Remus Lupin, My Beloved @remus-poopin - Tumblr Blog

HP META MASTERLISTS

Hey! Here is a huge master list of all my favorite Harry Potter character analyses and Metas!

I DID NOT write these! Please do yourself a favor and check out some of the wonderful and intelligent writers of these metas as they deserve all the praise for their hard and impressive work!

If anyone of the writers for whatever reason wants me to remove their meta from this list just tell me and it will be done!

Some of these may be contradictory to each other but that is because I like to hear other interpretations. These may not line up exactly with your view of the characters (not all of them line up with mine) but please try to be respectful.

*Almost all of these are from Tumblr except one from reddit and one from a outside blog.

Enjoy!

bloodyhellharry

I haven't posted about Harry Potter in a while, but here's a bunch of Andromeda headcanons that won't leave me alone:

She scandalised her parents by getting a second lobe piercing at the age of 16.

Tonks scandalised her by getting a nose ring at the age of 16.

She loves Fleetwood Mac and copies Stevie Nicks boho style.

Fashion was very important to her as a tool for self expression, and she was very good at thrifting and adjusting clothes into new or more flattering silhouettes. Tonks inherited her eye for thrifting, but preferred to customise her clothes by ripping them.

She loved going shopping with Tonks, but criticised most of her daughter choices.

She was a tiny bit of an almond mom. If Ted brought Tonks a sweet treat, he'd usually say "don't tell your mom".

She skipped classes to sneak into muggle hippy and conter culture music festivals when she was a teen. Her parents found the music loud and vulgar. She found it liberating and felt it was a great fuck-you to her family's oppressive expectations.

She was scandalised upon discovering Tonks also did her own sneaking out to see punk bands that she found loud and vulgar.

She works at a magical art gallery on an expensive street off Diagon Alley. She started as a gallery assistant right after she cut ties with her family, but by the time Tonks left Hogwarts, she was a curator.

The gallery owner appreciated her independent thinking, her bold taste, and her expensive education. She was good at selling art to rich people.

Andromeda considered herself progressive and innovative, trying to push buyers to get paintings with abstract or expressionist approaches. Muggle art critics probably would not find her taste that progressive or innovative.

Tonks still found most exhibition openings quite boring.

Ted liked taking Andromeda to muggle museums as dates.

After the war she bought many drawings Dean Thomas made while on the run. He had never thought of selling work before, but she insisted and named prices. She curated an exhibition of most (to Dean's enormous surprise), but kept the ones of Ted to herself.

I binged Buffy until my eyes bled and maybe because Joyce is a working mom who works at a gallery, I decided Andromeda would also be a working mom who works at a gallery. It got me thinking about wizard art — who makes the moving oil paintings? Has art, much like most of their technology, kind of stagnated in the 1700s? Are muggle influences received with confusion and considered extremely radical?

Ok bye!

#I think for art it could go either way #because if it’s art with a human subject the moving charms (which I don’t think are gifs?? like you can interact with them I think ?? idk)-#kinda limit the appreciation to the technical skill probably not a lot of creative liberties taken there because that’s not the purpose of-#them #so muggle art probably can seem odd and radical #there’s probably some art history equivalent here #but also if you could technically make a wizard painting with no person in it #and still have it move and that be part of the art?#still culturally it’s probably not accepted as the same level as the portraits #hm idk #also this is inspiring me to do an andromeda hippie playlist

artemisia-black

Weaponising boredom: a parallel between Sirius and Phineas Nigellus

There is a particular bored register both Sirius and Phineas Nigellus reach for when they want to signal that a situation is beneath them. In both men it is a performance, reached for precisely when they are most engaged. Watching them deploy it side by side reveals how much of Sirius's affect is inherited, and how differently the two men wield the same tool.

1.0 Phineas: boredom as aristocratic contempt

Phineas uses yawns to display aristocratic disdain. But in every instance, there is a tell that he is keenly engaged. The boredom is a mask worn over contempt, and it never substitutes for genuine interest.

