Talk:Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Books/Deathly Hallows/Chapter 32

Is Fenrir transformed?
In the wording in the book, it certainly seems that he is at one point, as he speeds across the Entrance Hall on all fours to attack Lavender Brown. Harry perceives him as a grey blur and thinks he's an animal. I have to argue that he is not transformed.


 * I can't believe that the Death Eaters would want an uncontrollable werewolf in their midst. A transformed Fenrir would not be attacking only defenders of Hogwarts, he would be attacking anyone near him, Death Eater or defender.
 * The only way out of this would be if he was using Wolfsbane potion. I don't think Fenrir would use Wolfsbane potion, not least because as far as we know only Snape and perhaps Slughorn have the ability to brew the stuff, and neither of them was available for the requisite week of preparation. Additionally, Wolfsbane, being an invention of Wizards, would be anathema to Fenrir, and I can't believe he would have the self-discipline to take it every day for the week before the battle even if he chose to.
 * It's unlikely Harry would be able to recognize him transformed, as he has only ever seen Fenrir's human shape, and when Hermione jinxes him, and he staggers back into the marble banister, Harry recognizes him immediately.
 * In "The Forest Again", two chapters along, Fenrir is skulking, chewing his long nails; if he was transformed, those would be claws.
 * It's certainly true that whenever we see Lupin, he is human, both before the battle and after his death. A full moon rises in June actually before the sun sets; they are diametrically opposite in the celestial sphere at that point, and with sun set at about 10PM and sunrise at about 6AM, it's obvious that we can see more than 180° of the plane of the ecliptic at that point, so we can see both sun and moon at the same time when the moon is full (180° away from the sun). Moonrise should be at about 6PM, and moonset at about 10AM, for a full moon in early June. So the full moon should have risen by the time Lupin arrived at Hogwarts, and therefore he should have transformed as well if the moon was going to be in the correct phase to transform either of them. It's possible that he had stayed in shadow since moonrise, but if it had been a cloudy night, so that he would not have transformed while defending the grounds, Fenrir would not have transformed either.

So I'm going to stick by my belief: Fenrir is acting like a wolf because he feels like it, not because he has transformed. Chazz (talk) 07:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It may very well be that Fenrir was under orders from Voldemort to use Wolfsbane during Voldemort's final push to take over the wizarding world precisely so there would not be an uncontrollable werewolf attacking his Death Eaters and other allies. It's never been stated that Snape and Slughorn are the only ones who can brew Wolfsbane potion. I recall a scene in an earlier book (Order of the Phoenix?) where Harry and company are at St. Mungo's (visiting Arthur Weasley, I think) and Harry overhears a healer telling a patient who was bitten by a werewolf that they can still live a normal life, and presumably this would involve taking Wolfsbane Potion. Surely there are any number of dark-minded wizards who could produce this for Fenrir.


 * It's unclear whether Harry recognizes Fenrir or not, and it doesn't say he immediately knows who he is when he smashes into the bannister. It is the book's narrative that identifies him, not Harry.


 * Canines (and it's not just domesticated ones) are often referred to as having "nails" as well as paws or claws. The text also says that Fenrir staggers to get back up on his "feet", but that phrasing can also apply to animals.


 * So I'm sticking to my belief that it is possible there's an inconsistency in the text and that Fenrir could have been transformed. That's not to say Lupin was or wasn't, just that it is not specified if he was. And he very well could have transformed back into human form after death. My point is not to quibble over endless unprovable details and theories, but that this is a slight, and probably unintentional, ambiguity by the author. PNW Raven 14:12, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I will point out that everywhere else that there is a character introduced that the point of view character does not recognize, the author is very careful to not name him or her until the point of view character hears him named. Specific cases: the four Death Eaters at the top of the tower in HBP are the Carrows, Fenrir, and Yaxley; but we don't know who any of them are until Dumbledore names them, and as Yaxley is never named, we don't know he was one of the four until DH when the Trio are in the Ministry and Yaxley demands that Ron make it stop raining in his office. Likewise, it is Thorfinn Rowle randomly cursing everything in sight under the tower, but it is Ron who named him in the cafe off Charing Cross Road in DH, and until then, we don't know his name either. Given the author's consistency, I have to believe that Fenrir would not have been recognized if he was transformed, and therefore I must assume he wasn't. Chazz (talk) 23:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * An anonymous editor, writing on Lavender Brown's page, added comments, which I edited into: "While it is true that that the given date for the battle of Hogwarts, May 2nd, 1998, according to the lunar calendar is not a full moon, we must discount this as evidence due to earlier lack of correlation between the Hogwarts lunar cycle and ours, as mentioned in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Finally, however, it is mentioned elsewhere that Lupin met his death while dueling with Dolohov, which would not be a description of what he was doing were he transformed." Key here is the dueling thing: werewolves don't duel, and even under the control of Wolfsbane Potion, would not be so described. Chazz (talk) 09:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

How did Voldy get out?
One editor added a very odd question: How did Voldemort get out of the Shrieking Shack, while Harry, Ron, and Hermione were in the tunnel?

We already know that Voldemort has had one of the windows uncovered, because we're told in the book that he is watching through the window towards Hogwarts. We also can assume that he doesn't know about the tunnel because it was created long after he was at the school. As it was Lupin who gave the shack its reputation, and Lupin was at the school a good thirty years after Voldemort had left, it is safe to assume that the Shrieking Shack holds no fears for Voldy, who likely saw that it was on a hilltop and could be used as a command post, so simply un-boarded and opened the door and walked in. And as he walked in, so can he walk out.

I have to admit that I felt this such a trivial question that if another editor had not removed it, I would have. Chazz (talk) 17:34, 16 June 2008 (UTC)