Ancient Magic / Remus / a little Arthur / a lot of Snape8caiceiOld

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 37204

Grey Wolf wrote:

>  _ancient_ magic implies that it was used a long time ago 
> (druids, anyone?)

I've always had the impression that the 'ancient magic' is very much 
older than Druids. In LOTR terms, it would go back to the Second Age. 
Without LOTR terms, all I can say is "older than Atlantis", or "older 
than Australopithecus". 

Lila HP wrote:

> Where was Remus during the time that Harry was with the Dursleys? 
> Why did he never attempt to contact him, or if he did, why did 
> Dumbledore not allow him to do so?

Maybe Remus owled the Dursleys a few times, explaining who he was 
and asking to come visit little Harry, and the Dursleys tore up the 
letters and Remus, not realising that the Dursleys hated him for 
being magic, assumed that the Dursleys hated him for being a 
werewolf, so he sighed and moved his attention to problems of daily 
survival, like trying to find a job. Maybe Dumbledore had nothing to 
do with it (except he probably helped try to find Remus a job).

> why didn't he tell Harry right up front who he was? Like, "I was in
> a very tight group of friends at Hogwarts, which included your 
> father. Unfortunately, I'm the only one still around here. I'm so 
> sorry he's dead, come here and I'll tell you all about him and 
> your mom." 

Maybe Remus is so accustomed to being rejected by people who find out 
that he's a werewolf that he has become very reluctant to push 
himself on anyone (resulting in behavior that resembles being shy). 

Still, I don't know why he didn't mention it when he said "You heard 
James's voice?" That would have been a good time for him to add: "I 
knew your father when we were in school together. He was the 
greatest." Maybe he's afraid that if he mentioned knowing James, 
Harry would ask questions leading to finding out about Remus's 
lycanthropy.

> kept them apart, even after Harry's first and second years at 
> Hogwarts, why? 

Maybe Remus was working outside the country at that time (as in the 
fanfic CALL OF THE WILD by Wolfie Twins). 

Mercia Meglet wrote:

> However most of the other times when Lupin's lycanthropy is 
> described it is certainly implied if not stated directly that he
> is dangerous throughout the period of the full moon and even after
> the discovery of the potion transforms into a wolf for the period 
> whether or not he is bathed in moonlight. I presume when he is 
> curled up a 'harmless wolf' in his office during PoA he isn't doing
> so always in the light of the moon. Even if there are no curtains
> or shutters on the castle windows, believe me there are many cloudy
> nights in the Scottish climate when the moon, whether full or not, 
> is well hidden. So is JKR being inconsistent here or am I missing 
> something about the nature of werwolves? Any thoughts?

That is a much debated question. On the Lexicon's "mysteries and 
puzzles page", it is listed as "Why did Lupin transform into a 
werewolf only when the full moon came out from behind the clouds? 
Don't werewolves automatically change shape at the full moon, whether 
or not there are clouds? (snip) (JKR's partial answer: "The moon 
wasn't up when he entered the Shrieking Shack." (Sch2)) 
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon/index.html

I am sure that the werewolf transforms into wolf form even when 
hidden from the light of the moon. I have always imagined that the 
transformation began at sunset or moonrise and stopped again at 
sunrise or moonset, and wondered whether it happens one, two, or 
three nights in a row, but there are indications that once 
transformed, the werewolf might stay transformed even in daylight 
until the wolf-time is over. 

Such as, Lupin missed class on Friday (Snape taught instead) during 
the daytime. But on Monday, "Professor Lupin was back at work. It 
certainly looked as though he had been ill." That implies that he was 
transformed during the day Friday. There's no clue if he remained 
transformed for 24, 48, or 72 hours.

JKR's answer indicates that werewolf transformation occurs at 
moonrise. The description in the book doesn't mention how high above 
the horizon the moon was when the clouds moved away from it; it MIGHT 
have just risen and been low on the horizon. But I am under the 
impression that the time of that event did not agree with the time of 
moonrise of Full Moon in June in Scotland. So people have come up 
with theories that the transformation occurs at the moment identified 
by astronomers as the instant of Full Moon, which they compute down 
to the second, and can be at any time of day or night because it is 
the same for the whole earth.

