Evil Lupin/Superfluous Scene

[elfundeb at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 40141

This is late once again, and perhaps not even Pippin cares anymore, but it 
was written and awaiting new computer hardware (don't ever pour coffee on 
your keyboard!) before I could post it.  It covers four things (not in this 
order):  (a) why I think the cauldronful of Wolfsbane was not superfluous but 
not an indicator of theft (spelled out in far too much detail, I'm afraid), 
(b) forgetfulness and secret-keeping, (c) who or what besides Lupin might 
have set the Dementors on Sirius, and (d) a recent addition, the 
non-superfluous scene.

Pippin asked:

 why JKR told us there was extra 
 wolfsbane potion around  if it isn't important. 
  
"I made an entire cauldronful," Snape continued. "If you need 
more." Ch. 8 PoA.<<

I offered:
>> One thing Snape's comment tells me is that Snape is in 
control of the potion;  he keeps it and doles it out to Lupin as 
needed.  Lupin doesn't keep his own  supply; he has to get it 
from Snape on a dose-by-dose basis.  I think this is 
important to set up Snape's bringing the potion to Lupin's office 
on June 6.<<<

Pippin responded:

That could have been established without telling us that there 
was extra potion available. [snip]

We are dealing with a work of art 
here. [snip] Every sentence serves a purpose, 
whether it's to entertain, inform, persuade or confuse.

Now it could be that it's just a character note: "Snape is the kind 
of fellow who would make  a huge batch of a difficult potion just 
because he can."  Or maybe not. It's an odd place for an 
amusing character note, because we're supposed to see 
Snape's  behavior in this scene as ominous, but it's a very good 
place for a clue. 

Yes, it was a clue (nothing is superfluous), but I don't believe it was put 
there to signal there was extra potion lying around on June 6 for Lupin to 
steal, because I don't think there was extra potion in June, certainly not 
from the cauldronful that Snape brewed in October.  As you say, it doesn't 
make sense to assume that it's there just as a character reminder that Snape 
makes cauldrons full of potion to show off.

JKR doesn't establish by any other means that Snape has a supply of the 
potion for Lupin and that Snape must deliver it or Lupin must come by to get 
what he needs.  She tells us that Snape is keeping this potion in his office, 
so he knows exactly how much potion Lupin has taken.  The cauldronful 
accomplishes this.

Snape must also mention the cauldronful is because the conversation between 
him and Lupin is all misdirection. The mention of the full cauldron is the 
only part of the conversation that implies that Lupin needed more than a dose 
or two a week in advance to keep him safe. Without that remark, the 
inconsistency of the conversation in Lupin's office and Snape's arrival in 
his office on June 6 because Lupin had forgotten to take his potion that 
night (as opposed to a week before) would look like a FLINT, at least to 
LOONs like me.  
 
That's because on June 6 Lupin becomes a vicious werewolf because he fails to 
take his potion the evening of the full moon.  Snape tells Lupin that he 
forgot to take the potion "tonight."  But Halloween, when Harry saw Snape 
deliver the potion, is six days before the full moon.  (Halloween takes place 
on the weekend (I seem to recall it was Saturday, but can't find anything 
confirming this), but it's not till the following Friday that the full moon 
occurs (it was the day before the first Quidditch match, which was the 
following Saturday, and Harry was late because Wood kept him in the hallway 
with last-minute strategies).  It's only because (a) there's a cauldronful of 
potion on Halloween, six days before the full moon, and (b) Lupin says in the 
Shack that he takes the potion in the week before the full moon, that the two 
scenes match.

What purpose did the misleading statements in Lupin's office serve?  My take 
on it is that Lupin and Snape were both deliberately dissembling in front of 
Harry, presumably because if the students became aware of Lupin's condition,  
their parents would demand his resignation (and Dumbledore has no other 
candidates for the DADA job).  Snape brings in the potion, sees Harry and 
realizes he has to be circumspect.  Lupin, who wants as little attention paid 
to the potion as possible in Harry's presence, affects a smile, thanks Snape, 
and asks him to leave it on the desk.  Then he changes the topic and begins 
talking about the grindylow.  But Snape forces the potion issue, saying, "You 
should drink that directly, Lupin."  Lupin again tries to brush him off.  
"Yes, yes, I will."

