Remus Lupin may be a minor character in the Harry Potter series, but he is critically important and deserving of recognition. The following is a lengthy analysis of certain traits in his personality, derived from canon sources and wide-branching research. Some of this may be triggering or otherwise disturbing to readers, because it discusses mental illness and the possible symptoms, not limited to but including flashbacks and self-harm. And for what it is worth, there are indeed parts that are speculation but those who know me and my blog understand that I am a very strict follower of canon and have been a devoted student of the character Remus Lupin for about two decades. So take it with a grain of salt, but also know that this is not a lighthearted analysis in any respect and that a serious attempt at discussion is being made.
From what we know, there are loads of environmental factors that can come into play as far as the development of mental illness. These are factors that are outside of ourselves, and may include situations such as prolonged stress at home or work, coping with the loss of a loved one, or traumatic events. Over the course of his life, Remus dealt with all of those factors and then some. Let’s take a look:
HE DID NOT GROW UP IN A HAPPY HOME
Remus Lupin’s life was a tragic tale. From the very beginning, he is the victim of his father’s prejudice and Fenrir Greyback’s anger. At age 4, he was bitten by a werewolf and forced into a permanent lifestyle of fearing the torturous transformation that occurs on the full moon. All of this through no fault of his own: he was a completely innocent party, a child made to suffer at the hands of an adult war.
That, there, just by itself is enough to cause significant anxiety, if not crippling views of an inner self so commonly found co-morbidly with mental illnesses. Low self-esteem/image/worth makes individuals susceptible to develop psychiatric conditions, particularly depressive disorders, eating disorders, and substance use disorders.
But, the impact of Remus’ new lycanthropy did not only affect him–it impacted his entire family. Imagine the Lupin family at the beginning of this mess. First, his father, the wizard Lyall. Lyall is ashamed of what he had done and the hurt he had caused because of his own careless words and prejudices. Lyall never did forgive himself for the curse he had unwittingly brought upon his son. Guilt is strictly different from remorse in that remorse is about expressing sorrow while guilt is directed inward. It is about beating yourself up more than it is anything else, and it is a toxic and unhealthy creature when left alone. The guilt he faced each day, each full moon–it probably tore the Lupin family apart in many ways, not the least of which was likely his relationship with his son.
And then there’s Hope, a Muggle who fell in love with a wizard and the enchanting world he came from, who was now forced into such a complete, utter helplessness as her only son fights a disease she cannot understand. She had to put on a smiling face for her little boy as he bleeds on the floor, cleaning up his wounds behind bitten lips and teary eyes. Hope is put in the strange position of supporting her family against a magical illness as a Muggle, and that is a daunting task for everyone let alone anyone unaccustomed to magic. It makes a certain sense to guess that the Healers of St. Mungo’s might not even talk to her directly, assuming that she wouldn’t understand because she lacked the education in magic that has come to be expected of basic witches and wizards. She is essentially an isolated pillar holding up the house, and that strain is an enormous draw on her facilities.
It does affect relationships. It does affect the sense of self. And every child is sensitive to his parent’s emotions, particularly the mothers at such a tender age. Remus would have been well aware that there was something horribly wrong. He would have unintentionally been feeding off of their anxiety, causing him to be anxious as well.
The direct cause of General Anxiety Disorder is not known, but it is, like so many other mental illnesses, a relationship between genetics and environment. A child who grows up in a household with a lot of stress is very likely going to be a child who worries excessively and the habit becomes something that is hard to control. When it becomes so ingrained that the worry is present despite observable peace, when a mind cannot shut off and constantly worries about everything, that is when it becomes a problem. And where Remus grew up in a household essentially ruled by fear, coupled with the clearly apparent stress and fear that drives him to leave Tonks later in the books, it is not unprobable that he developed this disorder and that he did so as a young boy.
THE POTENTIAL FOR CHILDHOOD PTSD IS EXTREMELY HIGH
At this point, I argue that Remus could very well become the sufferer of PTSD in the form of nightmares and probably flashbacks if the attack were gruesome enough. A young child has experienced an appalling trauma, a severe and life-changing trauma. PTSD is diagnosed after a person experiences symptoms for at least one month following a traumatic event. It is characterized by three main types of symptoms:
Re-experiencing the trauma through intrusive distressing recollections of the event, flashbacks, and nightmares.
