Lupin's behavior (Was: CHAPDISC: DH11, The Bribe)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 180645

Mike wrote:
> <big snip> 

> I don't know what the rest of the Order was doing, but it seemed to
me that Lupin was the only one acting responsibly at this time. OK,
maybe he was doing it for the wrong reasons. That seems to be shown 
true by his later demeanor towards Harry after Teddy was born. Still,
how can Lupin's offer to help be looked upon as cowardice? Did he join
the Order to watch from the sidelines, to sit at home and give his
pregnant wife moral support? <snip>

> Furthermore, Lupin may not know the secret mission, which is a poor
choice by DD in itself imo, but why should he be thinking that he 
can't help the kids? He is offering his help to the Trio while they 
are ensconced in 12 GP. From all indications, the Trio were planning 
to make 12 GP their HQ again. Lupin could come and go from there just
as easily, or easier, than the Trio could. 


Carol responds:

Clearly, Lupin doesn't think they're going to remain in 12 GP. Harry
mentions that he wants to go along on their "adventure" (surely, he's
not referring to the "adventure" of listening to Mrs. Black's screams
or living on moldy bread). Lupin knows full well that they've been
entrusted by DD with a mission that will involve leaving 12 GP, which
is why he's offered to "protect" them. He also asks what they're up
to, which Harry has already refused to tell McGonagall, Scrimgeour,
and Mrs. Weasley. Why should Lupin be any different? When has he ever
confided in Harry? He kept some pretty important secrets from him in PoA.

I've already explained how running from the wife he impregnated with a
child who may turn out to be a werewolf like himself can be
interpreted as cowardice. *If* he were offering his services with the
safety of the WW in mind, it would be different. (They still wouldn't
want him along because DD told them to work alone, but Harry would not
have called him a daredevil (deliberately risking his life) and a
coward (running from his responsibilities). But you said yourself,
these are no RL teenagers. They've learned spells that most adult
wizards don't know (Harry's strong Patronus, Hermione's protective
charms). They can fight in the later Battle of Hogwarts as well as
most of the adults. Why should they need an adult protector--unlike
Lupin's helpless, as yet unborn child, who needs both a father and a
mother as long as he can have them. (Harry knows too well what it's
like to be an orphan. There's no need, yet, for Lupin to risk his
life. But the pregnant wife that he's made an "outcast" (his own word)
and who is prone to depression that causes her magic to weaken does
need him. (See my Tonks/Merope comparison upthread.) And imagine what
Teddy would grow up thinking of the werewolf father who abandoned him
and his mother. Remember Tom Riddle and his hated Muggle father.

Mike:
There's no reason he 
> couldn't take the same precautions regarding his "furry little 
> problem" with the kids at 12 GP, as he was employing with Tonks at 
> her parents home.

> This is long before the **unplanned** camping trip from hell. As far 
> as any of them know, they aren't going anywhere soon. They intended 
> and tried to return to 12 GP after their Ministry raid to retreive 
> the locket. So why would Lupin's lycanthropy be a factor *at this 
> time*, nobody was intending on going camping?

Carol responds:

Again, I've already said this, so please forgive me for repeating
myself. There are two possible ways to protect HRH from Lupin's
transformations: to lock him up (cf. the Shrieking Shack) or to make
Wolfbane Potion. Obviously, Wolfbane Potion is preferable, but none of
them, not even Hermione, knows how to make it. It's tricky and it has
to be drunk hot. The problems of obtaining and preparing the
ingredients (an unfair burden to place on Hermione, in any case)
become much greater as they leave on their mission, on which Lupin
will be unable to advise them thanks to Dumbledore. (Yeah, I agree.
Bad move on DD's part, but Harry has sworn to tell no one.) As for
locking him in an upstairs room to protect themselves while he
transforms at 12 GP, don't you think that the DEs will report his
howls to LV, who can only conclude that Harry is staying there, too?
(And certainly, once they're on the camping trip, they'll have no
place to lock him up.) <snip>

Tonks, OTOH, would no doubt be both happy to prepare the potion for
the husband she loves but capable of brewing it. I've already talked
about the requirements to become an Auror, which include an O on your
OWL, NEWT-level Potions (which she would have had with Snape), and
three years of further training. Even if she doesn't already know how
to prepare Wolfbane Potion, she has both the motivation and background
to learn. And that she must have learned to do so is evident from the
healthier, happier Lupin we glimpse when he names Harry his son's
godfather.

Imagine, BTW, how our gloom-and-doom Lupin, guilty, depressed, and
kept out of the secret of the mission, knowing himself to be a danger
to the very people he was trying to protect thanks to their inability
to brew Wolfbane Potion or lock him up during his transformations,
would have reacted to the presence of the Horcrux, which would have
been impossible to hide from him in any case. Nor do I see how Snape
could have delivered the Sword of Gryffindor with Lupin present. No,
indeed. They were better off without him.

And Lupin was better off with the wife who loved him and the child who
needed him, if only for a little while. At least Teddy will know that
his father fought to make a better world for him rather than
abandoning him and his mother before Teddy was even born. And he was
there to comfort Tonks and Andromeda when one lost her father and the
other her husband.

If matters had been otherwise--if Lupin had remained unmarried; if he
could have brewed Wolfbane Potion himself ahead of time and could
taken a supply of it along, a la Polyjuice Potion; if he were allowed
to offer real help instead of being kept out of the secret, which
could only increase his depression and lack of self-esteem--then maybe
it would have been good to have him with them. Certainly, Harry would
not have had the reasons he had for refusing Lupin, and while he might
have had grounds for calling Lupin a daredevil, he would have had no
reason to call him a coward.

As matters stand, it's better for the Trio and for Lupin himself that
he took Harry's advice and returned to his family, where he could do
some real good and have a few months of the love and happiness that
had been denied him for most of his life.

Carol, hoping that someone will respond to her canon-based post
upthread but pretty sure that no one in this thread is going to change
anyone else's mind