But he's thinking, I don't want to discuss this potion.  Not with Harry 
there.  Snape picks up on this and decides to drop some more hints.  "I made 
an entire cauldronful."  Snape deliberately pauses here, for emphasis.  "If 
you need more."  Of course, Snape knows full well that Lupin needs more, but 
he can't say it directly.  Lupin's response seems to be a deliberate attempt 
not to admit that he does need to take this potion regularly.   "I should 
*probably*  take some again tomorrow.  Thanks very much, Severus."
This phrasing rather neatly sets up Lupin's evasive reply to Harry's later 
question, that he's "been feeling a bit off-color" as though he had the flu, 
and only might need more medicine, which is a significant bit of misdirection 
for us readers.  But Snape is really annoyed by Lupin's dismissiveness about 
the potion, and though is response ("Not at all.") is polite, he gives Lupin 
a look to signal his annoyance.  I think it's after this little exchange that 
he devises his plan to substitute for Lupin during the full moon and give the 
class a little werewolf lesson, it being conveniently part of the third-year 
DADA curriculum.  

I think some of our differences here go to whether JKR puts all of her 
*clues* in the text to support the Whodunit aspect of the story or whether it 
goes to character development. In the case of the cauldronful of Wolfsbane 
potion, I think it does both, and without in any way indicating that there 
was extra potion around for Lupin to steal.  It's Snape's way of dealing with 
Lupin's evasiveness in a situation where he's prohibited from saying what he 
really wants to say.

Dicentra and the superfluous scene:

The scene is in the middle of "Grim Defeat," right after Snape
substitutes for Lupin and right before the Hufflepuff/Gryffindor
Quidditch match where Harry sees the Grim and the Dementors 
knock himoff his broom (page 173, Scholastic edition).

Harry wakes up before dawn, thinking that the howling wind of 
thestorm awoke him. But no, Peeves was floating above him, 
"blowing hardin his ear."  He asks Peeves what the sam hill he 
was doing that for, but Peeves just cackles and blows himself 
out of the room. <<

Pippin correctly responds:

This is  Crookshanks'  first Sirius-directed effort to nab 
Pettigrew. We don't know that on first reading, though Rowling 
helpfully offers us a hint: "mangy cur!"  It also establishes that 
Peeves has access to password-protected Gryffindor tower. The 
ghosts and such don't usually invade the students' bedrooms. 
We get the impression from Myrtle that they're not really 
supposed to. Did Peeves break the rules at Crookshanks' 
instigation to distract Harry and get him to open the door ?  We 
know he was willing to break a cabinet for NHN. It could be 
significant some time in the future that Poltergeists can get into 
otherwise inacessible places.

His restlessness also paves the way for his first defeat at Quidditch.  
Though the immediate cause of defeat was the appearance of the Dementors, the 
omens of defeat are already there.  Harry is presented as weakened and unable 
to resist in any way shape or form, through cold, wet, and exhaustion from 
lack of sleep.  In addition, it very nicely parallels the night before the 
next Quidditch match, when he again sees Crookshanks prowling on the grounds 
and thinks it's the Grim; and the night before the last Quidditch match, when 
Harry again can't sleep and sees Crookshanks through the window, but with 
dog-Sirius this time.  The scene establishes a new pattern of Harry's 
restlessness before Quidditch matches.

Why do the Dementors go after Sirius?  Pippin suggests:

As soon as Peter gets away, and not before, Lupin disengages 
from Sirius and flees into the forest. Then, I assume, he 
summons the Dementors. He doesn't need to be in human form 
to do this since the Dementors can sense his human mind. 
Everyone is so interested in the question of how 
the Dementors were driven away that no one asks  how they 
were summoned in the first place. But they can be called: Snape 
says that he will do it in the Shack.

I'm still confused because I thought the original proposal was that Lupin was 
prepared to kill the lot of them, except Harry, but this makes it sound as 
though the only plan is to get the Dementors to get Sirius.  There's no 
evidence that he went back to get Snape which he could have done, without 
being observed by the others, after the Dementors retreat, because the others 
were knocked out (he is, of course, not aware of HH2 observing). I can't 
figure out (a) what Lupin's scheme was for June 6, (b) why he thought it 
would work, (c) why he went ahead with it with HRH around, and (d) why he 
would have wanted Snape to follow him if his objective was to deal with 
Sirius.

