Lupin's boggart (was Longbottoms/Lestranges/Bagman/Lockhart)

[quigonginger]

No: HPFGUIDX 120037


Kneasy wrote: 
 
> When the Dementor!Boggart terrorises Harry it has much  the same
> effect on him that a real Dementor does - panic, flashbacks etc.
> 
> If Lupin's Boggart really is the moon, why doesn't he show some
> reaction to it? He dismisses it 'almost lazily', yet he tells us 
that
> the transformations are very painful. A Moon!Boggart should
> induce the feelings of pain and panic that the real moon does,
> though it probably wouldn't have the power to cause a full
> transformation.
(snip)

Ginger:

Just a guess here, but maybe it is because the effects of the 
Dementors are psychological, whereas the moon's are physical (to a 
werewolf, anyway).

Harry felt the same way he would have in the presence of a dementor, 
but Lupin didn't have the same physical change as the moon would have 
had on him.  

It's like if you showed me a rubber snake, I'd jump on the nearest 
object (even if it was you) and scream my lungs out, whereas, if you 
fired a gun with blanks at me, it wouldn't kill me.  If I knew they 
were blanks, I wouldn't even flinch, except as a physical reaction to 
the noise.  The rubber snake would still leave me clawing at the 
ceiling tiles even if I knew it was rubber.

It could be that Lupin's calmness was a cover for a deep desire to 
howl, scratch his ear with his hind leg, and give himself a doggie 
bath. Cuz he can.

Ginger, who once heard a song explaining why dogs lick themselves as 
they do.  The answer being "cuz he can".  I'd go on, but we're in 
mixed company.