"Visit my other portrait?" said Phineas in a reedy voice, giving a long, fake yawn (his eyes travelling around the room and focusing upon Harry). "Oh no, Dumbledore, I am too tired tonight..." OoTP

And:

"Phineas Nigellus gave a long yawn, stretching his arms as he watched Harry with shrewd, narrow eyes." OoTP

In both cases, the yawn is juxtaposed against sharp, focused eyes. The languid body performs indifference while the watchful gaze betrays it. The yawn is theatre, undercut by the attention behind it.

That mismatch sharpens when Phineas reads Harry with uncomfortable accuracy. It is the precision of someone who has clearly been watching closely ( an acuity he shares with Sirius).

"You know," said Phineas Nigellus, even more loudly than Harry, "this is precisely why I loathed being a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything." OoTP

He lands the read, then retreats into examining his silk gloves while Harry begs him for information. That retreat is the weapon. It recasts the boy's suffering as a social imposition rather than a real emergency. For Phineas, ennui is a wall he raises between himself and anything that might obligate him.

2.0 Sirius: boredom as armour

Sirius reaches for the same register, but with him, it develops over time.

As a teenager in Snape's Worst Memory, he stares around at the students milling over the grass, looking rather haughty and bored and here, the boredom is an inherited default. It is the Black-family posture he wears without thinking, the studied disaffection of a boy raised to hold himself above the room. The narrative even frames it as attractive, "very handsomely so," which is how the pose is meant to land, and on the surface, it is indistinguishable from Phineas's yawns (perhaps the only difference is how deliberate it seems).

But by Azkaban, this has changed. The same posture has become something he actively wields, and he wields it under real duress. Fudge's account of his prison visit shows this clearly.

"You'd have thought he was merely bored — asked if I'd finished with my newspaper, cool as you please, said he missed doing the crossword. Yes, I was astounded at how little effect the dementors seemed to be having on him..." PoA

And the performance is effective. The boredom does more than unnerve Fudge; it frightens him. A prisoner sitting rationally in his cell, asking after the crossword, untouched by the dementors that reduce every other inmate to a muttering wreck, reads to Fudge as far more dangerous than a broken man. The composure itself is what alarms him, because it looks like proof that Azkaban has failed to touch Sirius at all, and this is precisely the effect the mask is engineered to produce.

But Sirius is deeply affected by Azkaban; while the performance holds up in front of Fudge, the damage shows elsewhere. As even in ordinary, unguarded moments, the harm sits visibly in his face (particularly his eyes) with Harry frequently describing the:

“ the deadened look in Sirius’s eyes,” GoF

And observing in GoF that:

“Sirius looked at him, eyes full of concern, eyes that had not yet lost the look that Azkaban had given them — that deadened, haunted look.” GoF

Therefore, beneath the composure is a man permanently marked by the horrors of Azkaban and when in PoA he is cornered by the lake and facing the kiss, the performance collapses entirely.

"Sirius had turned back into a man. He was crouched on all fours, his hands over his head. 'Noo,' he moaned. 'Noooo ... please. ...'" PoA

The man who "missed doing the crossword" is the same man reduced to begging on the lakeshore. The boredom in Azkaban was the last piece of dignity he had left, performed hard enough to convince the Minister for Magic that Azkaban had not won.

3.0 Conclusion

While the surface behaviour of the two men is identical: the drawl, the haughtiness, the refusal to seem affected, the intent behind it differs. Phineas performs boredom because he genuinely holds himself above the situation, and the mask conceals the engagement he will not dignify. Sirius performs it defiantly as the mask conceals the pain he cannot afford to show. And both men clearly learned the same trick in the same house.

#this is so good!#I think the Sirius/snape fight in ootp might fit somewhere in here too #I think in the beginning he’s kinda leaning back in his chair talking to the ceiling in a casual sorta way #sirius black #sirius meta

docholligay

I think fandom analysis on the whole would be a lot more fun and interesting if it took the sort of attitude a great many of my lit professors did, and the idea was to look at the text, see what you think it's saying, or even COULD be saying, and let's fuck around with that idea. I got four years of hearing insane takes on stuff and I was extremely fortunate to go a school with small enough class sizes and a dedicated enough faculty that in many respects, wild theorizing was encouraged.

