Time Turners and Lupin's apparent premature ageing

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 156858

"sallyaltass" wrote:
>
> Sorry to re-open an old thread, but reading through some of them
> last night, I noticed a belief that continual use of the time-
> turners could possibly prematurely age a wizard, in regard to the
> seemingly unchronological way DD's hair turns from auburn to silver
> within the space of 15 years.
> 
> Reading OotP last night, one line in particular jumped out at me.
> Ch24, "...said Harry heavily, looking into Lupin's prematurely lined
> face".  JKR does make constant references towards Lupins aged
> appearence, from when we first meet him on the Hogwarts Express in
> POA Ch5.  "Though he seemed quite young, his light-brown hair was
> flecked with grey".
> 
> This does seem to be a continued thread whenever Lupin's physical
> appearance is described.  He always seems to be ageing, in what
> could seem to be a somewhat clever way of describing what a hard
> life Lupin is living with being a werewolf.  Afterall, people do
> associate 'going grey' early with a particulary hard or stressful
> situation.
> 
> However, IMO, this doesn't explain why JKR metions Lupin's premature
> ageing in every single visual physical description she gives of
> him.  We do know that Lupin is suffering hardship, and it doesn't
> need to be stressed that he's looking even older every time Harry
> looks at him.  This leads to the possibility that she is hinting at
> something deeper rooted.  JKR is, afterall, renowned for placing
> titbits that a reader may not always initially pick up on (I didn't
> make the connection with Sirius Black transforming into a big black
> dog for several reads...).  Ageing during time travel is a fairly
> old theory, and isn't always necessarily obvious upon first glance.
> 
> The only problem with the theory that Lupin has been time travelling
> is why?  <snip>

Carol responds:
The idea of time travel causing aging is not canonical; it's fan
speculation.

IMO, Lupin's premature aging *does* relate to his being a werewolf.
Until PoA, his transformations were painful, with the only relief
coming from being able to run with his Animagi friends for about ten
months a year at some point in IIRC their fourth or fifth year. When
they first see him on the train, he is clearly just recovering from a
rough night as a werewolf. At Hogwarts, he not only has good meals to
recover his health, he has the Wolfsbane Potion that Snape makes for
him and he can't make for himself. (Evidently it isn't available from
wizarding apothecaries or St. Mungo's, either, or the werewolf problem
would be solved.) So each time Harry sees Lupin after PoA (in OoP,
"The Advance Guard," it's been just over a year since Lupin left
Hogwarts), the ravages of being a werewolf are more clearly visible.
In HBP, he's undercover as a spy on the werewolves, which also,
surely, takes its toll on his mental and emotional health, and he's
probably grieving for Sirius and trying to deal with Tonks.

I'd say that his premature aging is easily explainable and that we
don't need a time turner to explain it, even if time-turner-induced
aging were canonical.

Carol, hoping that Redeemed!Snape will provide Lupin with Wolfsbane
Potion again