Revisiting The Boy when He Lived

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 105196

Amey wrote:
<snip>
If we can trust LV's account of that night, James was there and
defended his family heroically.

It is entirely possible that Lupin was reacting to the
news that Harry was able to access a memory from his 15th month of his
father's voice, or he was acknowledging the emotional impact that this
memory had on Harry.  On the other hand JKR could indeed be using
Lupin's exclaimation as a clue. <snip>

Carol:
My take on "You heard James?" has always been that Lupin was closer to
James than to Lupin (the PoA movie to the contrary) and was startled
into revealing that closeness by Harry's remark. Then he quickly shut
himself up again for fear of revealing too much--that he not only knew
but was close friends with the supposed murderer Sirius, that he was a
werewolf and they were animagi, that Sirius could get into the
Shrieking Shack and might well be hiding there, that Sirius knew
secret passages into the school. . . . Lupin has a lot of secrets (and
a lot of guilt and anxiety related to them). He has no choice but to
admit that he knew Sirius as well as James but brushes this off by
saying that he *thought* he knew him.

IMO, what's revealed here, for the reader as much as for Harry, is
that Lupin is somehow connected with Sirius and James and that Lupin
is hiding something. It's foreshadowing, preparing us for the
Marauder's Map and the Shrieking Shcack scenes. I don't see any need
to extend Lupin's reaction beyond that scene to posit his presence in
Godric's Hollow. Peter must have revealed the Godric's Hollow to
Sirius (who would have forgotten it because of the Fidelius Curse),
but apparently none of them at that point trusted Lupin enough to tell
him.

I think Lupin is to blame for not revealing what he knew about Sirius
Black, particularly after Black not only attacked the Fat Lady's
painting with a knife but slashed Ron's curtains with the same knife.
He thought his former friend was a murderer; those actions showed that
friend to be dangerous and reckless whether he was a murderer or not,
but Lupin remained silent? What was he thinking? I don't see any way
to excuse his negligence and irresponsibility in those cases,
especially when the Marauder's Map fell into his hands, giving him the
perfect opportunity to confess everything he knew. (The fact that
Black *wasn't* guilty is beside the point. Black clearly *was*
violent, unstable, and desperate. Neither does Lupin's desire to keep
Dumbledore's trust, which he was in fact betraying through concealment
of crucial evidence.) He was wrong, inexcusably wrong in my view, but
wrong is not the same as evil. For list members to assume, based
simply on his blurted "You heard James?" that he must have been
present at Godric's Hollow and must therefore be ESE! is just too big
a jump.

(I happen to think that Peter was there in rat form, hidden from view,
but I don't have any way to back that up and it's not relevant here,
anyway.)

Carol, still suffering from Mark Evansitis and for the moment
unwilling to push explainable evidence farther than it seems to merit