/ESE!lupin questions (long)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 146196

Christina:

The only way that I can think of for Harry's view of Bella and Lupin
to be partially obstructed is if Lupin and Bella both had their backs
to Harry, with Lupin standing behind Bellatrix, so that the top of her
body and a sliver of her side was all Harry could see. I'll grant you
the plausibility of that scenario, but then Harry's view of Sirius
would also have been blocked, and we know that he could see Sirius
quite well.

Pippin:
Bella could be standing sideways to Sirius, a sensible posture for a 
duelist, since it presents a smaller target to the enemy. Sirius
faces her full on, drawing her fire, not because he's goaded to
recklessness as Harry thinks but because if she pivots, she'll have
a clear shot at Harry, who is grappling with Neville up on
the steps and unable to defend himself. 

Lupin  could be facing the dais  with his back to Harry. 

 Harry wouldn't be able to see Bella's wand arm. He couldn't see 
what Lupin was doing.  A jet of light traveling upward might
pass below Bella's angled shoulder or beneath her billowing sleeve 
while hidden from Harry by Lupin's body. 

It works fine if Harry is higher up the steps than I thought
originally (and you deserve a LOON badge* for working that out),
because then he is looking over the top of Lupin's head to  see
Sirius.  As for the panting breath, Harry's been running and
fighting for quite a while, regardless of whether he
jumped down one step or several.



Christina:

Harry misinterprets what he sees loads of
times, but I've found that his errors tend to be of the interpretive
sort, not the factual sort.

Pippin:

Um, there's the time he thought he'd heard Slughorn was 
going to teach DADA. And the time he said he hadn't thought of  
Voldemort before he thought of the dementors in Lupin's class. 

And the time, in the same book, that he put his stuff in a 
compartment, got off the train to say farewell to the Weasleys, 
got back on and it didn't register that he'd already chosen a 
compartment (so it's no great mystery how Lupin found him.)

Also  it didn't register that the full moon had
already risen the night that Lupin transformed. 

I would have no problem believing that it didn't register that
he hadn't actually seen the spell leave Bella's wand.



> Pippin:
> I don't think Dumbledore discussed the prophecy with Sirius at all.
> Dumbledore says that the blame lies with him and him alone that 
> Harry did not know that Voldemort might try to lure him to the DoM.

Christina:

Which also makes sense without ESE!Lupin, considering the fact that
Dumbledore is the one regulating the amount of information that Harry
gets.

Pippin:
James might have discussed the prophecy with Lupin and Sirius.
But did James and Lily know the prophecy was stored at the DoM?
I don't see a 'need to know' there. Their names and the Longbottoms'
are not on the label, so they wouldn't have been able to retrieve it.
Apparently the people that the prophecies are about aren't automatically
informed about them -- that seems to be up to the person to whom
the prophecy was made (and any eavesdroppers). I don't know what
the Ministry does with those thousands of prophecies -- but it's
canon that only a few people  know about them.

Voldemort couldn't find *anyone* to tell him what was beyond the
door to the Department of Mysteries until he'd sprung Rookwood
from Azkaban. Actually, if I were studying prophecies, I'd
probably be very interested in the ones that the subjects
never knew of, because I'd want to know if they came true
of themselves. Perhaps they can be handled safely once
the subjects are dead.


 Arthur says he has no idea what Bode gets up to -- so the existence 
of the Hall itself is secret. What Dumbledore meant by 'we' was 
probably Our Side, referring to himself and his contacts within the 
DoM, but they are probably the last people he would want 
to know that Voldemort was now after that prophecy. As he tells Harry, 
very few people can resist the kind of temptation Voldemort can offer.


The Order is guarding the outer door to the Department of Mysteries,
so there's no need for them to know what Voldemort is after inside.
They might be told nothing  except that there's a weapon at the 
Ministry he's trying to steal. That might be the 'official' version of 
the information Snape brought back from Voldemort's camp, ie, what
Voldemort wanted his double agent to tell Dumbledore. 

Voldemort knows Dumbledore will beef up security around the prophecy,
and he has plans to subvert the guard (that's what happened to Podmore.)

Before starting their tale about the 'weapon' Lupin and Sirius 
exchange a fleeting glance, which suggests that they know something 
the others don't. Eventually, it's Lupin who brings the conversation 
to a close:

"There are dangers involved of which you can have no idea,
any of you...I think Molly's right, Sirius. We've said enough."
(Lupin, OOP ch. 5) 

The 'any of you' makes it sound like he is the source of at least
some of Sirius's information. I know the immediate context is 
whether Fred and George are old enough to join the Order, 
but JKR is masterful at manipulating the context to change 
the meaning. 

