Dates and Re: When do werewolves change?

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 53901

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jon" <jrpessin at m...> wrote:
> Mark D wrote:
> 
> > Personally, I don't buy the Harry Potter Lexicon's stand of 
> placing 
> > the books in the early 1990's. It places PofA in 94-95 which the 
> > climactic night of Harry meeting Sirius on June 6 1995. The 
> > great flaw with trying to tie a fictional book down to a 
> > physical date is that JUNE 6 1995 WAS NOT A FULL MOON!!!! 
> > According to the Phases of the moon table, the full moon for 
> >June 1995 was on the 26th starting  at 11:33 am GMT!
> > 
> > Does this make any sense to anyone else? Opinions?
> 
> Jon (Hobbit guy)replies
> 
> From what I've seen of public opinion on the inaccuracy of dates 
> in the Potterverse versus dates in the real world, I think the 
> best summary would be, "Ignore it, it's just a book."  <Snip>

Yup. The dates don't match. Further, whatever year you pick for the 
start of the books, the dates cannot all be made to match.

I don't have a problem with this. JKR is telling a story, and wasn't 
bothered (and probably never imagined anyone else would ever bother) 
about exact dates. If you want to *not* ignore it, then either a) 
dates in the WW do not correspond exactly to the Muggle calendar or 
b) the books as we have them were written by someone in the WW after 
the actual events. 

For example, perhaps the part of each book that's from Harry's pov 
is based on an account written by Harry (during his miserable summer 
holidays). It wouldn't be terribly surprising if he couldn't 
remember the precise dates. He doesn't seem to keep a diary; 
probably all he'd remember is that this event happened before that 
event and it might have been a Tuesday... was it June 6th? Or June 
16th? And so on.

Lupin changing to a werewolf at around 9:30 pm ish is also not 
really a problem. There is a very precise moment when the moon 
changes officially to 'full', and this time may well not coincide 
with the moonrise.

Another alternative is that Lupin had taken Wolfsbane potion the 
night before; while it couldn't protect him against being caught in 
full moonlight in the open, it was protecting him against the change 
while he was inside. Arguing against this is Lupin's description, 
which suggests that he still transforms, just keeps his human mind.

Pip