But more than that, I have an alternate suggestion.  PoA states that Lupin 
gallops into the forest. According to the Lexicon map of the Hogwarts 
grounds, the Forbidden Forest is away from the entrance, which makes sense 
since there's no reason why there would be any entrances to Hogwarts in the 
forest. The Dementors arrive very quickly (Harry and Hermione have only 
enough time to check quickly on Ron), and it doesn't seem that Lupin would 
have time to run into the forest and then circle back to the entrances to 
round up the Dementors.  

But we aren't told where Pettigrew goes, only that he was scurrying through 
the grass and that he leaves before Lupin does.  Pettigrew might not have 
gone directly to the forest.  And Sirius appears not to go to the forest 
after Lupin, but "pounded away across the grounds."  Pettigrew might have 
rounded up the Dementors himself. He would have had every incentive to get 
rid of Sirius immediately, since his evidence could convict Pettigrew.  Lupin 
and the children also knew, but the evidence of children and a werewolf would 
count for less.

Or (and forgive me for being boring) Pettigrew may simply have been running 
to the entrance to escape, with Sirius following.  If Lupin was safely in the 
forest, Sirius would have wanted to go after Pettigrew, because he was the 
key to exonerating him.   And as for why Sirius had turned back into a man, 
he would have needed to in order to capture Pettigrew.  Maybe he was yelping 
because Pettigrew the rat was biting him  in an attempt to escape (it says 
that the sound was that of a dog in pain, and remember that Scabbers once bit 
Goyle?  Haven't people been wondering what the purpose of that was?), and 
maybe he didn't notice the approach of the Dementors because he was in dog 
form.  But when he turned back into a man it was too late; the Dementors were 
too close.

Just a thought.  After all, long ago you asked to be talked out of this!

Pippin on Lupin's forgetfulness:

IMO, Rowling doesn't really establish that Lupin gets confused or 
forgetful under stress,   not compared to Neville.  Or Voldemort.  
(maybe *Voldemort's* been memory charmed?) Aside from the    
absent-minded Professor stereotype, all we have is Snape's 
comment about Lupin's lack of organization, and Lupin's 
statement that he's not much of a potion maker. That's clever. It 
inclines us to think that Lupin must be forgetful like Neville, 
without really showing us that he is.   But Lupin doesn't  seem so 
disorganized to me. His lessons are so well worked out. And 
then he remembers to pick  up the Cloak.  

I actually don't think Lupin is forgetful at all.  Why would he forget?  It 
would reveal his secret.  I think he was sitting in his office waiting for 
Snape to come with the potion, as he knew Snape would.  He had the map out 
looking to see what HRH were up to, but he was also keeping an eye out for 
Snape's arrival.  He didn't forget until he saw Pettigrew on the map.  That 
was an extraordinary event that seems to have made several people forget a 
lot of things.  Lupin forgot he still had another dose to take, and seems to 
think he had enough time even with the storytelling; Snape forgot to bring 
that gobletful to the Shrieking Shack, and then he hangs around listening to 
the conversation in his invisibility cloak.  And Snape certainly cannot 
generally be described as forgetful, far less so than Lupin.  Snape forgets 
nothing.

There are parallels between Lupin and Neville, IMO, but the parallels go to 
the fact that both are secret-keepers. In fact, I think the issue of 
secret-keeping is one that looms large in the books generally, and only 
partly because secret-keeping furthers the mystery aspect of the plots.  At 
least as interesting to me is the unrevealed secret behind each character and 
why they act as they do.  

Nearly everybody is keeping some kind of secret or other.  There are secrets 
like who was the Secret-Keeper, which Sirius kept from everyone, including 
Dumbledore, with devastating consequences; there are secrets about who one 
is, like Lupin's lycanthropy; or one's legacy, like Neville's; about one's 
background such as Hagrid's giant mother; or the still unknown secrets 
Dumbledore is keeping from Harry.  Secrets, their revelation, how they are 
revealed (Dumbledore trickling out only that information he knows Harry needs 
or can handle vs. Snape making revelations for their shock value) and the 
characters' handling of the issues they raise is a theme that looms ever 
larger with each successive book.  We've already seen how Lupin deals with 
having his secrets revealed.  He averts his eyes and runs back to his cave.  
We know what problems this trait has caused.  But characters who don't keep 
secrets can also be a problem.  How many times to Harry or Hermione have to 
shut up Ron because he is not careful about what he says?  Openness is not 
always a positive trait when there's a war going on.


Debbie, who has never read Agatha Christie but would be pleased to have 
Pippin recommend a good one for a first-time reader



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]