A Detail About Boggarts That Bugs Us

In Wizarding World lore, a boggart is described as a shape-shifting creature that takes on the appearance of its observer’s worst fears. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like as it changes shape based on who encounters it. Boggarts prefer to live in confined places and make it evident by rattling, scratching, and shaking the object they are living in.

Professor Lupin teaches the class about boggarts

Boggarts first appear in Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, rattling in a wardrobe. In the DADA lesson, Professor Lupin taught Harry and his classmates how to defend against a boggart. The class commenced as Neville faced the boggart and it changed into his fear, Professor Snape. Lupin also educated his students to banish the boggart with the Riddikulus charm. Simply put, this charm would turn your fear into a figure of fun and laughter and a boggart is as strong as your fear. Once you start to laugh, the boggart disappears with your fear.

Neville’s boggart turns funny using Riddikulus

As Harry had been through a lot of sorrow and was vulnerable, he was affected and attacked by the dementors the most. Witnessing the situation, Lupin lent a helping hand to Harry to instruct him on how to defend himself against the dementors. During the boggart lesson, Harry’s boggart took the shape of a dementor, and due to this, Lupin used a boggart as a substitute to help Harry learn the Patronus charm. Harry practiced and even succeeded in producing the patronus and the boggart (appearing as a dementor) was repelled by it.

Now on to the one peculiar thing about boggarts that always perplexes us:

Why would a boggart react to any other charm than Riddikulus? And if it does, do we need Riddikulus?

Harry practices the Patronus charm on a boggart

A boggart is a boggart, not a dementor, its counter charm should always be Riddikulus and not Expecto Patronum. It should make the boggart even more powerful if we try to use any other charm. For instance, if you fear darkness, the boggart is blackness and dense darkness. You can just take out your wand and say Lumos, and that’s it! You wouldn’t even have to make something funny out of it. Yours is a snake? Use Vera Verto and turn it into a water goblet!

It seems ridiculous that if anything can work on a boggart, why is Riddikulus even there?

Likewise, The book It by Stephen King features a monster named Pennywise, who also feasts on the fear of its victims. No matter how much one attacks on the fears, it proves to be futile. The only way to fight ‘it’ is to be courageous. This should be the case with boggarts as well, in our opinion.

What Did Google Tell Us?

Google has all the answers, so we also typed the question into the search bar and gave it a go. The Internet seems to be divided as well. Some do not even think that it requires an answer. We read that a boggart takes the shape of fear, it also takes on its weakness. A dementor’s weakness is a patronus charm so the boggart is also affected by it. Though this answer makes sense, we’re am still on the edge of why to even use Riddikulus at all.

So next time you face a boggart and it turns into a mummy, take out your wand and say Incendio.