COS:Lupin (was: OOP:Lupin)

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 65576

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Cohen, Meg" <MCohen at u...> 
wrote:

> But in CoS, Gilderoy describes how he uses something called the 
> Homorphus Charm to turn a werewolf back into a man and "deliver
> them [the village] from the monthly terror of werewolf attacks".  
(snip)
> So, why doesn't someone do this Homorphus Charm on Lupin so he can
> stopbeing a werewolf already?  

This has long been debated. My first theory was that the Homorphus 
Charm has *terrible* side effects that no decent person would wish on 
poor dear Remus ... terrible side effects such as massive brain 
damage leaving him next thing to a vegetable, for example. Lockhart 
wouldn't care enough about the consequences to a mere *werewolf* to 
have mentioned that part in his story.

But after a while, I was converted to the theory that the Homorphus 
Charm only transforms the werewolf back into human form for a short 
time, such as 30 seconds. In a small village, that is long enough for 
the neighbors to recognize the person. So then they know which 
person they have to deal with. In an ideal world, they would deal 
with him by tying him up and locking him in before nightfall on 
Full Moon nights, but I think it more likely that they crept up on 
him when he was asleep in human form at New Moon and killed him.