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Being an Animagus takes a lot of magical energy but since you’re asleep it's not like you lose energy, you just lose concentration? And since (idk where I read it but I read it somewhere) some people become animals so they can have freedom, like run around or whatever, they wouldn't hold that much concentration, would you automatically turn back into a human while you sleep because you’re not concentrating on staying in animal form?

I think no because you're still alive and if you're a strong wizard or witch you'd still have a strong enough magical presence to hold it but I'm not sure.

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    No. Staying in animal form when asleep is a HUGE requirement of the main plot of one book. (And while this is the answer, it really needs to be answered correctly by people who won't leave spoilers, and will be able to find the relevant parts of the books and movie scenes.)
    – Ghedipunk
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 15:41
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    It is not stated in any canon material of HP world that maintaining the animal form takes a lot of energy. It is hard to achieve and to learn, but we don't know how energy consuming is it.
    – TimSparrow
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 15:43
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    Note to close voters: we don't close questions as primarily opinion-based just because the answer is "we don't know". In fact, in this case we do know the answer, as shown by the answers below.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 15:50
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    Being an Animagus takes a lot of magical energy ~> Any citation? Also, define Magical Energy..
    – Doctor Doom
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 16:48
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    It might be some effort to transform in and out of animal form (I don't remember anything on that though), but I'm pretty sure it didn't seem like maintaining form took any effort at all. Pettigrew for example, didn't seem to be "weakened" after transforming back in PoA, despite being a rat for many years.
    – Broots Waymb
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 19:03

2 Answers 2

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Transformed Animagi remain in animal form while asleep.

Animagi who are transformed can sleep and stay in their animal form. Scabbers, who’s really Peter Pettigrew, sleeps while around people, and has always remained a rat while asleep. Scabbers is actually shown sleeping, conclusively proving he stays in his Animagus form when sleeping.

“Ron’s magic wand was lying on top of a fish tank full of frogspawn on the window-sill, next to his fat grey rat, Scabbers, who was snoozing in a patch of sun.”
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 3 (The Burrow)

In fact, Scabbers was known to sleep quite a lot, so it probably wasn’t hard for him to stay transformed then. If it was particularly difficult, he likely wouldn’t sleep in front of people so often.

“Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat grey rat, which was asleep.

‘His name’s Scabbers and he’s useless, he hardly ever wakes up.”
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 6 (The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters)

It likely doesn’t take conscious effort to remain in Animagus form while already transformed, they seem to just stay in Animagus form until they actively transform (or are forcibly changed) back.

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    Sirius Black has also mentioned having spent so much time as a dog he almost forgot he could turn back. I don't remember where he said it though.
    – Dúthomhas
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 19:11
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    You should really use spoiler tags for this stuff.
    – William Grobman
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 22:32
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    @WilliamGrobman there’s a statute of limitations on spoilers - if you didn’t read Prisoner of Azkaban or see the movie at some point in the past SEVENTEEN years, you probably don’t care about plot spoilers…
    – s3raph86
    Commented Aug 30, 2018 at 4:04
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    @s3raph86 and others: site policy is that spoilers don't age - we don't consider the age of the material when deciding what should be hidden as a spoiler. Anyone, regardless of age, could be reading any story for the first time now and not want to have it spoiled for them.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Commented Aug 30, 2018 at 14:32
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    @s3raph86 I just read the book last year. Further, kids not yet ready to read Harry Potter are surely many to come. At least think of the children.
    – user15742
    Commented Aug 30, 2018 at 23:22
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No, they wouldn't revert to human form

We know that Ron's pet rat Scabbers was actually an Animagus, Peter Pettigrew, in his animal form. He lived with the Weasleys for a number of years, and even slept in Ron's bed. If there was any chance of his reverting to human form while asleep he wouldn't have risked it, as the consequences for discovery were potentially fatal.

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    You should really use spoiler tags for this stuff.
    – William Grobman
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 22:33
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    @WilliamGrobman Why don't you edit it in? Poster of this answer may not check SE for the rest of the day.
    – Korthalion
    Commented Aug 30, 2018 at 7:59
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    @Korthalion Or I might disagree that there's a need for a spoiler tag in my answer. I considered it at the time of writing, decided that the answer would end up essentially being one big spoiler block, and chose not to include spoiler markup as a result.
    – Anthony Grist
    Commented Aug 30, 2018 at 15:22
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    @Korthalion If people are that concerned about spoilers, they can not click on questions. The general policy, as far as I'm aware (and I could be wrong), is that we only really care about spoilers in questions (in particular their titles) because they're harder to avoid (e.g. they might appear on the Hot Network Questions list in the sidebar).
    – Anthony Grist
    Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 13:04
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    @AnthonyGrist Hmm, could be worth a question on meta? I think it's good for the community to be able to censor spoilers without the answer owner's permission.
    – Korthalion
    Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 14:00

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