Coming around to ESE!Lupin

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 73111

It's taken months of listening to Pippin's theories about it, but 
I've finally come around.

Here's what got me. I re-read PoA and paid special attention to the 
Shrieking Shack scene.

I remain continually flabbergasted that Lupin FORGOT to take his 
potion. I mean, doesn't this guy have the lunar calendar just burned 
into his brain? Wouldn't he be knocking on Snape's door to get this 
potion?

The parallel has been made to someone with AIDS. Lupin, who sends 
gaydars spinning, has been ostracized because of his condition and 
parents fear him being around their children.

But let's continue that parallel. Can you imagine an AIDS patient 
FORGETTING TO TAKE the cocktail of drugs that helps them?

With the potion, he's a tame puppy. Without it, he's a flesh-eating 
beast. The potion is the thing that's given him a job, a place of 
some acceptance, something he can feel useful at. AND HE FORGETS TO 
TAKE IT!!!!!

OK, say the shock of seeing Pettigrew on the map made him forget it 
for the moment, and the potion IS a recent discovery, which means he 
might not be totally used to taking it.

In the Shrieking Shack scenes, Lupin BRINGS UP THE POTION. "The 
potion Prof. Snape has been making for me is a recent discovery."

Wouldn't it click THEN that he hadn't taken it?

And then Snape comes in and says, YOU FORGOT TO TAKE IT! and it 
still doesn't occur to him that he needs to take it?

I don't totally exonerate Snape here, either. Why didn't he bring 
the potion with him when he went to the Shrieking Shack? If his goal 
was, as has been alleged, to save the kids from Sirius Black and his 
werewolf ally, why not bring the thing that would make the werewolf 
harmless??

Even if his goal was  to capture Black and Lupin and saving the kids 
was just something he had to do while he was there, it makes no 
sense that he would forget the potion. I mean, making the werewolf 
harmless would have made it a LOT easier to capture Black and Lupin 
and then make it back to the castle with them in tow.

The only excuse I can think of is that the Potion must be drunk 
within so long after it is made, or it becomes useless. "You should 
drink that straightaway," is a clue to that. 

At the very least, I think he's reckless as hell.

Darrin
- See? I can be convinced. :)