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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 180690

Magpie wrote:

> But so what? Being married to someone or being someone's father 
> doesn't change the basic idea of not wanting to put them in danger. 
> If anything it would give you even more of a horror of putting them 
> in harm's way. Lupin's situation is different (Harry's also worried 
> about the damage Ginny does to his ability to fight) but I don't 
> think the fact that he's married suddenly makes it irresponsible to 
> consider leaving to make his family safer or to consider leaving to 
> join the fight. That can be the right decision in some cases. <snip>

Carol responds:

As Lupin himself admits, he put Tonks in danger by marrying her
(before that, she was an Order member and the "brat" of a pure-blood
mother and a Muggle-born father, but now she's the wife of a werewolf.
To make matters worse, he has knowingly impregnated her, knowingly
fathered a half-werewolf child who may become a werewolf himself. The
child's very existence makes him a target, and as long as Tonks is
pregnant with him, she's even more of a target than she would be as a
werewolf's wife. So Lupin is supposed to undo his mistake and make
things right by abandoning them both? Sorry, but that makes no sense
to me, none whatever, any more than it makes sense to Harry.

He is offering to go into unknown danger and "protect" three of-age
wizards, one of whom has already defeated Voldemort twice (three
times, if you count surviving an AK and vaporizing Voldemort through
no effort of his own). It's not as if there were an actual battle to
fight, as there is at Hogwarts later. Nor does he have any more
knowledge than they do of "the magic many of us have never encountered
or imagined" (his own words, DH Am. ed. 212). Just as Lupin tells
Harry in PoA that he's no expert at fighting Dementors (PoA Am. ed.
189--BTW, do we ever see him casting a corporeal Patronus, or only
silver light?), he's also no expert in the Dark Arts themselves (our
resident expert on that topic is Snape). His expertise appears to lie
with minor Dark creatures like Kappas and Grindylows, which Harry
already knows how to deal with in the unlikely event that he's going
to encounter one on his mission for Dumbledore.

What spells can Lupin teach Harry that he doesn't already know? What
could he have done to prevent them from being caught by Snatchers? He
didn't know any more than Harry did that the name itself had been
cursed, and Fenrir Greyback would have recognized him immediately.
Setting aside the danger that his presence poses to them, not to
mention the effect of his depressed spirits on their morale,
especially with the Horcrux adding its malice to the mix (supposing
they could have retrieved it without telling him what it was), what
good could he have accomplished by accompanying them on their "advenutre"?

It's Lupin himself, not Harry, who says "This isn't about danger or
personal glory" *before* Harry has made his "daredevil" remark,
suggesting to Harry, at least, that, yes, it is about exactly that.
Nor does Lupin ever answer either Harry's question about James's
opinion of Lupin's plan to abandon his wife and child or his question
about how the new regime would regard a "half-werewolf" (DH 214),
instead spluttering "How dare you?"--always the recourse of a person
who feels insulted but has no other defense.

Could Lupin have calmly and truthfully said, "James would have
approved of my actions?" Probably not, since James stood by his wife
and child, going into hiding with them rather than openly fighting
Voldemort and died trying to protect them." Nope. Can't answer
truthfully, so let's just get mad and splutter "How dare you?" (like
Bellatrix when Harry besmirches the Dark Lord's name by calling him a
Half-Blood). How about the new regime's attitude toward
half-werewolves? Oops. Can't answer that one without harming his own
case or uttering an obvious falsehood, either, so he ignores the
question and turns on Harry. Lupin resorts to defensiveness, excuses,
furniture-throwing, and spell-casting. Why? Because he's in the wrong
and he knows it.

Lupin does not make a case for why they need his help, nor does he say
a word about doing what he can to fight Voldemort. *Later,* he fights
in a battle against Death Eaters to make the WW a better place for his
son, but at this point, the only emotion he feels toward his unborn
child is a kind of fear and loathing--"What if it's like me?" Exactly
how deserting that child and its mother, a la Tom Riddle Sr.--is
supposed to help them, I don't know. We've already seen Tonks lose her
Metamorphmagus powers. Now she's likely to lose her powers altogether,
like Merope, because the man she loves won't stand by her. 

Harry has no choice but to leave the underage Ginny behind. Having her
with him would increase her danger (as she tacitly acknowledges by
accepting his decision). But Lupin does have a choice, and
accompanying three of-age wizards to "protect" them rather than
standing by the woman he married and the child he fathered is the
wrong decision. He endangered Tonks by marrying her and Teddy by
bringing him into existence, and since he can't undo those mistakes,
he has a moral obligation to rectify them as best he can by protecting
his family until the moment comes when he can openly and actively
fight the enemy that menaces them. There is no point whatever in his
joining HRH, increasing everyone's danger and unhappiness. By
remaining with Tonks, he not only does his duty as a father but honors
his obligation to love and cherish his wife (and enables her to love
and cherish him, giving him the happiness and self-esteem that he
lacks troughout the books). 

Lupin's conscience always bothers him when he's too weak to do the
right thing (stop his friends from tormenting Severus, tell Dumbledore
that Sirius is an Animagus, etc.). The only time we see him happy is
after he's returned to Tonks. Why? Because for once ESW!Lupin had the
moral courage to do the right thing.

Carol, who thinks that in a battle between Bellatrix and Lupin,
Bellatrix would win