Personally, I prefer the theory that Lupin didn't transform until 
touched by moonlight because Snape had been experimenting with an 
improvement to Wolfsbane Potion, trying to make it prevent the 
physical transformation as well as the mental transformation, and had 
succeeded in preventing the physical transformation until the extra 
stimulus of being touched by the moonlight... 

> And if Arthur was indeed an auror it raises the question of what
> he was thinking bringing his young son to work, 

It's not a problem on a purely paperwork day spent safely at 
Headquarters.

Btw I think Bill and Charlie might have been in the SAME YEAR at 
Hogwarts, without being twins. It would work if Bill was the month 
right after the deadline for turning 11 to start Hogwarts (in 
September, if entering students are required to have turned 11 before 
or on September 1st) and Charlie was born 11 months later (the next 
August if Bill was born in September) (the same way my domestic 
partner Tim was born in August and his next brother Jim was born the 
next July). Then Bill would not have had to go off to school all 
alone with no one he knew, and it would make sense that they divided 
ambition between them, Bill concentrating on academics and becoming 
Head Boy (and on being popular and having friends and playing 
practical jokes, etc) and Charlie concentrating on sport and becoming 
Quidditch Captain and winning the Quidditch Cup. 

Eloise wrote:

> PLEASE will someone explain to me about Dementors and hydrophobia?

Porphyria already said that Cindy Sphynx mentioned this theory in 
post #33862. She seems to have introduced the idea that Dementors 
dissolve in water in post #31131 and the idea that Snape is 
half-Dementor in #28010. She signed off #30242 with "Cindy (ready to 
believe that Snape is half-dementor, which would explain quite a 
lot)" to which Pippin replied by signing off #30304 with "Pippin, not 
wanting to think about how one engenders a half-Dementor." 

Apparently the 'evidence' that Snape is half-Dementor is that both 
glide around in black robes and both drain all the happiness out of 
Harry and Neville. The 'evidence' that Dementors dissolved in water 
is Snape's greasey hair...

Porphyria also wrote:

> even though it runs counter to my Snape-is-sort-of-symbolically-
> depressed argument. (snip) Snape is not an insomniac. He does not
> *make a habit* of prowling the school late at night,

I don't know whether Snape makes a habit of prowling the school late 
at night, but supposing that he does sleep soundly at night, that 
doesn't prove that he doesn't have insommnia: there are sleeping 
potions, even Draught of the Living Death. 

Judy Serenity wrote:

> Frankly, I've been mystified by all the times  Snape has been
> described on this list "as prowling around after dark." (snip)
> Judy [is] defending Snape as usual

What's wrong with prowling around after dark? It is not an accusation 
that Snape must be defended from!

ProfSnapeFan wrote:

> I always figured that he got sucked in by Lucius and his other
> slytherin pals and then realized how wrong it was, 

I think so, too (altho' in my universe, Lucius was just enough older 
that Severus didn't meet him until after Severus had left school and 
started advanced study of Potions). 

But other people suggest that he quite knowingly joined the Death 
Eaters on purpose, perhaps in a rage against Dumbledore for his 
favoritism of Gryffindors, in hope of acquiring enough power and 
wealth to be a chick magnet, because *they* *appreciated* him, 
because they provided opportunities for him to study things he was 
intellectually interested in (such as curses), or because he quite 
truly *enjoyed* Death Eater activities such as torturing people. If 
it was the latter, I don't understand how he could have come to know 
that it was wrong.

To me, the only reasons for him to leave Voldemort's side when it 
appeared to be winning, and to spy against it at risk of being quite 
unpleasantly tortured to death if caught, would be either because he 
came to realise that it was wrong, or if he felt that he had been 
unforgiveably insulted by them, requiring him to revenge himself on 
them. I haven't been able to wrap my mind around the latter notion 
in any detail.