Boggarts & the Passage to Honeydukes

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 143122

Christine wrote:
>
> So if we all agree that a boggart can do magic to some extent, this
is my question: as the boggart is an animal in its purest form, and 
therefore in its purest form has limited intelligence, how will it be
able to perform any sort of magic requiring human knowledge, even if
it takes on the shape of a human?  So it can turn into a being with
the *power* to perform magic, but will it have the
intelligence/knowledge necessary to do so?
> 
> Christine


Carol responds:
I'm not sure where you get the idea that a Boggart is an animal. Can
you cite the passage you have in mind? (I checked "Fantastic Beasts"
just to be sure, and Boggarts aren't included.) Possibly you're
thinking of Lupin's DADA class (in which Harry learns about Boggarts)?
Granted, Lupin focuses mostly on Dark creatures, but his class also
includes sections on Vampires, which are classified as Beings rather
than Beasts, and Werewolves, which are Beasts only during the full
moon and are otherwise fully human (despite being labelled as
"half-breeds" by Umbridge). ("Beings," under the current definition,
are creatures with sufficient intelligence to understand the laws of
the magical community and help to shape them; presumably Boggarts
aren't included. But they don't seem to be Beasts, either, as they
don't eat or do anything except shift their shape in response to a
person's worst fears.)

At any rate, I think Boggarts are probably spirits of some sort,
rather than animals, neither Beasts nor Beings, rather like
Poltergeists, Dementors, and possibly Banshees (which presumably
exist, at least in the Irish WW, since Seamus's Boggart is a Banshee).
(I was going to include Ghouls, but oddly, they're classified as Beasts.)

If I'm right and a Boggart is a spirit rather than an animal, it
wouldn't need any form of intelligence, just the magical ability to
discern a specific fear and imitate the appearance and behavior of the
thing or person that the witch or wizard fears, including a specific
set of spoken words ("I'm sorry to inform you, Miss Granger, that you
have failed all your classes.") It's all, as someone else said, a
specific form of Legilimency. No thought or effort required. It does
what all Boggarts do simply by virtue of being a Boggart. It can't be
trained to do anything else, as an animal could. It has no self, no
real being, no essence. The apparent power of Harry's Boggart came,
IMO, from Harry himself, from his fear of Dementors rather than from
the Boggart itself.

Carol, hoping that this interpretation makes some degree of sense but
by no means committed to it