Why Snape doesn't have to be human

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 107669

> Jim:
> 
> >The clues that Lupin was a werewolf were much larger.
> 
> 
> "K":
> 
> But were they? Has anyone ever gone back and made a list of 
all the  clues? 

Interesting question. Suppose JKR had decided to hold off 
revealing Lupin's condition for another few books--what kind of 
clues and counterclues might we have? Could they be refuted? 

Here is a list,  omitting any after-the-fact revelations such as 
Lupin's first name, correlation of Lupin's illness to the full moon 
and his identification of the boggart with the full moon...I have 
included in [ ] material from later books that does not directly 
identify Lupin as a werewolf.

Clues:
-Lupin means 'wolf' 
-Lupin has a recurring illness
-Lupin's boggart is round and silvery 
-Werewolves are mentioned in every book
-Snape assigned a werewolf essay out of order
-Lupin's taking that potion
-Snape knows something about Lupin's illness
-There has to be some reason why Lupin's so reticent about his 
past
-Hermione knows something about Lupin's illness
-[There are other disguised part-humans]



Counterclues and potential arguments:
-[Names aren't always significant *cough*Evans*cough*]

-Many illnesses recur.  JKR has said that Lupin represents 
people with disabilities. That would be undermined if he turned 
to be an undead with a purely imaginary condition. People would 
throw their books across the room. I prefer to think Lupin has 
(AIDS/MS/something of personal interest to the poster) There's 
no indication that the bouts of illness coincide with the full moon.

-Harry thinks the boggart is a crystal ball. Lupin flees from 
Trelawney. [Maybe it's a prophecy orb?]

-Snape was just trying to get even with the Gryffindors for 
laughting at boggart!Snape

-Lupin is absent *during the day.* Werewolves transform at 
night.

-If Lupin were a werewolf, torn and mangled bodies would be 
lying all over Hogwarts every full moon. There is nothing in 
folkore about potions to control lycanthropy

-[Lupin touched silver--that *proves* he's not a werewolf!]

-Lupin lost all his friends in the space of a few days and he has 
some kind of disease. That's  enough to deal with without being 
a werewolf. 

-Why do we need another part-human? Hogwarts is getting to be 
a zoo!

-If Hermione knew Lupin was a dangerous monster, she'd say.

-If Snape knew Lupin was a dangerous monster, he'd say.

-There's a werewolf registry. If Lupin were a werewolf, everyone 
would know.


Refutations:
-Names certainly are significant sometimes

-Using an imaginary illness makes Lupin's plight universal and 
easier to identify with

-JKR has shown she's not a purist, freely combining  invented 
elements with popular, traditional and literary source material. In 
some of those sources, werewolves can touch silver. Besides, 
she can always alter the mythology to suit herself. There's no 
canon that silver is fatal to werewolves, that they only transform 
at night, or that lycanthropy can't be controlled by a potion.

-Perhaps the highly integrated Hogwarts faculty is more 
representative of magical society  as a whole than the rarified 
echelons of the Ministry and the posh shopping districts would 
suggest. Do we really think it's only Muggles that wizards had to 
marry to keep from dying out? <veg>

-Hermione  tends to discount extralegal possibilities--in PoA it 
had never occured to her that there could be unregistered 
Animagi. [While she guessed that Rita Skeeter might be an 
outlaw Animagus in GoF, in OOP she didn't consider that outlaw 
Centaurs might attack her. ] She always keeps her own counsel 
on what to tell the boys.

-Snape keeps his own counsel too.

-Registries can be incomplete. Or the adults might know about 
Lupin and not be willing to share the information with the 
students.

There you have it--is there a compelling case that Lupin is a 
werewolf? Or would readers be justified in dismissing the 
hypothesis as arrant nonsense?  You decide! 

I think the biggest clue in PoA is the werewolf essay. Need I point 
out that there's a vampire essay too?

Pippin
who modestly asserts that she could never surpass H/H 
shippers when it comes to imaginative interpretations of JKR's 
words  *cough*very platonic friends*cough. ::hoists glass to Jim::