One of my professors was straight up like "I don't want you reading papers about this book until we finish it!" and we had writing things for the first 20 minutes of every class because he wanted to know what WE thought, not what we had become convinced was THE thing to think.

When I was in my second year of college, I spiraled out into this whole "Jane Eyre is a lesbian!" thing, and my professor (not the same guy as above but delightfully insane in her own right) was like, "Wow, I've never heard this from anyone," and instead of being like, "um this is not what has been agreed upon by everyone else" went "Tell me more." Now, as a forty year old woman who has never stopped engaging with stories on both an enjoyment and academic level, the paper I would write with age and distance would be more "Homosociality, desire, and the domesticated male in Jane Eyre" or something like that, nineteen year old me was a little reductive and simple, but same vibes.

But my professor did not think I was right, she thought I was being INTERESTING, and so she encouraged me and championed me to write that paper and I actually presented it at the student division of a conference! The cool thing about that was, that when I was defending it, I was having to think about it, but it was in the spirit of collaboration, it felt like. No one was trying to 'win' the conversation.

Doc, what the fuck are you--I saw a really interesting thing this morning, someone talking about Shrek, of all things, and how they thought it was about how you cannot turn an ogre into a man, but he can make you become an ogre. And I immediately went, "Wow! Okay, interesting, not how I read that at all, TELL ME MORE." It was really jarring for me, then, to see pretty much every comment be like, 'uh you are wrong and also stupid." Sure, maybe that's not the intention of the work, but I don't for one goddamn motherfucking second think Charlie Bronte was sitting down going "I am going to write a woman so gay..." nor do I think the read of her as same sex-attracted is the end all be all of interpretations. It's mine, for sure! But like...talking about stories is supposed to be fun and it's supposed to be about possibility.

That one post got me thinking about how we are, in fandom often all looking at this same text, and there's immense pressure to have a 'right' interpretation--I was at the nexus of so many Sailor Moon fandom wars, and while I got into a few tussles, I was also stupid to do that. This characters are not real, and I was shutting down POSSIBILITY. And even after I was like, 'Wow, I don't think this is actually a very fun way to do stuff" it turns out you can't magically give everyone the same revelation you have simultaneously. Which is upsetting. And I see these same patterns repeat over and over and over again.

In my old age, I'm less interested in he "He would not say that" and more interested in "Cool, tell me why he would say that?"

Don't misunderstand me, there are points of view and ideas on different texts where I'm like, "Hm. I don't care to engage with that." Remember that the window we're looking out of is as important as what we're looking at, and will DOUBTLESS change the appearance. But the whole reason we have each other is to try and find other windows! It's not actually to find someone who is the next pane of glass in your same window. I miss that environment, where you could trust that everyone coming to the table was engaging with the same ground rules and that there was an expectation of, detachment doesn't quite get to the heart of what I'm talking about, but we were expected not to take the text or the analysis of it personally, even when it was hard. And sometimes it was. But I think it led to me having--for example it's crazy to me to have one 'right read' on any given text. I had a SUPER FUCKING ANIMATED conversation with a fellow lit nerd about whether or not GdT's Frankenstein was emotionally faithful to the text (which is not the same as being literally faithful nor the same as being good)and it was so fun, EVEN THOUGH we were coming at it completely opposed. But it was so fucking fun.

I wish I could do that with anime and cartoons, but you can't. People take Shrek personally. So I'll never have that same fun.

ANYWAY SORRY I AM DRINKING COFFEE AND MY DAUGHTER ISN'T HERE I HAVE TOO MUCH FREE TIME.

