having my annual halloween/fall reemergence into the wizarding world and there’s something that’s always bothered me that I fully realized the extent of this time around... about remus lupin and how harry is placed with the dursleys after everything went sideways in the first war so if you don’t want to feel pain, keep scrolling.
first, we all know based on the relationship that the marauders had and the deteriorated relationship lily had with her sister that the potters would’ve wanted harry to grow up in a caring and loving household (which was clearly established to not be the dursleys, given lily distancing herself from them and mcgonagall’s observations). obviously sirius would’ve been the first choice being godfather and all, but that is eliminated due to the chain of events with peter, which is a whole separate issue that could’ve been avoided. but since that did happen, why would those that were close to the potters and understood the situation (ahem dumbledore, mcgonagall, moody, etc) not fully shift to remus lupin becoming harry’s guardian??? it’s not as if that would have been hard to accomplish considering the dursleys wanted no part of the potters lives anyways. it’s actually downright disrespectful to remus as well as lily and james and here’s why.
second, despite dumbledore knowing that remus lupin is a good man and repeatedly reinforcing this belief to him, he basically walks back on all his affirmations that remus isn’t inherently dangerous and implies he has no confidence in remus, taking the opposite course of action by placing harry with the dursleys. remus was close with both james and lily so he likely would’ve known all about the strained relationship between them. so dumbledore let remus, who has always had doubts about his ability to be a force for good, join the order and proceeded to use his condition to dumbledore’s advantage, which of course was necessary to the fight, but then considered him unfit to have a crucial role in his best friends’ son’s life. no doubt remus was a mess dealing with the aftermath of losing james, lily, and peter, and sirius’ betrayal (he thought at the time). but instead of offering to help remus, he deems him entirely incapable of ever being a good guardian for harry. he’s spent so much time building up remus’ confidence, and based on context was in a great place while part of the order, just to shatter it.
of course this seems to have a lot to do with the fact that harry’s suffering growing up would have been minimal compared to what he got by being placed with the dursleys. dumbledore basically decides it wouldn’t be enough to grow up with a werewolf as a father figure, which probably would’ve developed empathetic and caring traits, instead placing him with a family that would harbor resentment and vengeance within him. living with remus was absolutely possible with help from others, during full moons and such, because people like mcgonagall or the weasleys or others familiar with the order would’ve been happy to help out. and since dumbledore had established trust in snape, he could’ve ensured potion for remus was always available. growing up with remus would’ve been hard but in a very different way. but it would have been more loving and fulfilling, supporting harry’s development as a human being which is what james and lily would have wanted. but dumbledore wanted to keep harry vulnerable and easily influenced, not hesitating to disrespect james and lily’s wishes to do things the way he thought was the best course of action.
instead dumbledore lets remus live with the belief that he should be isolated from his best friends’ son and many others by extension. when it came down to it dumbledore acted selfishly and threw remus under the bus when he could’ve given him a reason to keep trying to be better. the entire time dumbledore knew remus lupin he was emotionally manipulating him. giving him support so that he could attend hogwarts, encouraging him to join the order, just to completely abandon him right after he lost everyone close to him. then he had the audacity to seek remus out when it benefited him and a position needed to be filled at hogwarts (conveniently when sirius had escaped azkaban). it seems he never wanted to give remus a position to reinforce his belief in his abilities because he hired gilderoy freaking lockhart before him, who dumbledore had to have known was immensely unqualified. he took shots at remus’ self worth even when he wasn’t directly doing it. and it had lasting effects on remus (i.e. having a literal panic attack and running off for a hot second when tonks is pregnant). I’m just thinking about how much would’ve been different if remus and harry had gotten the chance to have that family bond with each other after all the awful things that happened in the first war. and dumbledore completely prevented it.
anyways this is a remus lupin defense post and an albus dumbledore slander post. the potters and my mans moony deserved so much better. thank you and goodnight.
amandla
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
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