The canon that no one else in the Order knows that they are guarding
a prophecy is Dumbledore's insistence that he is the only one
who could have warned Harry that Voldemort would try to lure him
to the Department of Mysteries. If the Order knew that Voldemort
was trying to steal a prophecy about Harry, then any of them
could have warned him, despite Dumbledore's wishes. They
would certainly have started treating him differently, as they do
in HBP, if they  already suspected he was the Chosen One.


Christina:

They were considered evidence for ESE!Sirius, but those suspicions
turned out to be wrong. And yes, we should absolutely accept Peter's
confession. He wasn't killed straight-out (thanks to Lupin, btw, who
encouraged exploring the facts before taking action); Peter was asked
to defend himself, to answer Lupin's questions. Hermione, who has
always been a supporter of fairness and truth, interjects her own
questions. Sirius asks Peter plainly, about being a spy, "Do you deny
it?" Peter could have said yes and continued to argue, but he didn't.
Instead, he made excuses for his behavior. And we now know that
Peter can and has gone to Voldemort of his own volition simply to
protect himself.

Pippin:
To protect himself from his old friend, ESE!Lupin, who would
otherwise kill him. <g> If Peter could be bullied into betraying
his friends, why is it far-fetched to think he was bullied
into confessing? 

"DON'T LIE!" bellowed Black."YOU'D BEEN PASSING INFORMATION
TO HIM FOR A YEAR BEFORE LILY AND JAMES DIED! YOU WERE HIS
SPY!"

 As Peter might say himself, what was the good
of refusing him? If Peter is not the spy, then one of the other
two is. But Lupin clearly won't support him against Sirius
whom he embraced immediately, before questioning Peter at all, 
and accusing Lupin would only enrage Sirius further, since Sirius
is in no mood to believe anything Peter has to say.

JKR makes it clear at once that Lupin and Sirius were wrong to want
revenge. What isn't  clear in PoA but crystallizes later  is that 
they are  denying everything the Order stands for to get it. 
It's understandable in Sirius's case, because he's shown to be
unstable. But the whole point of Lupin is that when he's not
transformed, he's as sane as can be. 

And if he does want revenge on Pettigrew, what sort of revenge 
would he want on the Ministry of Magic, who are forcing his kind 
into stealing and killing to live?


Christina:

And HRH don't have to voice prejudices about werewolves for them 
to exist. It is only by knowing Lupin that the Weasley's have struck 
down their prejudices about werewolves. Ron reacts in violent fear 
in the Shack when he first hears that Lupin is a werewolf.

Pippin:
I don't think I see your point.  What matters, in my scenario,
is not how the Trio came to realize that werewolves should 
not be outcasts, but whether the Trio's faith that  werewolves are not 
more untrustworthy than humans could survive a betrayal
by the werewolf they trusted most. IMO, ESE!Lupin hasn't
done anything that an uncontaminated human with the same 
character faults wouldn't have done in his shoes. The fight
against prejudice should not depend on whether one werewolf is
good or bad.


For the reader, the message is one that anyone  who is 
serious about defending minority rights has to face. 
Sometimes those who once were  the best and brightest  
bring disgrace on themselves  and manage to fulfill the 
most derogatory stereotypes about their people while doing it. 

Lupin's disgrace might mean there's no fairy tale ending for
werewolves. But Fenrir has turned a lot of people against them
and  Umbridge has turned a lot of werewolves against the wizards.  It
would be unrealistic to show all that bitterness and enmity going
away overnight even if Lupin was another Gandhi. I want to see Hermione
persist in her efforts to help the WW's outcasts gain their
freedom, but I don't see that JKR has to make it easy for her or
that there needs to be any more than a better hope of progress at the
end of the book. 


> Pippin:
> I agree Peter may not be quite as incompetent as everyone thinks. 
> But that doesn't turn him into Superspy! Peter, who could fool a 
> great leglilmens like Dumbledore for at least a year. There's not a
> hint anywhere that Peter is good at occlumency. 

Christina:

Well first of all, *somebody* fooled Dumbledore for at least a year,
something that has always kind of surprised me because, really, how
difficult is it to flush out a spy among a small group of people? Put
the Potters in a safe house, tell Sirius, Peter, and Lupin different
locations for them, and see which location gets attacked. Simple!

Also, do we have any reason to believe that Lupin is any good at
Occlumency? 

Pippin:
Yup. That "odd, closed expression" JKR gives him in ch. 14 of PoA.
There's also Snape's comment that he can't be asked to fathom
the way a werewolf's mind works. Lupin is perhaps too skilled 
a legilimens to be caught in the way you suggest. He would know
when he was being lied to. There's plenty of canon that he
seems to be reading people's minds. 