#yes prev!#the majority of the time of I really love a weird hc or theory!#I just run into trouble when people present it as fact or say it’s absolutely what the author intended #because now it’s not about exploring the possibility it’s about whether or not you caught the real secret meaning of whatever #which is less fun to me #but like actually exploring it as a hc and going back and forth is great

artemisia-black

Given it’s canon that the Black family hunted people (trying to make it legal meant that they were at it on the low), I hc that Sirius was taken on one of these hunts.

remus-poopin

Guys...: “This'll liven you up, Padfoot,’ said James quietly. ‘Look who it is.’ Sirius's head turned. He became very still, like a dog that has scented a rabbit. ‘Excellent,’ he said softly. ‘Snivellus.’”

artemisia-black

Yep yep. Adding my tags about Peter too:

#oof

artemisia-black

Given it’s canon that the Black family hunted people (trying to make it legal meant that they were at it on the low), I hc that Sirius was taken on one of these hunts.

remus-poopin

#hm ok #Sirius black

snail-enclosure

If Marauders fans™ can make up entire fleshed out fanon personalities for characters that are mentioned once, I can do it too. Bertram Aubrey is a random nerd in Ravenclaw, not some budding Death Eater or anything like that. He wears glasses, and they broke when James Potter et al. did the head swelling thing. He had to owl his parents for new ones and spent the week going into the wrong bathroom and falling down the stairs.

snail-enclosure

The biggest supporting evidence for this is JKR Nominative Determinism™. "Bertram Aubrey" is a nerd who wears super thick glasses and uses an asthma inhaler, not some chauvinist jock.

snail-enclosure

He's also a muggleborn because I think that's fun 🤭

#I do think it’s kinda funny that people make dude into the worst guy in the world™️ to justify James and Sirius’ hex #like lmaoo

observerssegion

i need people to understand that lily enjoyed breaking rules, was socially persuasive, very charming, and wasn’t some stuck up goodie two shoes. we're talking about a better version of petunia here, smarter, more beautiful, magical, and kinder, but still capable of cruelty, classism, and pettiness. lily was very much a flawed person, not a girl next door moral paragon, but a vivacious, funny, cheeky, popular girl who liked attention, was self-centered, and quite snobbish.

#100%

evanspetals

My thoughts on wands as a colonial technology

I imagine that before wands were popularized, different magical cultures likely used innate, environmental, ancestral or ritualistic forms of magic. Wands arrive as a “superior,” “efficient,” “civilized” tool, completely mirroring how colonizers frame their tech and culture, and once wand use becomes standardized (under European dominance), it becomes the metric for what “proper” magic is. It’s like a classic colonizer move: redefine the standard so the colonized never quite measure up.

I can see wands existing as instruments of surveillance, to track and record wand bearers. If we look at canon we see that The Ministry can trace spells, that wand registration exists, that underage magic is tracked via wands and that muggleborns need documentation about their wand status (and are suspected without one). This echoes real-world issues where colonizers impose paperwork, IDs, “permits,” licenses… Wands give the Ministry the power to know who you are, what you can do, what magic you’re capable of, when you break laws… So if you come from a magical tradition without wands, you’re suddenly invisible, illegible and therefore illegal.

Because of that, wandless magic would be considered “primitive”, “wild” and “dangerous”. This is exactly how colonizers treat any practice outside their norm. Elves can perform wandless magic with terrifying skill, so their use of wands is banned. Goblins have their own magical lore, so the wandmakers keep that knowledge proprietary and exclude them. Even wizard-on-wizard discrimination exists (Western wandmaking superiority mythos). The entire hierarchy is created around wand access, not magical ability. It’s not that non-wand cultures have “lesser” magic, it’s that the system is built to invalidate them.

I also see a relation between wands and industrialization and commercialization of the innate. Magic used to be craft, ritual, birthright, relationship with land, energy. Then wands turn it into products, brands, patents, trade secrets, regulated commodities. It literally mirrors the industrial revolution, with something natural becoming standardized, mass-produced and commercialized. Wand cores are harvested, trees are cut for wand wood, ecosystems are commodified. Magic becomes a consumer good.

