Some counter-thoughts on ESE!Lupin in HBP

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 147448

Amontillada wrote:
<snip> Yes, a transformed werewolf can be capable of attacking people
whom his/her human self would never hurt! Lupin takes Wolfsbane Potion
in order to avoid that very danger. <snip>
> 
> In any case, as we've learned in PoA, it's quite common for other
wizards to assume that ALL werewolves are dangerous, even though there
> is now a potion that helps to control this peril. <snip>
>
Carol responds:
Not that I believe in ESE!Lupin, but from what I understand, Wolfsbane
Potion is not readily available. Lupin states in PoA that it's a
tricky potion that only a few wizards can make, which is why he relies
on Snape to make it for him rather than attempting to make it himself.
(He also states that he was never good at Potions; Snape, we know, is
a genius at making them.)

As I stated in another post or two, Lupin's hair is greyer and his
face more lined each time Harry sees him (most notably at the
beginning of OoP and again near the beginning of HBP). He is clearly
suffering (IMO) from the ravages of transforming without the Wolfsbane
Potion, which Snape is no longer under DD's orders to provide since
Lupin is no longer at Hogwarts, and which Lupin, by his own
confession, is unable to make for himself. That Snape is not still
making the potion is evident from Lupin's statement that Snape "made
the potion, and made it perfectly" (note the past tense verbs), for
which Lupin will be eternally grateful, or something to that effect.

The question for me now is, how is Lupin controlling himself, i.e.,
preventing himself from attacking people when he transforms,
throughout Books 4 through 6? And, as I mentioned in another post, how
did he manage to do so between his years at Hogwarts, when he
transformed in the Shrieking Shack and roamed Hosmeade with his
Animagus friends, and his appointment as DADA teacher at Hogwarts,
some sixteen years later, the one period during which the Wolfsbane
Potion was available to him? More important, what is he doing about it
 in HBP when he's fraternizing with the werewolves and has no access
to the Wolfsbane Potion because Snape is no longer making it?

Re Tonks:
We first see her behaving very differently from her goofy, pink-haired
personality in OoP, when she metamorphs into a steely, grey-haired
woman who threatens to curse Stan Shunpike into oblivion if he
mentions Harry's name again. Stan later calls her "that bossy woman."
(IIRC, this incident occurs in the "Occlumency" chapter.) So Tonks in
Auror mode is rather a different person from Tonks socializing with
her friends in 12 GP. And despite her depression in HBP, she shifts
back into Auror mode when she rescues Harry from the mess he's brought
on himself by recklessly spying on Draco in the Slytherin fifth-year
carriage.

So while I don't think that the Tonks/Lupin subplot is particularly
well-handled, I don't think there's any unsolved mystery attached to
it. (To be frank, I think the subplot is just a set-up to show that
Patronuses can change and perhaps a variation on the theme of
obsessive love having detrimental effects, also demonstrated through
Merope and earlier through Barty Jr.'s mother's love for her son.)

Carol, wondering if Lupin's need for the Wolfsbane Potion will lead to
some sort of reconciliation with Snape, who IMO is *the* unsolved
mystery in the series