[HPforGrownups] Re: Remus and the moon

[marshamoon]

No: HPFGUIDX 22252

Amy Z. wrote in reply to the werewolf/moon posts:
  Drat, I just found a hole, though.  Surely he doesn't turn *back* when 
  the moon goes back under cloud cover.  If you're a werewolf, once the 
  moonlight hits the earth wherever you are, you transform and don't 
  recover 'til the morning.  The moon hasn't been under cloud cover the 
  entire evening:  "the moon drifted in and out of sight behind the 
  shifting clouds" while timeturning Harry and Hermione were waiting for 
  everyone to emerge from the Whomping Willow (PoA 21).  So Lupin would 
  have transformed the first time the clouds moved away, sometime during 
  the Shack scene, and stayed transformed.


  Why can't it merely be coincidental that Lupin transforms then?  He has to transform at some point since he's forgotten the potion; why not then? Perhaps transformation doesn't happen immediately when the moon rises. We (the collective "we") believe this because our "textual" references to werewolf transformation come from old movies, mostly.  JKR is a master of taking general culturally accepted notions of magical universes and adding her own stamp to them.  Speculation: Perhaps it takes a while to transform on a moony night.  Maybe the moon has to reach a certain heigth in the night sky before transformation occurs.  Perhaps 4-6 hours have to elapse after moonrise before werewolfian changes begin to occur. What happens to werewolves during daytime moons? It is moon light somewhere on earth all the time, so maybe it depends on the range or angle of light.  Declination (distance north or south of the celestial equator) in the night sky? Albedo (intensity of the moon's reflected light)?  Perhaps transformation is like the tides, and varies in length and intensity, depending on the relative position of the moon.  In the matter at hand, and by odd red-herring-type happenstance, Lupin's transformation occurs just at the point where JKR has written "A cloud shifted.  There were suddenly dim shadows on the ground.  Their party was bathed in moonlight."; thus confounding us, the dear reader, and giving us endless hours of enjoyment whilst we speculate on her "error".

  Marsha
  Who managed to get through 7 years of college and 2 degrees with only one math or science class: astronomy.



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