Wands can also be seen as a cultural erasure weapon. For many communities, magic done with hands, through song, nature and ancestral rites would carry spiritual meaning. But wizards, especially European ones, invalidate that, create a monoculture of wand magic and enforce it through Ministry law. That’s not just colonization, it’s cultural genocide.

We can imagine social implications as the divide between “civilized” wand users and “primitive” wandless ones, wizard supremacy ideology brewed not just from blood purity but method purity, power defined by conformity, not ability, education systems that erase non-wand magic (Hogwarts teaches nothing else), a Ministry that claims to “protect” lesser magical cultures but actually suppresses them.

And the ultimate irony is that the most powerful magic we see in the Wizarding World are Lily’s sacrifice, ancient enchantments, goblin lore, house-elf magic, wandless magic in extremis, parseltongue, rituals and blood magic… None of it is wand-based. So the entire structure of “you must have a wand to be civilized” is built on a fragile, discriminatory lie.

#yes yes yes yes #I’m obsessed with this topic #this is lowkey one of the whole base of the fic I’m writing #hp meta

carniferous

i think a central part of my james thesis is that to me the fanon interpretation of him as a happy-go-lucky 'ego the size of a lake but a heart to match it' golden boy is not at all irreconcilable with the canon depictions of his bullying and harassment of snape (and lily). i feel those two things naturally go hand-in-hand

carniferous

obviously in canon james's story is About how those two things (the dearly departed hero and the bully) can and did exist within one person. the point is that james was multiple things to multiple people and the pathos behind every encounter harry has with the memory of his parents is that it's always jarring and confusing for him bc he will never get to Know his parents

but even beyond the text i feel like operating under the idea that there exists any Contradiction at the heart of james's character is somewhat of a misstep. to HARRY the revelation that james could be obnoxious and cruel upset his worldview bc it shattered the myth he'd been told about his father -- but like, when i as a reader consider james's character i don't see obnoxiousness and cruelty as incongruent with the other characteristics we're told james possessed (even the ones that we as fans have assigned him). for me interpreting james as a sunshiney, loving, charming, and generous friend and husband doesn't mean not interpreting him as someone who sexually harassed his peers -- perpetrators of sexual violence quite literally often are upstanding members of the community with a large network of people willing to support them. they often are people with significant amounts of social power/capital. this is kind of like sexual violence 101 tbh it's kind of funny to see people really staunchly take sides in the "james is a jerk" vs "james is the sun" wars. ten bucks says you've met a really charming funny handsome guy irl who was also a sex pest

#I’m really focused on James rn omg #but yes this is the post #exactly 100%#james potter

glacierberries

sirius being a pathetic, sadistic, violent, alchoholic, miserable, depressed, mommy issues-riddled, broken dilf who's not fit to be a godparent in ootp is so important to me

willowrosenberg1997

no one ever talks about the subgenre of harry potter fanfiction that was greg and angelina johnson having a miserable empty relationship bc she’s only with greg because she’s pining after his dead twin. I assume this is bc so many people got invested in fred and angelina after they went to the yule ball I guess and then jk posted that family tree that confirmed greg and angelina got married. well guys I hate to tell you this but I think she just forgot which twin went to the ball with her

EDIT: it has been brought to my attention I forgot the other weasley’s name was george. I am part of the problem

meteoralinart

«....Sirius?»

#omggg #sirius black #harry potter #art

deleteddeleted3

did “the marauders” really call themselves the marauders? canon says they were popular boys but that name tbh sounds like something a bunch of ehmm let’s say gifted kids would come up with to feel edgy. like “look at us, we’re rebels now 😎😎😎😎😎”

same vibe as tom’s “knights of walpurgis” but at least that has some creepy cult energy of secret meetings, blood oaths etc

but walking around school being like “hi we’re the marauders!😎😎😎😎” just sounds incredibly embarrassing

arliedraws

I used to think they called themselves that, but I don't anymore. Mostly because it's the "Marauder's Map" rather than the "Marauders' Map." Silly, small distinction, but I think it was named for anyone who wishes to use it for "marauding." Like "A Writer's Guide to...[whatever]."

