HBP post DH look chapter 5

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184340

Carol earlier:
> > IMO, it has nothing to do with grief for Sirius at all. That's a
red herring. We don't see excessive grief (which Harry suffers more
than once, and Snape suffers before the books begin) affect anyone's
powers. Only unrequited love (or a refusal to marry the girl you love
> > for her own good, which amounts to the same thing) has that effect.
> > (Unrequited love has altogether different but equally exaggerated>
effects in Snape's case, but I don't want to go OT.)
> 
> Sarah:
> No argument with the hair thing being because of Tonks' feelings about
> Lupin.  It's obvious since it fixed itself by the time they were
> sitting together at the funeral.
> 
> I don't get what you're saying about Lupin, though.  Did he ever lose
> his powers?  

Carol responds:

Sorry to be unclear. I meant that either Tonks's unrequited love for
Lupin or Lupin's refusal to marry Tonks even though he loved her
caused Tonks to lose some of her powers (specifically, her
Metamorphmagus powers). I was trying to cover all the bases since
we're not told how he feels. (I think that he did love her, just not
as much or as obsessively as she loved him, but he could have knuckled
under to peer pressure.) Anyway, I wasn't talking about Lupin losing
his powers. I was comparing Tonks to Merope, a more extreme case of
the same phenomenon or a similar one. I mentioned Snape, another
person suffering from unrequited love as a counterexample. His holding
on to love for Lily (and jealousy of James) for sixteen years is an
extreme reaction to unrequited love compounded by unassuageable
remorse, but he didn't lose his powers. (I hate to say it, but JKR
seems to limit that reaction to Witches, not Wizards.)

Sarah: 
> Actually, I'm not convinced Lupin was really ever all that into
Tonks. He gave her a 'it's not you, it's me' speech, but it didn't
work, and everyone was on his case about it, so he married her anyway.
 Then he wanted to leave her and go camping in a tent with Harry
Potter for a year.

Carol:
That might be his way of dealing with guilt/remorse for the
predicament he put her in. Maybe he thought that she was better off
without his dangerous company (not only is he a werewolf who can't
make his own Wolfbane potion--though maybe Tonks can, given that NEWT
Potions is a requirement for Auror training--but the DEs are after
both of them). He may even have had a death wish or thought that she'd
better off if he were dead. At any rate, I agree with Harry that he
belonged at home until there's an actual battle, and he seems happy
enough after the baby is born. Obviously, we can't know for sure, but
Tonks has to have some reason for her happiness after the battle in
the DoM (even though her cousin died) and her depression a few weeks
later. The only explanation I can come up with is that she thinks or
knows that Lupin loves her (he's shown it in some way) after the
battle, but he refuses to marry her when she brings up the subject.

Sarah: 
> Tonks didn't seem to lose her powers either, apart from just the
one. I figured it's the nature of Metamorphmagic, being innate and not
learned and all.  I thought it was just kind of a flighty, fluffy
power that's first to waver.

Carol:
I agree that her other powers didn't suffer, but I'm not sure that
Metamorphmagic is "a light, fluffy power." It's similar to becoming an
Animagus, a very difficult skill to master, except that it's innate.
Tonks can do more than change her hair color and the shape of her
nose. We see her twice in OoP as completely different older women. I
think the reason she loses that power in particular is that it
expresses her personality and makes her different from everyone else.
It may be connected with cheerfulness or happiness. Maybe she hasn't
actually lost the power; she just doesn't feel like wearing her hair
pink or purple when she's depressed.

Sarah: 
> I also agree about something like a normal grieving process not
making people lose their powers.  From an evolutionary standpoint,
wizards just wouldn't have survived this long if that was the case. 
Wizards are attacked, some die, the rest lose their powers and stand
defenseless.  It would never have worked out for them.

Carol:
Good point.

Carol, wondering whether Tonks brewed Wolfbane Potion for Lupin during
the short span of their marriage