Portraits (was: Secret Keeper, Godric's Hollow, revisted)

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

It's been 12 hours since I replied to this post and my reply hasn't
appeared yet, so I get to try again.

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "joywitch_m_curmudgeon"
<joym999 at ...> wrote:
 
> I've always thought that the Old Headmaster's Network has played a 
> greater role than we've really examined.  For example, I've always 
> thought that it must have been a portrait that told Dumbledore that 
> Harry was looking in the Mirror of Erised, again.

Paintings, House Elves, ghosts. There are a lot of invisible and/or
unobstrusive spies available to the Headmaster.

That makes it all the more remarkable that the Marauders learned
Animagery without DD knowing. I'd think that would have required a
paranoid level of security not shown in OoP's Pensieve scene. Not to
say 'you run with a werewolf every month' where a painting, ghost, or
House Elf could overhear. Not to leave any books about Animagery lying
around the dorm room for the House Elves to tidy up, much less any
potions or talismans involved. 

I imagine they bought the books (and supplies) by owl order from
Diagon Alley, maybe even delivered to an accomodation address in
Hogsmeade (maybe at the Hog's Head, whose innkeeper surely thought the
boys were merely buying pornography) and kept them in their trunks,
wrapped in garments under garments, when not in use. 

And went to the Shrieking Shack (not at Full Moon) for all their
practises. (When they went not at Full Moon, Dumbledore probably
thought that was where they kept the porn, but once they learned to
transform, and regularly visited the Shrieking Shack at Full Moon,
what did he think? That they only went into the tunnel, but not out
the other end?)