To be fair, I do think they were incredibly embarrassing (they're arrogant teenagers, after all), but the apostrophe is what clinches my belief that they did not call themselves The Marauders.

neverenoughmarauders

It depends on what we consider canon. The books alone would suggest not for the reason you say: it’s the marauder’s map. The only person to call them the marauders is Ron at one point (I think?) However, on the FAQ of the old JKRowling.com FAQ, one of the entries is:

On your website, you used the term "marauders" to refer to James and his friends. Were they actually called that or are you just borrowing the fan term? [Mugglenet/Lexicon question] James, Sirius, Remus and Peter dubbed themselves ‘marauders’, hence the way they titled the map.

#I was on team they don’t actually call themselves that #but this new info makes me actually want them to #it’s so embarrassing #lmao #marauders

does-this-hp-character-eat-pussy

Does Sirius Black eat pussy?

Yes

Yes, but badly

Voting ended onMay 21

#yes but selectively #not casually

4lilyofthevalley4

"sirius was best friends with lily too" i repeat over and over as they drag me off to the asylum kicking and thrashing

#I’m kinda middle about this issue #I think they were friends and I think by the time of the potters death Sirius was closer to Lily than Remus #but I don’t think Sirius and Lily were nearly as close as Sirius and James #idk

dufferpuffer

it's weird to me that the Prank came before SWM Coming after would tie things up nicely:

Remus is pre-Full Moon in the DADA OWLs, looking peaky

Sirius is eager for Full Moon, he wants to do something fun

They pick on Severus - who calls Lily a mudblood

Desperate to do SOMETHING that'll bring her back - Severus goes to investigate why Remus gets sick every month

Sirius does his fun thing: punishing Severus for being nosy

James has a Responsibility Moment and saves him

From then on, NEWT years, James grows up a little, picks on Severus less and impresses Lily with his maturity or whatever.

That flows really well??? am I crazy?

We get to SEE James 'being better' (at least a bit) after getting a scare via Severus' life being put at risk by their antics. He decided he wants to save lives, not just hex people.

We get a bit more motive for Sirius - still a dumb thing to do, but it's an escalation from SWM and perhaps something he has planned.

We get more motive for Severus, too. Doing something dangerous because he fucked up with Lily and wanted to get her back.

Instead we have the Prank where he almost died and James saved his life... and then nearly a whole month later, as Remus was pre-Moon, they attack Severus viciously out of nowhere. As if he wasn't keeping Remus' biggest secret...? This doesn't show James 'getting better', it shows him being an even bigger prick. How are we supposed to believe he got better???

annabtg

I remember pre-DH, we were all convinced that was exactly how it had all happened.

DH messed up the timeline for no good reason, but the flipside is that now everyone who writes these events has to dig deep inside the characters' heads and face the fact that the process of growing up is not always linear. You can make it flawed in a human sort of way.

neverenoughmarauders

Controversially, I never agreed with it sitting after SWM, long before DH came out. I had always thought it came before. Remus and Dumbledore say James ran after Snape at great risk to his own life, and while, fair, Dumbledore didn't know James was an animagi, Remus would have known. So would it really have been at great risk to his own life if he could turn into Prongs? It would reduce the point of the whole incident in canon, which is for James to risk his own life to save Severus' life, despite the fact that they hate each other.

And I know the tunnel argument, that Prongs isn't small enough for the tunnel, so he would have been at risk the moment he went after Snape. But while that's likely true, I was re-reading the POA and the way Remus describes it, it sounds like they all transformed before going down the tunnel, so I don't think JKR intended for James to be at risk if he could transform.

I am not trying to argue that the incident is definitely before James was an animagi. In fact, a very good counterargument is that there's no reason for Sirius to know how to get past the whomping willow if he hasn't been down the tunnel, and we know Snape was sneaking around trying to catch them. Catch them at what? Obviously, becoming animagi or generally sneaking around is possible, but it could also be him trying to catch them sneaking out to see Moony.

I am merely making the point that I never even considered the possibility that it was after SWM until I read fanfiction.

