Werewolf Mystery

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 153831

Lanval:
> Ah, yes, the schoolbooks. Will go see if I can find 'Fantastic 
> Beasts'..

Ceridwen:
Ours was on the bookshelf under the window.  *g*

Lanval:
> See, I think so, too. I'd prefer the life debt to be real (for 
> several reasons, one of course being that I don't want to believe 
> JKR would doom an entire plot arc by a mistake). Which is why HBP 
> confused me so. Besides, her 'new' werewolf interpretation adds so 
> many more problems.

Ceridwen:
I'm not so much into a rigid 'this *must* be this for that to be so 
sort of definition of most of what goes on in the books.  I think 
Fenrir Greyback was presented as an oddity among werewolves - he has 
his bloodlust all month instead of just at the full moon, and he has 
learned to use his disability to his twisted purpose - to punish 
people who go against him or otherwise anger him.  This is clearly 
stated as out of the ordinary.

When Hermione asks about biting, too, I think that she is trying to 
be delicate.  A lot of people try to shock, but some go the other 
direction.  By asking if he bit, she's also asking if he attacked 
anyone, turned someone into a werewolf *or* killed them.  She's 
talking to a friend, after all, not some stranger she's questioning.

I think the books imply that a werewolf might kill, or they 
might 'merely' leave their victims as other werewolves.  It can't be 
known which will happen.  Dying would be the more extreme case in the 
short run, but most people take the extreme in a hypothetical 
situation.  The potential end results of The Prank are hypothetical - 
it didn't run its course, James saved Snape.  But the upshot seems to 
be that Snape could have been killed.  Therefore, James saved his 
life.

The WW is right to be cautious of werewolves.  They have the highest 
rating for a reason - when they are in their transformed state, they 
are extremely dangerous and they tend to target humans.

Even likening werewolfism to a disease, it is a contageous disease.  
People who come into contact with a werewolf either die or become 
infected for life.  No parent wants their child to come down with a 
lifelong contageous disease, no one wants that for their spouse or 
friend or relation.

The WW takes it a bit too far by appearing to ignore the 26 days or 
so that the werewolf is not a werewolf.  And we have been shown that 
the 3 or so days that a werewolf is most dangerous can be dealt with.

But, this discussion seems to be more about whether Snape was saved 
from death or 'merely' from becoming a werewolf.  We don't know which 
Lupin would have done while under the extreme of his condition.  We 
do know that potentially, he could have killed Snape.  We know that 
wasn't a given, but it was the extreme case scenario and one of only 
two possible options if Snape had actually gotten into the Shack.  I 
do not think there was a third option, that of a clean escape - 
that's so improbable that I wouldn't even count it any more than DD 
does.  It's something for braggodocious kids to hypothesize about.

Ceridwen.