Throwaway comment in POA

[Hollydaze]

No: HPFGUIDX 33509

meglet2/Mercia wrote:
<SNIP>
> When Lupin on his return from dealing with 
> the dementor addresses Harry by name, JKR comments something 
> like, 'Harry didn't ask how Lupin knew his name.' I find that a 
> strange comment. Why should Harry be even remotely surprised about
> anyone in the wizarding world knowing his name. After all for two 
> years he has had to cope with all sorts of people staring at him 
> and recognising him from his scar. He has been told more less from 
> the start that he's famous in this world. 
<SNIP>
> In my experience of JKR such little things can be significant. 

I always felt that this comment was to show that Harry *wasn't* surprised that Lupin knew who he was. Book four is the book where Harry has to start dealing with his fame more obviously than he has done before. So, reading this comment in hindsight, I saw this as a lead in to book 4 and Harry learning to deal with his fame (and Ron's jealousy of it). 
    However I also saw it (again in hindsight) as foreshadowing of that fact that Lupin knew James. If Harry had asked Lupin then and there why he knew his (Harry's) name, he might have discovered that Lupin was a friend of his fathers a lot earlier than he actually does (first Boggart lesson). But because he thinks Lupin knows him from his scar and fame he doesn't bother to ask. 

> My take is that Lupin was planted 
> on the train by Dumbledore to protect Harry, not, as someone 
> suggested, from the Dementors, but from Sirius Black. 
<SNIP>
> I am sure he would have been well briefed by Dumbledore and knew 
> exactly who Harry, Ron and Hermione were and that they were 
> usually to be found together. I suspect that he was very far from 
> asleep on any part of their journey (the triple emphasis on his 
> comatose state is very suspicious don't you think? - this is 
> Rowling after all) and that if any other students apart from our 
> trio had looked into his compartment at the beginning they would 
> have found a wide awake teacher, quite enough to discourage anyone 
> else from joining the compartment until HRH arrived.

I always thought the reason Lupin was on the train was that as a new teacher (and a quite recent student in respect to other teachers/bar Snape) he was using the train to get their for the first time, as it is the only way he knew. Snape is the same age, yes, but he has also worked their longer and probably knows of other ways to get to the school, although your explanation does seem to make a bit more sense. 
There is one problem I see in this, how would he know that HRH were even going to go looking for carriage if they didn't enter his in the first place (which they didn't). They entered in a carriage further up the train and then went looking for a quieter carriage, how would he know they were going to do this and so wait in that carriage?

HOLLYDAZE!!!


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