffe to give the children rides.

It seems to me that the wizarding folk view that an Animagus whose
form is a large animal thus shows that he/she has a noble soul or at
least a lot of magic power, and therefore turning into a whale might
be an even better campaign platform than turning into an elephant.

Meanwhile, would the whale or dolphin Animagus be able to have a good
career finding and scavenging sunken treasures?

Mike Crudele wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182831>:

<< I know that James and Sirius were the type that would try to learn
the Animagus transformation on a lark. But given the difficulty
attributed to this particular feat, the purpose for which they were
attempting it, and having to also teach an coach Peter through it, I
seriously doubt they would have put forth all that effort if they had
no way of knowing or controlling the form they would take. IOW, I
believe that there is some portion of control as to what kind of
animal one would become. >>

Canon says: "They couldn't keep me company as humans, so they kept me
company as animals," said Lupin. "A werewolf is only a danger to people." 

I'm sure that 'only a danger to people' doesn't mean that a werewolf
can't hunt and eat a prairie dog if he's hungry; I believe it means
that animals don't catch lycanthropy if they are bitten, and that
werewolves don't go crazy with bloodlust when they sense animals the
way they do when they sense humans.

So I don't believe that it mattered to James and Sirius, when they
invented this plan, whether they would become large enough animals to
control a werewolf. I'm sure they never doubted that Remus would never
attack them if he didn't come down with bloodlust. Therefore, there
would be no need to control him as long as they weren't human and
therefore didn't incite bloodlust. (Altho' I have my doubts about
whether the Shrieking Shack is really far enough away from Hogsmeade
to avoid smelling the humans there.) So it would be okay if they
became small-ish animals, such as the strutting peacock you mention in
a later paragraph.

I'm also sure their self-esteem was high enough that they never
doubted that they would become mammals or birds. No possibility that
they might become low-status insects, fish, amphibians, or reptiles.
...Altho' there is room for speculation about how large reptiles
compare to small mammals in status ... I'm sure a cat is higher status
than a hog, and is a honeybee higher status than a rat?

I'm not sure if it occurred to them that they might become tasty bunny
rabbits, but if it did, they would have assumed that their buddy Remus
would never hurt them no matter how tasty they were, just as long as
they weren't human.

"highly exciting possibilities were open to us now that we could all
transform. Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack and roaming the
school grounds and the village by night. Sirius and James transformed
into such large animals, they were able to keep a werewolf in check."

I read the above as meaning they didn't think of the group leaving the
shack in animal form until they had spent at least one evening hanging
out in the Shack in animal form, and the novelty wore off.

<< Mike, who would prefer a cheetah as his Animagus form, but would
probably be stuck with being a common house cat if his theory doesn't
hold water >>

Couldn't you get wherever you're going faster by Apparating than even
a cheetah can run?

My first choice was to be a common house cat, but latter I wondered
whether being a raccoon, or better yet a cacomistle, might be better
because they have dextrous hands. But my fear is I would just turn
into a hog, and what fun would that be?

Potioncat wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182833>:

<< believing there is no choice in Animagus, I think Snape would
be a Hebridean Black dragon. Dangerous, solitary and bat-like. >>

I don't think we ever found out whether a magical beast could be an
Animagus form.

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182836>:

<< if I choose to imagine Dumbledore as animagus, I would imagine a
lion or tiger or phoenix. >>

Do we still think Dumbledore could be a phoenix (if a magical beast is
even possible) after DH revealed his moral depravity?

Tiger will do - they're extremely powerful and dangerous and don't
particularly care about morality.

Real lions are lazy, and let the lionnsses do all the work. Symbolic
lions are vain as well as courageous and powerful, and are the symbol
of Gryffindor House. Albus was vain as well as courageous and
powerful, and one could say he let Harry do all the work, but was he
the true heir of Godric Gryffindor? I think the people who would say
he is are the people who dislike Gryffindor House.

It has often been suggested that the name 'dumbledore' means his
Animagus form would be a honeybee. (Would Aberforth be a honeybee as
well as Albus?) The industrious and productive honeybee, providing
honey for pleasure and beeswax for candles, is a symbol of virtue.
Not-so-virtuous Albus was industrious and productive as he
corresponded with the most learned wizards of Europe and published the
twelve uses of dragon's blood. But keeping the members of the Order of
the Phoenix in the dark was hardly providing them with beeswax.

Magpie wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182838>:

<< Re: Snape, I'd go with a big black spider going with the way people
tend to get associated with things in canon. >>

I'm under the impression that black widow spiders really are female.
Anyway, I was imprinted at an early age by a Freudian interpretation
that spiders are representing female genitalia the same way snakes are
phallic symbols. Not that that doesn't correlate with Snape's potion
cauldron, also a female symbol.

Kemper wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182840>:

<< Combining the bat-like imagery and the snake like imagery though
out the series and ignoring any spider imagery entirely, I think
Snape's animagus would be a winged snake. Not Quetzalcoatl, with his
colorful plumage... No. Just your average fiery, flying serpent called
a seraph. Fiery meant the serpent had a poisonous bite or tongue. >>

There is a boringly real flying snake.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_snake> says << Chrysopelea, or
more commonly known as the flying snakes, is a genus that belongs to
the family Colubridae. Flying snakes are mildly venomous, though they
are considered harmless because their toxicity is not dangerous to
humans.[citation needed] Their range of habitat is mostly concentrated
in Southeast Asia, the Melanesian islands, and India. ... they
actually glide instead of fly. This is done by flattening their bodies
to up to twice their width from the back of the head to the vent. >>