Lupin's Spying, WAS: Snape, Hagrid, and Sirius Black

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 148286

kchuplis:
> OK, my last post for the night as I have trespassed upon the elves 
> enough but just where was Lupin supposed to get money for a gift? And 
> was Sirius supposed to say "it's MINE MINE alone to Harry". If Sirius 
> and Lupin were a "thing", Sirius would have delved into the coffers 
and 
> bought poor Lupin some clothes. THAT would be more convincing to me 
> than the things everyone brings up. I would buy that one. Otherwise, 
I 
> guess I just have discovered that few people have close platonic 
> relationships in real life apparently. (And I point out that I have 
> numerous gay friends and am in no way shy about it. I just think 
folks 
> are doing an *awful* lot of wishful thinking here.)

Ceridwen:
I will jump in on this myself.  Don't people have close friends?  
Friends in a non-sexual context?  We just studied about this in 
Sociology, Alexander's relationship with Hepaistion.  Alexander 
referred to his friend as Philalexandros, Friend of Alexander.  An 
article at http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?paraID=42 ends with this:
"Greek philia included a level of friendship that was particularly 
intense, one which is sometimes difficult for us now to grasp. In our 
societies, friendship all too often exists on the boundaries of other 
relationships --- those with our family or lovers. For the Greeks, 
though, such was not the case, and perhaps they were richer for it. "

I've got a particularly close friend.  We've known each other since we 
were five.  Great stories of close friendships were often written in 
the past, with no further meaning than that the main characters were 
close friends.  Period.

Why does everything have to boil down to this one thing, when the 
emotional bonds of friendship can be so deep, deep enough to transcend 
the physical?  My own feeling is that we started swinging the other 
direction when we (okay, hippies, yippies and flower children) started 
rebelling against the closed-mouth attitude toward sex we saw in our 
parents.  Fine and good, but then it became everything is about sex 
instead of the other extreme.

As for Remus and Sirius, and James as well, these are people who shared 
common interests, a common dorm room, common classes.  They had similar 
outlooks on life though different personalities.  They lived in close 
quarters for ten months out of every year, for seven years.  They were 
probably as close as brothers.  Of course Sirius would take Remus in 
when he was destitute.  How could he do anything else and still live 
with himself?  Remus would most definitely be Philsirius.

Even if Sirius got Remus clothes, I wouldn't assume a gay 
relationship.  Until HBP, the books didn't seem to be about 'ships, 
other than the usual adolescent crushings, so there was no reason, 
other than exploring all types of relationships through the physical in 
fandom, to look beyond the obvious.  Giving clothes to the needy would 
be a charitable act if they didn't know each other.  It would be almost 
expected, I think, for such close friends.  Remus might react with some 
shame at needing such a gift, and Sirius might respect his feelings on 
this.  People do have pride.

An afterthought: Another thing they shared, which Remus was reluctant 
to divulge even to Dumbledore, was their monthly transfomations 
together.  This had to be extremely bonding between them.  To learn 
something that is difficult just to keep a friend company is showing 
true friendship.  And doing something the wrong side of the law 
together (becoming Animaguses but not registering) bound them in yet 
another way, through secrecy.  I expect that Lupin had a lot of issues 
about this - the potential danger to his friends, breaking the law, 
being the cause of their breaking the law, having this problem that his 
friends rose to comfort, just to name a possible few.

Which makes PP's defection even more shocking, IMO.  After all of this, 
after bonding in these ways, how could he deliberatly turn the Potters 
over to Voldemort?  But this leads to wondering why Remus would believe 
such a thing, even partially, about Sirius.  Though, evidence was 
there, down to eyewitnesses.

I do have to agree with Karen, that it's hard to imagine that people 
don't have such close friendships these days.  It's a shame, really.  
And the friendship between the Marauders, and between Harry, Ron and 
Hermione, are part of the reason I like the HP series so well:  Because 
it's such a nice thing to see!

Ceridwen.