> Pippin:
> He either forgot completely that he was due to transform, or he 
> deliberately arranged things so that Peter would have a chance to 
> escape. The real spy couldn't afford to let Peter be questioned by 
> Dumbledore, could he? 

Christina:

- Lupin saw that somebody that he thought had been dead was 
actually alive, which has major implications for the happenings 
of what is arguably the most important event in Lupin's life. 
Everything he thought he knew up to
that point -- wrong! I think it'd be enough to send any normally
rational person running for the door.

Pippin:
It seems to be forgotten that he discussed his history 
for some time before he transformed. He may
have been in a panicked state when he first saw Pettigrew, on
the map, but how could he be  so rattled that even as he calmly 
discussed the fine points of being a werewolf and the use of the 
potion, he didn't remember  that he was due to transform and 
hadn't taken it. It's too big of a leap for me.

> Pippin:
> 
> The other DE's might not know him as a werewolf. Voldemort wouldn't
> care. He'd probably think it was a fine joke if his pureblood 
> servants were made to take orders from someone they'd detest even 
> more than a halfblood, if they only knew.

Christina:

Also, Lupin has been publicly outed as a werewolf. Even if the DE's
hadn't known about his werewolf status way back when, they certainly
know about it now, considering it was a scandal at the school that
their children attend. I can't see them accepting him into their
inner circle enough so that, for example, Bellatrix would so calmly
and smoothly take credit for Sirius's death (the triumphant scream). 
I'd imagine she's be more likely to say, "Huh?"

Pippin:
The Inner Circle don't all know each other, and despite being
not much of a potion maker,  Lupin is apparently
able to disguise himself well enough that the werewolves he spies
on don't know he's associated with Harry Potter. Perhaps he's good
at human transfiguration.  Bella could know Remus as an underling
or rival of Fenrir's, one who couldn't possibly threaten her, without 
realizing that he's a member of the Inner Circle too.

Umbridge's attitude has people confused, but we can see clearly 
enough from the scene on the tower that the werewolves and the 
DE's are *allies* and of course they work together.

sherry now:

For even deeper emotional reasons, because of the resonance with
which the marauders story touched my heart, I want there to be one marauder
still standing at the end. Standing and happy at last, standing for James
and lily and Sirius. Harry needs that, i think. he doesn't need anymore
betrayals. One last connection to his parents and Sirius, in the end, when
he's all done being a hero who needs to go it alone. 

Pippin:
I'm afraid Harry hasn't got as romantic a view of the Marauders as you do...
it seems the more he finds out about what they were like, the less he
wants to know. But there are lots of people who knew James, Lily  and 
Sirius in the days of the Order! Moody, Podmore, Hagrid, and Aberforth 
at least. I'm sure what J and L did  for the Order was a lot more thrilling 
than schoolyard pranks, anyway.

> Jen: I think JKR said the series is not primarily a mystery, though.
> That's how I read her comment from the TLC/MN interview:
>
> JKR: There's a theory - this applies to detective novels, and then
> Harry, which is not really a detective novel, but it feels like one
> sometimes – that you should not have romantic intrigue in a
> detective book.
>
> Jen: JKR is saying there are elements of a detective story, but it's
> not the primary genre and therefore I don't think the series needs
> to have the denouement of an unknown spy at the end. Plus JKR
> elaborated on the genre she is working primarily from:
>
> JKR: Yeah, well, I think if you take a step back, in the genre of
> writing that I'm working in, almost always the hero must go on
> alone. That's the way it is, we all know that, so the question is
> when and how, isn't it, if you know anything about the construction
> of that kind of plot.
>
> Jen: She does mix genres, but the claim of a primary genre would be
> the best guide to the ending.

Pippin:

Maybe I should have said the resolution of the mystery subplot is integral
rather than essential to the resolution of the storyline as a whole.
I agree the books aren't primarily detective stories. Harry is usually
focussed on something other than solving a crime, and he
usually *doesn't* solve it. But it may be a mark of his adulthood,
that he finally twigs to the culprit himself, as JKR says, doing it alone,
instead having the villain  catch him unawares. Suspecting that
Draco or Snape was up to something hardly qualifies.

JKR continues to talk about clues and red herrings, and to drop
hints that things aren't as they seem. It's my guess that the last
three books form a single mystery -- the murder of Sirius Black--
and this will have to be solved. She has told us that there was
a reason Sirius had to die, and I assume this means that there
was both a plot reason and a thematic reason.


Pippin
*LOON  badge - the mark of membership in the League of 
Overly Obsessed NitpickersChristina: