Nitwit? - Remus John Lupin

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 167961

> In:
> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167933
> 
> > wynnleaf
> > You left out the parts of his betraying Dumbledore's trust 
> on several long-term occasions, both as a student and an 
> employee.
> 
> Goddlefrood:
> 
> Ok, the teacher part, possibly, but as a student? You must mean 
> that he did not immediately tell Dumbledore about his three 
> only friends being Animagi by their fifth year.

Pippin:
I can't speak for Wynnleaf, but Lupin speaks for himself:

"Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack and roaming the
school grounds and the village by night."

"And there were near misses, many of them."

"I sometimes felt guilty about betraying Dumbledore's trust,
of course...he had admitted me to Hogwarts when no other
Headmaster would have done so, and he had no idea that
I was breaking the rules he had set down for my own and
others' safety." -PoA ch 18

In the following sentence Lupin goes on to speak about 
leading his friends to become Animagi, whatever that means.
But here he is talking about  rules that Dumbledore had
made specifically so that it would be safe for a werewolf
to attend Hogwarts.  Lupin doesn't enumerate them, but
surely he was bidden to remain in the Shrieking Shack
during his transformations and not try to escape it.

Lupin would not have had to rat out his friends-- he
only had to tell them that he didn't want them to  let him
out of  the Shrieking Shack any more. But, as he says
he always managed to forget his guilty feelings when it
came time to plan the next adventure.

It's that going into the village that stops me thinking
Dumbledore might've known all about it. I can't see where
it would be in Puppetmaster!Dumbledore's interest to allow 
that.

We also have canon that adult Lupin did not tell Dumbledore
about the Marauders Map, a tool that could have been
used to spot Sirius invading the grounds.



> Goddlefrood:
> 
> Well, thanks for the reiteration there ;). It would be quite 
> probable, despite the lack of canon support, that Peter was the 
> one stirring up suspicions between Sirius and James and Lupin. 
> Lupin was the only Marauder not to be involved in any way with 
> the Secret Keeper switch, and Sirius is very quick to proffer 
> apologies for his own suspicions.
> 
> Who would be left to muddy the waters, only Peter, as far as I'm 
> concerned, although an alternate viewpoint would be interesting 
> to see expounded on :)

Pippin:
I'm assuming Lupin, in a year of spying, couldn't help but 
cast suspicion on himself. There is some canon that he had
become estranged from the others. He did not attend Harry's
christening, there don't seem to be pictures of him with Harry's
parents, he is not sitting near the  other Marauders in Moody's
photograph and most of all, Sirius did not confront him with 
his suspicions and give him a chance to explain himself. 

I suspect Lupin, or those working with him, cast some suspicion
on Sirius before GH, but if Peter took the secret keeper job in all 
innocence as I believe, then he would naturally think that Sirius 
had set him up. I'd like to think his sobbing, "Lily and James, Sirius!
How could you?" was sincere. 

Fudge says that Sirius was tired of his double agent role and 
preparing to announce his support for Lord Voldemort openly. 
He doesn't say what this conclusion is based on.  It could be 
that there was some communication, ostensibly from Sirius, 
sent to the Daily Prophet and timed to 
coincide with the Godric's Hollow attack. That is speculative,
but seems to have more canon support than the idea that
Peter was sowing suspicion against Sirius before GH. If he was, 
would Sirius and James have wanted him to be the Secret Keeper?

Goodlefrood:
> 
> Of course the other difficulty I have with Lupin as evil, or 
> inadvertently bad at least, is that I see little value in it for 
> the progress of the series. There will be quite enough problems 
> for Harry to face without one more he was not expecting. This is 
> why Remus is vastly different from Snape. If Snape turns out to 
> be helping Harry, as I think he may (but have said more than 
> enough on this in a prior thread for several lifetimes ;)), then 
> that would be a bonus. If any other character turns out to be a 
> hindrance, apart from Severus, who may also prove one, we would 
> have to have an extremely good explanation as to why.

Pippin:
As Sydney and others have pointed out, if Snape is evil then his
story has peaked too soon, and if he's good, the story has villain
trouble. Voldemort's psychopathic inability to love makes him
more monster than villain. It's Voldemort's followers, says Fudge, 
that make him really dangerous. JKR said, speaking of Snape,
that he was more culpable because he had known love. That can
apply to any of Voldemort's followers who aren't psychopaths.

In a way, they, not Voldemort, are the villains of the story.
But  Harry still thinks that only cruel and malicious
people would follow Voldie, and IMO he needs to be shaken out 
of that.

Lupin is not cruel and malicious himself, but we have seen him
be  party to the cruelty and malice of others, in the pensieve scene and
in arranging for Snape to be publicly humiliated in PoA. And that
was under the protections of Hogwarts and the remote but nonetheless
potent supervision of Dumbledore. What he's like away from those 
constraints, who can say?
 
Pippin