Avoidance of places, people, and activities that are reminders of the trauma, and emotional numbness.
Increased arousal such as difficulty sleeping and concentrating, feeling jumpy, and being easily irritated and angered.
It makes plenty of sense for a young child who has just been mauled by a werewolf to now live with these experiences as part of his reality, especially when he can’t let it go because of what he now is. The amount of preparation needed for Remus’ first transformation would have been an incredible exacerbation on his stresses and serve to build the reaction to the trauma by making sure he couldn’t properly process it.
A physical reminder constantly reinforcing the stress.
people, conversations, or interpersonal situations that arouse recollections of the event
marked physiological reactions to reminders of the traumatic events (whether the symptoms of the new illness taking root in his body or the physical reactions of his body to all the stress)
and intense or prolonged psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues.
Remus can’t forget what happened to him because that would be too dangerous now. His parents cannot help him because they are struggling with themselves and the preparation for their new lifestyle. For the next chapter in their lives, the Lupin family is in a state of constant reminder about the incident. It haunts them.
REMUS IS GUILTY AND BLAMES HIMSELF
In such circumstances parents undergo their own psychological and emotional adjustment as they adapt to the loss of the well-child as expected and learn to provide for their child’s extraordinary needs. It is stated that both Hope and Lyall both deeply loved their son, both before and after his contracting lycanthropy. They tried everything they could to find a cure for their son, and even more to try and ease his suffering. In essence, they tried to make Remus as happy a child as possible under the circumstances that they were in. They tried to give him a normal life, even at a high cost, because that’s what loving parents do.
But Remus, as thankful as he is, feels an immense sense of guilt himself. As a child, Remus blames himself for the lifestyle his family leads. He’s an imaginative child, and he probably came up with a vivid idea of just what it meant to be a werewolf. He is hyperaware of the misery he ‘causes’ his parents. It is because of him that they uprooted themselves from village to town, leaving the instant that rumors of the boy’s odd behavior started. It is because of him that his parents are constantly stressed, both as a couple experiencing prolonged stress and parents doing everything they can for their sick child. Remus sees himself as a burden on his family, even if he knows that nobody truly thinks of him that way. While this is never explicitly stated, we can get a clear picture of this feeling when we reflect on the fact hat Remus refused to endanger his father’s peaceful existence by returning to live with him. Remus took up an itinerant, hand-to-mouth way of life for the 12 years following the first fall of Voldemort. He chose homelessness over what he saw as ruining his father’s life (again). He saw it as putting an enormous burden on another’s shoulders. There’s a good chance he lied to his father about these periods of homelessness and Lyall may never have known at all, or at least to what extent his son’s poverty ended up growing. By the time he died (probably sometime before PoA since he is never even mentioned in the texts) Remus had been well into his chaotic and uncertain lifestyle for many years.
Remus experiences pathological guilt, which is known to shrink parts of the brain. In turn, that part of the brain being smaller is associated with depression, and the development of depression. His anxiety, guilt and self-loathing have a physical impact on the developing brain, making him more likely to develop mental illnesses in his future if he hadn’t by late childhood already.
REMUS HAS AN OBSERVABLY WARPED SENSE OF SELF.
Anxiety disorders demonstrate the power of the brain to create reality in the mind of an individual. These disorders are viewed as neurological problems in the brain that result in a person having a skewed perception of reality. With Remus that means a lot of what he believes about himself may not actually be true at all, but may be just be absorbed from the social consciousness. Remus very openly has an extremely low opinion of himself, when we the reader (and Harry) are perceiving him for who he is rather than what. One needs to take the things Remus says about himself with a grain of salt. He may cut others too much slack but so often he fails to show the same degree of sympathy to himself. We know that he absolutely disgusts what he is. Everything wolfish disgusts him. And while his furry little problem didn’t sum him up, it did bleed into every part of his life. As seen repeatedly in canon, Remus’ sense of identity and self-worth are completely torn apart by his feelings about his lycanthropy.
It begins in childhood, naturally, when he begins to understand the public perception of werewolves. Remus is quoted as saying that he once felt bad for the werewolf who bit him, but as he grew he learned more about werewolves and specifically the werewolf who attacked him. And as a child who is already burdened with low self-esteem and guilt, his anxiety is allowed to burn furiously through his thoughts and his perceptions of himself change to match the world he sees. Remus knows from adolescence that his prospects for the future are grim indeed. He knows that the idea of any sort of job is a hopeful dream at best because of his lycanthropy. The public perception is that werewolves are too dangerous even while completely human, and the idea is hard to suppress when the government cannot decide whether werewolves are Beasts or Beings.
