[HPforGrownups] Re: Character Summary: Remus J. Lupin

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 11879

mohuebner0 at lycos.de wrote:

> I'll have to agree here. I don't have children myself, but if I did, I
> would want Lupin to teach them.

Well, to play Devil's Advocate, if you were a parent, and were in the
wizarding world, no matter how much you liked Lupin and were willing to
hang with him at parties and have him over for supper, you'd probably be
about as likely to accept him teaching your child as you'd be as a
Muggle to accept a teacher with rabies.

Rabies is a better parallel than AIDS. The fear of rabies, in most
people, strikes the primal level that fear of werewolves seems to strike
the wizarding world. For most of history, if you're bitten or scratched,
you're dead, very, very unpleasantly. The shots now prevent death--IF
you start them soon enough--but they are very painful. I was bitten by a
potentially rabid kitten as a child, and while the animal was not
infected, I almost had to get the first shot as a preventive; I'll never
forget the worry and fear in my parents' eyes. As a wizarding parent,
I'll allow that perhaps the existence of the potion might make
werewolves more integratable into society, but *not* teaching children!
I would not want my children subjected to even the minor risk of
exposure to such a disease.

Lycanthropy, in JKR's world, is an incurable, painful, dangerous,
socially stigmatizing, potentially life-threatening disease, certainly
life-potential-limiting thing. The potion that allows a werewolf mental
control during his wolf time is a new thing and thus not well-known,
plus it's hard to make/get, and otherwise the disease is ineradicable. I
like Lupin's character myself, he's one of my favorites, but I don't
think I'd be comfortable with him teaching my kids. I'd be forever
calling the school asking if he remembered his potion, asking what the
day's activities were and was contact required (can you get lycanthropy
from fluid transfer during the human phase?), etc.

Just an alternate view,

Amanda


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