Lupin's secrets

[olivier.fouquet+harry at m4x.org]

No: HPFGUIDX 118561

  Pippin:
  It depends on whether you think you are reading a mystery. If so,
  and you accept the author's invitation to play detective, it then
  becomes your business to keep your wits about you and
  suspect everyone, especially innocent-seeming people who
  have secrets.

Olivier
I must confess I don't read HP novels as mysteries at all. I read them 
as psychological novel telling the story of a child growing up to be an 
adult. However, I admit it is reasonable to read them as mysteries and 
that my point of view is certainly not the standard one. I would still 
remark that they are very peculiar whodunnit in the sense that, for the 
most part, each book ends with its own mysteries solved. At the end of 
PS, we knew who was trying to steal the stone, at the end of CoS we 
knew who was behind the attacks, at the end of GoF all the questions 
are answered (and they were a bunch), at the end of OoP we know what 
Harry's visions mean, who sent the Dementors and why LV was after Harry 
in the first place. Considering this, I don't think it is too bold a 
leap of faith to assume that the solution proposed at the end of PoA 
(that is, Peter was the traitor) is the correct and definite one. Or 
maybe it is time to ask ourselves if it was really Lupin who was 
commanding the basilisk in CoS?

Pippin
Lupin's secrets are not all exposed at the end of PoA, nor is it
true that no additional ones are introduced in OOP. We do not
know:

  1)how he could have misjudged the time he would transform
  2) why his friends thought he was a spy
  3) the extent of his knowledge about dementors
  4) why he seems able to read Harry's mind, and to block
  Snape's attempts to read his own
  5) why his boggart is still referred to as a silvery orb in OOP if
  it is supposed to be the full moon
  6) where that case with Professor RJ Lupin on it came from
  7) what he was doing between the disaster at Godric's Hollow
  and PoA.
  8) what he is doing for the Order

Olivier
Those are very valid points: we don't know a lot about Remus. These are 
my beliefs on each of these questions.

1) I think this was a mandatory plot event. If JKR wanted to write a 
tightly close book, it was necessary that we get to see Lupin as a 
werewolf. I, for one, consider the Shrieking Shack scene as a very good 
and powerful one with its many bangs and its alternating pace (slowed 
and tensed). I like it better that way than in the more "realistic" 
guise where Lupin would have transformed sometimes during the 
explanations and thus before Sirius had had a chance to offer Harry a 
new home.

2) Wether you believe in ESE!Lupin or not, James made the wrong choice, 
didn't he? I admit it is strange he would trust Peter more than Lupin. 
Maybe he thought the werewolf condition had turned Lupin's head after 
all. If ESE!Lupin proves to be just a theory, I bet this is going to 
stay unexplained anyway.

3) He is a qualified teacher in DADA, I would see a mystery if he 
didn't know anything about them.

4) Point granted, Lupin seems to have Legilimens and Occlumens 
capability.

5) My knowledge of English is very incomplete, still a "silvery orb" 
sounds as a very familiar metaphor for the Moon. Are we to believe that 
John Keats verses in Endymion "But gentle Orb! there came a nearer 
bliss" is actually referring to a prophesy? (it could well be actually, 
the poem speaks about "orby power", "silvery shower" and "arch", I bet 
Keats had a vision of the MoM).

6) I always assumed Lupin did some teaching for a living before coming 
to Hogwarts.

7) Mourning his friends and doing some teaching despite anti-werewolf 
discrimination. He never contacted Harry, but no-one did before Harry 
was admitted to Hogwarts (or very discreetly). Not Dumbledore, not 
McGonagall, not Hagrid. That leaves a two year gap. There again, a 
balance was to be achieved: either Lupin had appeared in the first book 
(realistic but effectively ruining most of PoA intrigue) or PoA was a 
great book.

8) Harry doesn't know. He doesn't know what Dumbledore, McGonagall, 
Moody, and Tonks are doing either, and for a very good reason. In OoP, 
it is never hinted that Lupin has some special status in the Order, 
quite the contrary, he is often seen discussing with Moody and Tonks 
(and other members) about "Order business". The only character whom 
Harry questions the involvement is Snape.


Pippin
That is an awful lot of blank space for one character. Only Snape
has as much ambiguity and mystery about him, and nobody
considers *him* above suspicion, though many hope he will
prove to be.

Olivier
Whether you accept my answers or not, you must concede that, for some 
readers like myself, the mysteries you point out are rather 
non-mysterious. On the other hand, there is one big undeniable mystery 
about Snape: what made him changed sides? And there are dozens of 
smaller mysteries, each of which are harder to solve (in my very humble 
opinion) than any of those above. Examples would be why he stopped 
Harry from warning Dumbledore in GoF when Harry met Crouch Senior, what 
was he doing all the while between Harry's warning in OoP and 
Dumbledore rescue party (many hours of delay), what is he doing for the 
Order, why does Dumbledore trust him, why did he tolerate the end of 
Occlumency lessons while it was so crucial to the Order, why did he 
threaten to kill Sirius in PoA etc. etc. Many of the questions above 
can be answered quite easily (using plot arguments, plausible hidden 
motives or psychological reasons). If you  accept these answers for 
Snape (as I do), maybe it is not absurd to consider them for Lupin.
  .
Pippin
We agree that Lupin is an occlumens and a legilimens. How did
he learn and who taught him? It doesn't seem to be the kind of
thing you can learn from books. It also isn't some freakish ability
of werewolves, whatever Snape thinks: FBAWTFT says that a
werewolf has the mind of a sane and normal human, except
when transformed.

Olivier
Lupin is a knowledgeable wizard, I see no reason why he wouldn't have 
learned that specific branches of magic. Considering the fact that the 
Marauders managed to keep their transformations secret from Dumbledore 
himself, one can speculate that Lupin learned this in high-school, 
maybe while his friends were busy turning into Animagi (or maybe while 
they were busy hexing Snape and playing Quidditch).


Olivier, always happy to fence against Pippin






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]