Hogwarts Express and the Magic Compartment

[heathernmoore]

No: HPFGUIDX 31526

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Chip Olson <ceo at s...> wrote:
> Quoth Whirdy at a...:
> > IIRC train terminals in the UK are terminals; trains cannot continue beyond 
> > them (as happens in some American terminal to a train yard) so the engine is 
> > in the front.  In PoA, Mr. Weasley and Harry looked up to see the Hogwarts 
> > Express (the engine) after falling through the barrier.
> 
> > How and when did Lupin get into the compartment?  Did he apparate or was he 
> > under an invisibility cloak that he removed before falling asleep or did they 
> > just fail to notice him sitting in the corner when they were storing their 
> > trunks?
> 
> It sounds to me, on looking over that passage, like they went looking
> for an empty compartment and the only one they found was the one
> they'd previously stashed their luggage in, except that Lupin had come
> in and dozed off while they were out on the platform saying goodbye to
> Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.
> 
> What I want to know is why Lupin's briefcase has "Professor
> R.J. Lupin" stenciled on it in peeling gold letters, when he
> (presumably) wasn't a professor until he got the Hogwarts gig
> (remember he'd been unabe to find paid work before then).
> 


 Lupin is so good with the students that I suspect he worked for a time as either a private or a community tutor in whatever passes for primary education on the Wizarding Community. If this was within the past five or six years or so, it would be feasible that most of the students at Hogwarts are too old to have been his students in the past. Otherwise, he might have taught in a poorer community of the type who cannot get their kids into Hogwarts.