[HPforGrownups] Re: What about Lupin?

[The Fox]

No: HPFGUIDX 55551

From: "Kathryn Cawte" <kcawte at blueyonder.co.uk>

>The Fox wrote
>
>>
>>>>1) The sneakoscope goes off on the train when the trio enter Lupin's 
>>>>compartment.
>>>
>
>>><a_rude_mechanical at y...> wrote:
>>>That was for Scabbers
>>
>
>Now me -
>
>Firstly I hope I've attributed the right comments to the right people but 
>I'm not sure.

Not quite, but that's okay.  :-)

>I don't have my books to hand right now but I can't think of any reason why 
>it would go off at that specific moment rather than going off continuously 
>if it referred to Scabbers.
>
>I think it's some kind of double bluff - at first we assume it's for Lupin 
>because he's the new element (but we're not sure because it's been going 
>off before - as we know now probably for Scabbers) then we discover 
>Scabbers is Peter and we assume it must refer to Scabbers. However it could 
>well be that it was actually going off for Lupin - I think it probably was 
>in this case. This way we're still not a hundred percent certain about who 
>is on harry's side and who isn't.

We don't know, come to that, that it hasn't been going off more or less 
whenever Scabbers is around.  It lit up at dinner the night Ron bought it, 
and Bill said it was rubbish, but he didn't realize that Fred and George had 
put beetles in his soup -- and none of them realized that Scabbers was no 
ordinary rat.  It went haywire when Ron was tying it to Errol's leg to send 
to Harry, because Ron wasn't supposed to be using Errol -- and Scabbers was 
no ordinary rat.  It hushed up while Harry was by himself with it, but it 
was in his trunk, so when Harry and Ron (and Scabbers) were back together 
again, it started whistling; it's entirely possible that it's been going off 
all morning, and they only hear it when they get to the compartment where 
Lupin is asleep, at which point they hush up and speak in whispers.

>But, and this is the important point, it doesn't mean Lupin is 'Ever So 
>Evil'. The Sneakoscope (as far as I remember) reacts to deception - it 
>would be as likely to react to a prank by the Twins as to Fake!Moody (for 
>example). It wouldn't mean the Twins were evil - just that they wee 
>perpetrating a deception of some kind. So it reacts to Lupin, so what? We 
>all know he's perpetrating a deception - he's hiding his lycanthropy.

It reacts to untrustworthiness, so you're more or less right.  Lupin is 
lying, there's no doubt about that -- but does that make him untrustworthy 
in general?  That's the real question, isn't it.  Most of the parents who'd 
object to his being there (which objection prompts his resignation once 
Snape outs him, and isn't *that* a big allegorical neon sign) would do so 
for the simple fact that he's a werewolf; but I bet there are others, and I 
might actually number Snape among these, who are less concerned that he's a 
werewolf than they are that he *lied* about it, or at least didn't tell the 
truth, so they didn't have the chance to take appropriate precautions.  Cf. 
Greg Louganis hitting his head on the diving board.

>Could he be evil though? Probably.

He *could* be, but there's nothing but circumstantial evidence (and weak 
evidence at that) to support that conclusion.

Fox

...........
Matthew 7:1
Luke 6:37
...
"You want to tempt
the wrath of the whatever
from high atop the thing?"
-- West Wing
...
Come on, Nature
Just because I don't feel weak
Don't mean I feel so strong.
-- the Proclaimers
..............................

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