Personally, though, I quite like the fact that it wasn't a big growth moment, as that fits with canon far more. The weird thing about the whomping willow incident is that no one other than Severus seems to be remotely bothered about it. (I am not saying Remus likely wasn't hurt by Sirius' choice here, but by POA he and everyone talk about it as a thing that happened that made Severus even more furious with James). It was never about Sirius, or Remus or anyone other than James and Severus. It seems to me that it was about the fact that it changed nothing: Severus never thought about it as James doing him any favour, never showed any gratitude, and James continued to bully Severus as if his best friend hadn't nearly killed him.

To me, it shows that James in SWM doesn't see his behaviour as morally wrong, which again is supported by the fact that the boy literally keeps looking over to the girls, wanting them (or Lily specifically) to see him bully Severus. James, who hates the dark arts, doesn't see using Scourgify and Impedimenta or Levi Corpus as anything other than a laugh at Severus' expense. If a spell isn't dark magic, it's not bad. However, murder is bad. So James is willing to go to extreme lengths, risking his life, to prevent his worst enemy, his rival for the girl he has started fancying, from dying, because that's the right thing to do.

It once again tells a story about a character doing something bad, believing it not to be harmful (just James' reaction when Lily says he's as bad as Severus is telling--he is shocked), because we've seen what James is willing to risk if he thinks there's real harm that can be done.

I agree that in a story, it makes narrative sense for the sequence of events to be: James and Sirius are arses >>> SWM >>> Whomping Willow incident >>> Sirius runs away from home >>> James grows up.

Personally, though, I like the messy version where Sirius runs away from home between his fourth and fifth year because he fundamentally disagrees with his family's pureblood stands >>> James saves Severus' life some time shortly after November 3 because he will not let Severus come to what he considers real harm >>> SWM where James and Sirius are arses and then they slowly grow up because A) there's a war and B) they're teenagers so growing up is a natural thing that happens. Sirius running away; James saving Severus' life, it all speaks of two people who have every potential to be great people, if they just mature a little. They don't need big traumatic shifts. They just need time.

And as a side note: Yes, I will die on the hill that "about 16" actually implies Sirius was not 16 (that or he doesn't fully remember, which seems unlikely, given that we're talking about him running away). He's saying about 16 because he was nearly at that age. We know that he can't have been 17, so that leaves 15, nearly 16. He would be nearly 16, but still only 15 between his fourth and fifth year. Furthermore, it's not like he's going to tell Harry, who, though only just about having turned 15 himself, is currently between his fourth and fifth year that that's when he ran away. Plus, it's just the way Sirius talks about holidays in plural. He stayed with the Potters in the holidays until he turned 17. But if we take that literally, he turns 17 in November, then running away between his fifth and sixth year would mean only staying with the Potters in the one holiday he runs away.

Of course, he could have run away shortly after turning 16 during the Christmas break, but if he's willful enough to run away at that age, he's also stubborn enough to insist on staying at Hogwarts that holiday. And again, his reply to Harry would likely have been "16". I love words, but good editing is about removing any unnecessary words. So "about" serves a purpose. Otherwise, it wouldn't be there.

dufferpuffer

This is a wonderfully thought out response <3 I live for this shit Fair enough, enjoying the messier version of things, it certainly keeps it spicy B^)

My biggest issue with taking how Remus frames everything in PoA at face value though is that he isn't really saying events as they were. He's an unreliable narrator. For one thing - he wasn't 'there', he was a wolf - he's sharing second-hand information.

But mainly because his goal in that scene isn't to give a clear and factual version of events.

He's desperately trying to get the kids on his side again after losing their trust - but also on Sirius' side. Explaining why things are the way they are in a gentle way. Giving them deeper understanding, sharing secrets and 'opening up' because he 'trusts' them (giving them back their wands in a showy way too), but also framing events to suit his needs.

Which is what Remus does often. He's a serial frame-er, he takes things and twists them a little till they sit how he wants them to. Guilt becomes easier to manage/forget, truth becomes vague, walls are built so he doesn't need to make complicated decisions...

