a Lupin Rant

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 173646

Sarah wrote:
> I don't think JKR intended to portray DH Lupin as a coward.  Since
HBP (and maybe even earlier) I've seen him as very brave about "Big
and Important" things like battles, but a coward about everyday things
like forming lasting relationships.  And even there, he was able to
get over it in the end and was apparently a happy father.  Since the
first book JKR has established that there are different kinds of
braveries within the "Gryffindor" banner.
> 
> And it's a side point, but I really don't think we're supposed to
trust Snape's assessment of the Prank as grounded in objective
reality.  He clearly has a grudge.
> 
> Sarah
>
Carol responds:
Possibly, JKR wanted to leave the so-called Prank unresolved so that
we could arrive at our own interpretation. In the absence of canon to
the contrary, I choose Snape's version. Also, of course, the memories
that Snape gives Harry as he dies are not about Lupin or the
Marauders. They are about Snape, so that Harry, whom Snape believes is
being sent to his death by Dumbledore, will finally understand him.
Snape may dislike Lupin, but he saves his life, even though the thanks
he gets is that Lupin thinks DE Snape deliberately cursed George's ear
off.

As for Lupin, he has always been weak from the time he was Hogwarts'
most ineffectual prefect to the time he hid Sirius Black's Animagus
form and knowledge of the secret passages from Dumbledore even though
he thought that Black was trying to murder Harry because he didn't
want Dumbledore to know that he and the Marauders had endangered the
citizens of Hogsmeade twenty years before. Snape, being observant and
intelligent, knows quite well why Tonks is pining in HBP and why her
Patronus has changed, and spiteful though his comment on Tonks'
Patronus certainly is, it reflects (IMO) a clear insight into Lupin.
True to form, Lupin wants to protect Tonks knowing that marrying him
will subject her to great danger, but succumbs to peer pressure,
quietly marries her, and brilliantly gets her pregnant (probably
yielding to her persuasion).

In DH, we see him depressed and suffering. He is presumably no longer
skulking among "his fellows" since DD is dead and there's no one to
spy for, and in any case, his cover is blown, but we've seen him
growing more lined, more grey, more tattered, old beyond his 37 years,
because he has no Snape to make him wolfsbane potion and no employment
other than the Order. Now his mistake of marrying Tonks before
Voldemort is defeated and of getting her pregnant brings him to his
lowest point, the wish to desert his wife and unborn child to
accompany HRH on their mission as their werewolf guardian. Harry
recognizes this offer as a death wish: Lupin wants to die like Sirius,
the last Marauder defending Harry to the death. He calls him a coward
and sends him home to Tonks to defend his wife (or rather, to stand
beside her since she's an Auror and can defend herself) for her sake
and that of their unborn child (whom he fears will be a werewolf like
himself).

We don't get to see him pull himself together, but we know that he
does. Lupin triumphs over his worst enemy, himself, by becoming a
proud and almost happy father (naming Harry godfather perhaps because
he rightly fears that Teddy will be orphaned) and by dying bravely,
fighting alongside the other Order members. Tonks, who loved him more
than he perhaps deserved, dies beside him. (Her House, JKR has
informed us, is not Gryffindor, the House of courage, but Hufflepuff,
the House of loyalty.)

Ever so weak Lupin serves the plot purpose of letting the reader think
he may be a traitor to the Order, but it's (IMO) completely in
character, the culmination of the self-doubt and self-hatred that have
always been his greatest weakness.  

Carol, agreeing that there are many kinds of courage in the HP books
and facing your inner demons is certainly one of them