Lupin in the Shrieking Shack was Re: On the perfection of moral virtues.

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 169053

> Mike:
> I've addressed the plural "prisoners". As to dealing only with Lupin 
> (the only one Snape is following), by what authority does Snape get 
> to decide that Lupin is an outlaw? 

Pippin:
I'll turn your question around. By what authority  did Lupin decide
that Sirius was *not* an outlaw? Snape arrived at the Shack and found
Lupin relating some personal history while Sirius sat unbound and
Ron lay seriously injured. Given that Sirius and Lupin are old friends,
how could it not look fishy? If Lupin meant well, wouldn't he
have sent a patronus to Dumbledore for help, and wouldn't 
Dumbledore have arrived already? 

Oh, but, Lupin explains, he doesn't want Dumbledore to know
what a bad, bad boy he's been.  If that meant Sirius Black remained
at large, and a danger to Harry, hey, it was all for a good cause, 
namely keeping Dumbledore's faith in Remus J Lupin. Uh oh. Snape 
already knows, or thinks he knows, to what lengths Lupin will go
to keep his secrets. That he's telling so many of them to three
children does not bode well. 

The fact that the kids still had their wands would mean nothing, since 
Lupin only had to say "Expelliarmus!" to take them away -- his own
wand isn't even stowed in his robes, it's stuck in his belt. And 
Lupin is also capable of wandless magic, as Snape may know.

>From Snape's point of view, Lupin must  either be trying to  enlist the
childrens' help in some scheme, or attempting to keep them unaware
of their danger until he transforms and can deal with them as a
werewolf. Under the circumstances, binding and gagging Lupin so
that he can't do wandless or nonverbal magic seems very sensible.

Threatening to turn him over to dementors was wrong -- but
it's funny how many people think that Dumbledore should have 
sacrificed presumed Death Eater Draco with far less evidence.


Mike:
> And if Snape has plenty of time to subdue Lupin before he transforms, 
> why doesn't he have plenty of time to bring him his potion? Once 
> again, he has no knowledge of anyone else. Whatever else he may think 
> is going on, why not at least bring the potion?

Pippin:
The potion has to be drunk "directly" according to Snape in chapter
8. Presumably it keeps as long as it's in the cauldron, but would 
have spoiled by the time Snape got out to the Shack with the goblet.

Mike:
> And if his best option is to subdue Lupin before he transforms, why 
> does he hide under the cloak and listen to Lupin rehash their 
> schoolboy days for what seems like forever (to me)?

Pippin:
If JKR was not being misleading when she said that Lupin didn't
transform on the way to the shack because the moon wasn't up,
and if she wasn't mistaken when she wrote that Harry and Hermione
saw the moon going in and out while they were waiting for their
former selves to emerge from the Shrieking Shack, then the 
riddle is solved. Lupin transforms when the moon has risen --
to what elevation I don't know but Snape doubtless would. The
only way the story makes sense is if the movement of the
clouds is sheer coincidence. 


A better question is why Lupin felt he had to sit around and
rehash his old school days, with Ron seriously injured and
in pain, a dangerous outlaw in custody, and the marauders
map open and activated on his desk, on a night when he
would soon be transforming into a werewolf and supposedly
hadn't taken his potion. I've never heard a convincing reason
for it all. Either Pettigrew's reappearance made him  completely 
irrational, in which case he was hardly trustworthy, or he was 
Up To Something.


Pippin