We see him carefully pick his words when explaining things, umming and er-ing, choosing language that's soft on Sirius, elevates Harry's dad and largely dismisses Severus' experiences.

He goes into detail about the emotional impact of things to him but remains vague about what they actually did. James and Sirius were wonderful friends to him, a half-innocent and half-sorry werewolf, and that's the most important thing to get across right now.

He says multiple things that don't make sense:

It cant just be an 'amusing trick' where Severus only 'glimpsed' something from down a tunnel… ...and also have almost killed him, being enough danger to make James heroic. James can't have acted at 'great risk to his life' if he could transform yet wasn't even pushed to do so. It cannot be both. Remus is being disingenuous. (Which he typically is - thats a core character trait)

'if he'd got as far as this house' - we know the tunnel is kilometres long, forced children to walk hunched, ends in a twist and rises upwards into a hole. Severus must have been at the house to see anything. This was detailed just a chapter or so beforehand.

He tells the kids he is safe around animals… then tells Hagrid he didn't eat Buckbeak. He is lying to one of them. (Since Hagrid knows beasts and asked Remus directly, i'd say Remus was lying to the kids. He IS a danger to animals - just less of one. It'd be bloody strange if having a well trained dog was enough to save you from a werewolf after all. He also has reason to lie to the kids: make himself seem safer to gain trust. He gains nothing from lying to Hagrid, who he is leaving behind that day.)

He feigns having no knowledge of Severus' grudges and issues, brushing them off. Even though he describes what Severus went through as 'almost killing him' and he knows very well the entire history of Severus, Lily, James and Sirius. But that history makes him look bad. It makes him feel bad. I don't think he really wants to think about it - it's easier to brush Severus off as making mountains out of molehills. Especially if it further builds James up. It can't be 'he hated us because we were bloody awful to him', it has to be 'I think he was jealous of James' epic skillz or something'. It can't be 'Severus is lashing out so harshly because he still thinks Sirius is a murderer and that I was his accomplice, spending a year secretly training you how to sneak to my Secret Place without dementors following using your fathers old tricks. I did nothing to prevent him thinking this because it'd mean facing more demons than I wanted to' it has to be 'he didn't get a medal, so he revealed me as petty revenge or something. anyway bye don't write'

He twists, re-frames and makes excuses. He dodges truth like a snitch dodges hands.

Once again - he also wasn't there. He didn't witness what happened. The only two people there were James and Severus. (Sirius didn't cut in saying he had helped, nor did Remus even spin Sirius as having a change-of-heart and running in.)

It isn't really surprising Severus is the one who cares most. It was only him and James who experienced it, Severus as victim. To Severus it's 'holy shit I almost fucking died. These bastards want to kill me and Dumbledore is knowingly sheltering them' For Remus and Sirius - James saved them from consequence. 'Phew, thank god it wasn't worse, even if I may or may not have complicated feelings about how bad it was.'

I'd say Remus does care about the prank more than he lets on.

It doesn't suit his needs to be emotional at the prank. What would have being upset by it accomplish? Anguish? Risk losing his only friends? Nah - better downplay it and laugh like its nothing.

He is careful about his language about it. It was '-- er --' an 'amusing' trick. Yeah… a trick. A 'trick that almost got Severus killed, a trick that involved him--' Just like Snape '-- er -- accidentally' let slip about his werewolf condition, and that they and Severus '-- er -- didn't like eachother very much.'

He isn't speaking about it lightly at all. He's picking his words so it sounds like it's less of a big deal (only when it comes to the threat he posed + Sirius' choices - but not Harry's Dad's bravery!) in a scene where he is fighting to gain favour.

I don't think I've ever really thought before about when Sirius ran away… hm… I guess I'd assume it was after his OWLs...? that seems to be one point in society where kids can go and be 'adults' - they can leave school at that age. But either age makes enough sense to me. It's up to taste. Like this is all ultimately up to taste, haha

#marauder meta

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Remus Lupin, My Beloved