TBAY: Boggart powers (WAS: NixTheBewitchingHour, etc.)

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 39369

Oh, dear.

This is horrible to watch!  

A consensus is building that JKR's handling of boggarts is *FLINT-
y*!  Worse, far worse, is the idea that Lupin is a bit of a *head 
case*.  His lycanthropy is all in his mind, I'm hearing.  Harry is 
coming unhinged, too -- he sees the lights dim and be rekindled, but 
Harry is doing it himself and doesn't even know it.

<Cindy breaks the seal on an enormous box of brand new yellow flags> 

Elkins wrote:

>I don't really believe that the boggarts can simulate the abilities 
> or powers of the forms that they take.  If such were the case, 
>then I find it *very* difficult to believe that anyone would 
>consider it appropriate to teach children how to banish them in a 
>classroom setting, particularly only one year after a basilisk had 
>been preying on students in that same school.  What if a basilisk 
>had turned out to be some kid's personal bogey?  Not at all 
>unlikely, only one year after _CoS._   And that would have been 
>good, wouldn't it?  Half of the class would have been *dead* before 
>anyone could manage to stammer out a "Riddikulus."

Yes, this could be trouble.  If boggarts really do have the powers 
of the thing they impersonate, then Lupin's lesson plan could use a 
tune-up.  After all, the boggart could have become anything, 
including an AK-wielding Voldemort or a dementor set on kissing 
Harry.

Fortunately, JKR thought of this and worked it all out for us.  Se's 
really very thorough that way.  The answer is right there in black 
and white.  See, boggarts can undoubtedly take on certain powers of 
the thing they impersonate.  Canon tells us that, and if we try to 
wriggle away, we will be hit with a gigantic yellow flag, and it 
will *hurt*.

So how does Lupin's lesson plan make sense?  Because Lupin knows 
that Boggarts cannot actually work any Dark Magic themselves.  Oh, 
sure, they can change the temperature.  They can dim lights.  But 
they aren't Dark Creatures themselves (they aren't anywhere to be 
found in Fantastic Beasts, after all).  They can't petrify people, 
suck out their souls, or work Unforgivable Curses.  So there was 
never any *real* danger in Lupin's class or in his anti-dementor 
lessons with Harry.

Dicey:

> > That the boggart Dementor can do dementor things is what seems 
> > weird to me.
 
Elkins:

> I don't think that it can, really.  I think that it's all 
> psychosomatic.  If Harry hadn't already known from his experience 
>on the train what the dementors could do to him, then the boggart 
> wouldn't have had at all the same effect.

I agree that if Harry had never heard of a dementor, the boggart 
wouldn't have turned into a dementor.  But that's only because the 
dementor wouldn't have been Harry's greatest fear.  The dementor 
would have simply become something else for Harry.

Elkins:

> [Harry's] dimming the lights 
> himself through unconscious magic, in precisely the same way that 
> Neville is always melting all of those cauldron bottoms in Snape's 
> Potions Class.  

Well . . . I dunno.  In all other cases of Harry's spontaneous 
magic, Harry knows full well that he performed spontaneous magic.  
Before he knew he was a wizard, he didn't understand *how* he did 
it, but he knew he did it.  And when he blew up Aunt Marge, he knew 
what he had done.  Also, in each case of spontaneous magic, Harry 
*wanted* the spontaneous magic to happen, IIRC.  He wanted his hair 
to grow, he wanted the snake to visit Brazil, he wanted to get away 
from the boys who chased him, and he *desperately* wanted to get 
even with Marge. 

I doubt that Harry wanted the lights to dim.  So if Harry were 
dimming the lights himself, he'd know it, and he probably would stop 
himself from doing it.

Nah, I think the boggart is dimming the lights and that they really 
are dimming and being re-kindled, just like Harry reports.  

Cindy