Periodically between reading The Hobbit, we’ve been listening to the Harry Potter audio books, which we’ve surprisingly enjoyed. Now we love the good old fashioned reading, but if we’re tired of music throughout the day an audio book has been a great change of pace. Now, let’s begin the discussion.
In The Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius Black reveals that he had been using Crookshanks to sneak into Hogwarts and find Peter Pettigrew. For us that seemed all too easy, esentially what we’re discussing is the idea that all one has to do is find a highly intelligent animal or train one of your own and Hogwarts’ doors are open to you. With magic at your disposal we’d have to imagine that training an animal would be oh so simple, for example, Mad-Eye Moody made a spider dance on tables and do cartwheels across students’ tables. That was through the Imperius Curse, but still, if you’re a dark witch or wizard you’re not going to have second thoughts about using an Unforgivable Curse.
Sirius, of course, had prior knowledge of secret passageways in and out of Hogwarts, so that helped him, but it seems like any wizard could just Imperius an animal to do something dastardly, or if that failed, use magic to train the poor beast. Hogsmeade is open to all manner of witches and wizards, why not just take your animal with you and let them get to Hogwarts from there. Also, a dedicated witch or wizard might just want to spend the time becoming an Animagus to find their way in. Rita Skeeter seemed to have no problem flying around Hogwarts as a bug, Sirius Black was able to walk around as a giant dog. What exactly are the Hogwarts border enchantments designed to prevent? Would they prevent an Animagus? Would they stop a regular animal, what about one under the Imperius Curse? We’ve seen all manner of witches and wizards get inside Hogwarts, but what about using an animal, it seems like the most covert way to achieve your goal without actually getting caught.
Let us know what you think, did we bring to light a loophole here? I mean why didn’t Voldemort just send Nagini to go kill Harry, seems pretty simple, “Nagini, crawl into Hogwarts and kill Harry Potter, also don’t talk cause he can speak Parseltongue and he’ll hear you.” Boom, done. We know why he never did that though, Voldemort always wanted to be the one to do it himself. Back to the end, does this seem like a simple way to infiltrate Hogwarts? Magic always seems to offer infinite possibilities, but utilizing an animal for your benefit looks to have very low risks and high rewards. Of course there are multiple examples of people finding their way into Hogwarts without animals, but those should be saved for a separate conversation down the road. This was a topic we’ve never heard before, so we wanted to get your thoughts on the subject. Let us know in the comments below.
Thank you so much for your time and remember, the crownless again shall be king.
– The Wandering One
Of Blades and Kings 