Perhaps from this very public struggle, Remus clearly suffers deep-seated feelings of shame and fear of rejection. To be rejected might confirm his worst fears: that he is a monster, unworthy of love, without any worth or value–the very same thing society tells him is true. His critical flaw is wanting to be liked, because he was so sure that if anyone ever knew his real self that no one would ever want to be associated with him. In his desperate longing to belong and be liked, he states in PoA that was neither as brave or honest as he should have been at times. Remus claims that he was cowardly:
“Lupin’s face had hardened, and there was self-disgust in his voice. “All this year, I have been battling with myself, wondering whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus. But I didn’t do it. Why? Because I was too cowardly. It would have meant admitting that I had betrayed his trust while I was at school, admitting that I’d led others along with me… and Dumbledore’s trust has meant everything to me. He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job, when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am.”
Remus also did not want to say anything in front of a crowd of onlookers when his friends were targeting other students (largely Snape) because he thought it would be disloyal to two boys who had shown him, in their turn, a loyalty beyond his expectations. He does confront them in private, though, because as Sirius says, “you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes … that was something.”
Remus also believes that he will never find love, simply because he does not deserve it. This is something we see clearly with Tonks: even when explicitly offered a relationship in full understanding and knowledge of what he is, Remus refuses because he does not see himself as worthy.It does seem clear that he finds it hard to accept that a witch could fall in love with him–understandable perhaps, given his condition:
“And I’ve told you a million times’ said Lupin, refusing to meet her eyes and staring at the floor’ that I am too old for you, too poor… too dangerous.”
He learns quickly what the rest of the world thinks of werewolves and his own sense of self can’t help but grow to mimic that.
This is a good place to point out that Remus is very guilty of repressing himself and his emotions. He learned as a child to lie about his condition, and he has been doing it ever since. This allows him to cover up who he really is and go out without ever showing his true face or emotions out of fear of rejection. The words most often associated with him are calm, mild and pleasant with an occasional “said sternly.” Unlike Sirius, we never see him “hiss’ “snarl” or “growl.” Very possibly, even as a normal boy without ever having been bitten, he would have had a milder disposition; however, Remus squashes down any undesirable things like anger or jealousy because he fears that, specifically in him, those qualities won’t be viewed as normal. He doesn’t want to be seen in a negative light because he doesn’t want his anger, etc., to be attributed to his being a werewolf. In his mind, he was forced to rein in his passions, possibly filtering everything through his head before reacting.
Just how good he was at hiding himself is evident in the scene where Harry is speaking to Sirius in the fire about Umbridge:
“I know she’s a nasty piece of work, though–you should hear Remus talk about her.”
“No, but she drafted a bit of anti-werewolf legislation two years ago that makes it almost impossible for him to get a job.”
Harry seems almost taken aback–former Professor Lupin, badmouthing someone? Harry never saw him talk down about anyone, even someone like Snape who ultimately cost Remus his job over a childhood grudge. Remus never badmouths anyone. But what Harry doesn’t see is that Sirius is a rare someone who Remus can freely open up to. The Remus that the Golden Trio is familiar with is the polite, quiet and mild Professor. But that’s just another mask Remus wears in public, even if it’s not exactly a pure lie. Given that Lupin never allows himself to lash out in anger, his use of irony and black humor, “And I’m not a very popular dinner guest with most of the community, it’s an occupational hazard of being a werewolf”, is his way of sublimating his hurt at years of rejection.
This sort of behavior is demonstrated when we learn of the Whomping Willow Incident, where Remus cuts Sirius a lot of slack is over his prank to lure an unsuspecting Snape into the Shrieking Shack, and the fact that even as an adult Sirius fails to appreciate its gravity. Remus would have been fully justified for being furious that someone he trusted could have even considered using him unwittingly as an instrument for harming another. And maybe he did give Sirius the worst verbal beating of his lifetime, since he does stand up to them on occasion. But it was possibly not as much as Sirius deserved if he still doesn’t come to appreciate it as a post-Azkaban adult. It is very possible that Remus never quite got past the notion that he ought to be punished for his secret. There was probably a part of him, deep inside, that believed he deserved it–a part of him created by the years of painful transformations, prejudice, guilt, self-loathing, and fear. This is the part of him that self-isolates and lies to him about what he is and who he is, further warping his ideas about himself and his world.
