Sneakoscope

From UnknowableWiki

A Sneakoscope is a Dark Detector resembling a glass spinning top. Whenever someone in the vicinity is untrustworthy, the Sneakoscope will light up and spin, emitting a high-pitched, tinny sound (PA1, PA5). Sneakoscopes also seem to be the Wizarding equivalent of Muggle burglar alarms (HBP4).

Ron Weasley gives Harry Potter a Pocket Sneakoscope for the latter's thirteenth birthday (PA1). However, from the start of third year until the middle of fourth year, Harry keeps the Sneakoscope wrapped in a pair of Vernon Dursley's old socks (an old birthday present from the Dursleys) to mute it, as it whistles perpetually (PA5, GF23). (This is because of the presence of Peter Pettigrew in his rat Animagus form, though none of the Trio knows it at the time (PA19).)

Alastor Moody possesses a large, extra-sensitive Sneakoscope; however, Barty Crouch, Jr., having assumed Moody's identity, disables the Sneakoscope, ostensibly with the claim that with students lying all around, it whistles perpetually. It is more likely that the Sneakoscope is activated by Crouch's deception (GF20).

The Room of Requirement, when summoned by Harry for the DA to use, has a table with Sneakoscopes, as well as several other Dark Detectors through the room. Parvati Patil eventually becomes so adept at the Reductor Curse that she reduces the table of Sneakoscopes into dust (OP19).

Arthur Weasley, as head of the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects, confiscates a box of cursed Sneakoscopes—probably planted by a Death Eater—which was being sold to magical folk during the panic surrounding the start of the Second War (HBP5).

Hermione Granger gives Harry a new Sneakoscope for his seventeenth birthday; by that point, his old one is cracked and worn-out (DH7, DH2). The Trio uses the Sneakoscope while they are hunting for Voldemort's Horcruxes, setting it up in their tent to warn them if any danger should approach (DH14). It does not move when a group consisting of Ted Tonks, Dirk Cresswell, Dean Thomas, Griphook, and Gornuk—all fleeing from the Death Eaters—approaches (DH15), nor is it activated by Ron's unsuccessful attempts to approach the camp after storming out (DH19). After Harry says Voldemort's name, activating the Taboo placed upon the title, the Sneakoscope lights up and spins, warning of the approach of a group of Snatchers (DH22).