Lupin's resentment : An inside to Snape's resentment

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 94557

Alla wrote:
> Yes, dear Dolores put anti-werevolves law into action. but for Lupin 
> finding a job was never easy, I'd imagine, so being fired from 
> Hogwarts must have hurt a lot.
> 
> I was just saying that whatever humiliation (well-deserved, IMO) 
> Snape suffered after being dressed up in Lupin's lesson, he paid 
> Lupin back ten times and more.

Lupin is not actually fired from Hogwarts. He realizes that Snape is
right and that the parents who won't want a werewolf teaching their
children are right as well:

"This time tomorrow, the owls will start arriving from parents. . . .
They will not want a werewolf teachingi their children, Harry. And
after last night, I see their point. I could have bitten any of you. .
. . *That must not happen again*" (PoA 425).

So, yes, Snape's revelation prompted Lupin's resignation, and perhaps
part of his motivation was spite, but he had tried for the entire
school year to get Dumbledore to realize the danger of hiring a
werewolf (the same one who nearly bit him when he was sixteen) as a
teacher. The only reason that the danger had not been still greater
was that Snape had prepared the wolfbane potion. Near the end of PoA
we see what happens when Lupin fails to drink it.

I think and hope that Lupin came to this realization on his own and
that he was already prepared to resign even if Snape hadn't let his
students know what he thought they had a right to know. (Note that he
maintained his silence until Lupin failed to take the Potion and
actually turned into a werewolf.)

There's more involved here than spite or prejudice against people who
are "different." Werewolves are extremely dangerous, and Lupin finally
realizes that the students' safety is more important than his having a
steady job. (In any case, neither Dumbledore nor Sirius is going to
let him starve.)

It was *right* for Lupin to leave, whether or not Snape "outed" him.
The question is not baseless discrimination but his own awareness of
what is right.

Carol