The Bewitching Hour & The Boggart Moon (WAS Lupin Is Not An Airhead!)

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 39341

Katze wrote:

> As a Lupin fan, I'll settle for Mahoney's theory ... although I 
>agree with Pip, that somewhere in all the yelling in the Shrieking 
>Shack perhaps a little alarm bell should've gone off In Lupin's 
>head ... 

Yes, this is a problem for all of the "Why did Lupin fail to take 
his potion that night?" theories.  If he is just forgetful, you'd 
think that the word "werewolf" would jog his memory just a bit.  If 
he has done some sort of complex calculation, you'd think he'd come 
up with a better plan for handling things that night (have Sirius 
escort Peter to the castle and stay in the Shack, etc.) than the one 
he came up with, or would show some sense of urgency.  

Now, I'll agree that Pip's theory solves the problem.  If you decide 
that Lupin is in denial about being a werewolf, then you're in fine 
shape.  Lupin, however, has to be totally and completely *bent* to 
be in denial about something like this.  I mean, Hermione 
shrieks, "He's a werewolf!" and Lupin doesn't deny this or react at 
all.  He knows full well that he is a werewolf, and he has no mental 
problem that prevents him from having a grasp on this.

So then.  Why does Lupin fail to take his potion, and why doesn't 
all the werewolf talk in the Shack snap him out of it and cause him 
to take steps to protect the others?

Um.  I'm thinking that this Bewitching Hour calculation that Lupin 
does before he runs out that night is very, very complex.  It 
depends on the phases of the moon.  And the time.  And whenever 
Lupin last took his potion.  And on how healthy he is feeling.  As a 
result, Lupin can only pinpoint a *range* when the transformation 
will happen.  

So why doesn't he hurry things along in the Shack?  Because Lupin, 
bless him, was *way* off on this one.  He figured he had *hours* 
left.  He saw no reason to hurry, particularly since hurrying was 
going to speed up the execution of a dear friend and increase the 
chances of a blunder.  No, Lupin was being methodical because he 
thought he had time to be methodical.  

***********

Marina wrote (about why Lupin doesn't transform at the boggart moon):

>The effect that the Dementors have on 
> people is a property inherent to Dementors, so the boggart 
>acquires it along with the hooded cloak and the scabied hands.  The 
>werewolf transformation, OTOH, is a property of the *werewolf*, not 
>of the moon, so the boggart has nothing to do with it.  

I'm not sure this takes us all the way there.  What is the *reason* 
Lupin transforms involuntarily?  It has to do either with the 
objective power of the moon, or the subjective, internal feelings 
Lupin has when he sees it, right?

I've never been taken with the idea that Lupin's transformation is 
entirely a subjective reaction to the moon.  If that were it, then 
he could be kept indoors or simply stunned when it is time for the 
full moon, I'd say.  Lupin ought to have the same subjective 
reaction to the boggart moon as he does to the real one.  

And of course, if the transformation is triggered by the objective 
power of the moon, then Lupin should transform when the moon comes 
up, not when the cloud cover breaks.

As for the boggart moon, I think the boggart does have some of the 
powers of the thing it is impersonating. The clearest (and maybe 
only) example is when the boggart dims the lights when Lupin and 
Harry are learning the Patronus charm: "The lamps around the 
classroom flickered and went out." This was definitely not an 
illusion: "He took a bit of the chocolate and watched Lupin 
extinguishing the lamps that had rekindled with the disappearance of 
the dementor."

This suggests to me that the boggart/dementor really did dim the 
lights in the classroom. Real dementors seem to have the power to 
extinguish lights, as the lights on the Hogwarts Express go out when 
the dementors arrive. I think boggarts really do take on some of the 
characteristics of the thing they are imitating. 

Things get even more complicated when we look at the 
boggart/dementor in the maze in GoF. Harry first believes it is a 
dementor, so he conjures a Patronus. What does the boggart do? It 
falls back and retreats, just like a real dementor would. But Lupin 
told us that Ridikkulus is the spell for fighting a boggart, not 
Expecto Patronum. A boggart shouldn't be bothered at all by a 
Patronus; it ought to keep right on coming, shouldn't it? So now we 
have some evidence that boggarts take on the powers of the thing 
they impersonate (dimming lights), and we see that they react in the 
same way as the thing they impersonate (retreating when confronted 
by a Patronus).

But then again, the maze boggart doesn't become a perfect version of 
the dementor, does it? No, because it trips, and dementors don't 
trip. So that suggests that the boggart has some of the powers of 
the thing it becomes, but it doesn't become a perfect replica. It 
gets some details or characteristics wrong. (This is consistent 
with Lupin explaining to the students that he has seen boggarts get 
confused and become half a slug.)

As applied to Lupin, then, the reason Lupin doesn't transform when 
confronted by a boggart moon might have nothing to do with how he 
feels, whether he is especially talented or experienced, whether he 
has fear, or whether he drank his potion recently. It could be 
simply that the boggart is doing its very best impersonation of the 
moon but hasn't got the details right, just like its counterpart 
in the maze.

Cindy (unsure of how all of this fits into the Bewitching Hour 
theory)