Boggart powers (WAS: NixTheBewitchingHour, etc.)

[katzefan]

No: HPFGUIDX 39586

From:  "ssk7882" <skelkins at a...> 

<*fairly large snip*>
>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.... 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."

<*small snip*>

>.... 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 don't know if it's *all* psychosomatic, but I do think a lot of it
is. 
Lupin, being older, would be less likely to react to the Boggart-
moon, but Harry, who has only just encountered the Dementors 
and has had some pretty horrible reactions to their presence, 
might be more likely to have the same reactions in the vicinity of 
the Boggart-Dementor. It would be interesting to have a third 
incident involving someone else - how would (for example) a 
young werewolf react to the Boggart-moon; alternately, how will 
Harry react in 20 or 30 years to a Boggart-Dementor?

Having said this, however, the point about the Basilisk is still a 
good one: if one student *had* called up a Boggart-Basilisk as 
his/her worst fear, it's quite likely that at least one kid *would* 
have been dead ... because that would be what that student 
expected to happen if the Basilisk glanced at him/her.

I do like the 'witching hour' theory; it does explain to some extent 
why Lupin doesn't seem to react as soon as the moon rises, but 
considerably later instead - and even then, not until the moon 
peeks out from behind the clouds. 
Hmmm ... so if the night is completely overcast, would he still 
transform? From PoA canon, it sounds like it. It might be a 
slower transformation - or somewhat later - than if the moon is 
actually shining on him, but sooner or later the Witching Hour 
(and the moon) will catch up with him.