Remus’ entire childhood was dominated by the need to hide what he was. From the time he was bitten on, the Lupins never settled in one place for long. It is stated on Pottermore that Remus was never allowed to play with other children. He grew up isolated and alone, always fearing the moon and loathing what it did to him and to his family. In spite of his parent’s efforts to make him happy regardless of the circumstances, Remus was a very lonely child. Even at Hogwarts, he was alone. Not all alone, of course: the Marauders helped him a great deal, but at the end of the month, he was the only one who had no choice about his transformations or about what he did once he had transformed. It was understandably difficult for the others to truly understand just what it meant to Remus to be a werewolf–how could they, when they could only understand by experiencing it? There is a certain duality when living life suffering from a condition most people never see. Arguably, Remus’ lycanthropy is also one of the “invisible illnesses” in that it is debilitating and chronic, though not very public. Everything that Remus experiences, he experiences alone. He has no one to compare symptoms with, no one who can relate to how he feels on a bad day, and no one that understands when he describes the things he goes through. The Marauders only see what happens on the outside, that little bit of time it is strong enough to show (i.e. before full moon and during), and the experience is one they might try to understand but they simply cannot. And with his other conditions (anxiety, ptsd, depression) it is much the same: they are singular experiences and not often do people understand them who have not experienced them. The Marauders DO have histories of abuse and trauma to relate to, of course, but mental illness is not something many people understand or know how to deal with in their daily lives, even with themselves. The reaction of embarrassment or shame is enough to silence family and friends, let alone the sufferer. And it is very possible that the Marauders had things between them that they simply couldn’t share.
In addition, during this time, particularly towards the end of Remus’ tenure at Hogwarts, it’s known that Voldemort was recruiting the werewolves for his army. I’m absolutely certain that stories about “vicious, monstrous werewolves” circulated in the Prophet and were probably a hotbed of gossip if they were gruesome enough. Remus would hear the other students talking about werewolves just like the rest of the world did–like they were trash, they were fearsome creatures deserving only of loathing. This is a stigma shared by sufferers of mental illnesses today, where there are those who believe suffers of mental illness are predisposed to violence and are incapable of functioning in society. This is an outrageous idea and it has been proven time and time again that mental illness does not define someone and that the vast majority never commit violent crimes and are, in fact, more likely to be the victims of crime rather than the cuplrit. However, the stigma endures and continues to make it hard for people to seek help for fear of being weak, fear of rejection, etc. Such it is with lycanthropy: the prejudices endure, and they are what scar the sufferers the most. Ultimately, Remus was an outsider, even in his group of friends. He was the only werewolf. And, to him, it always seemed to boil down to that.
Young Remus emerges from Hogwarts into a dark world dripping with turmoil. He joins the underground Order of the Phoenix and watches as so many of his friends die.
And once again, the fact that Remus is a werewolf sets him apart from the others. He could get into some circles the other Order members could not: the werewolves, largely loyal to Voldemort, needed to be infiltrated, and Remus was the only one qualified for such a risky undertaking. He became a spy for Dumbledore, living away from his friends and the comforts of home to collect intelligence in a sea of enemies. As the war progressed, Remus would be gone for long periods of time, living in colonies of other werewolves. He would return to the Order looking worse for wear, often with information that didn’t help anyone. And meanwhile, his friends were being killed–the McKinnons, the Longbottoms, and so on were all victims of the Death Eater’s cruelty, many of whom the Marauders knew personally.
The things Remus must have seen during those years alone were probably a significant trauma to him in themselves:
He has to see Fenrir Greyback, the man responsible for his infection. There is no sense of justice for Remus, who must now live beside and interact with the direct reason he is the monster he believes himself to be. Greyback was not arrested for his crime, for whatever reason. But now Remus must face him, potentially on a daily basis.
He feels a sense of humiliation and shame over this assignment, as we see when he is made to do exactly the same thing years later in the Second War:
“Oh, I’ve been underground,” said Lupin. “Almost literally. That’s why I haven’t been able to write, Harry; sending letters to you would have been something of a give-away.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been living among my fellows, my equals,” said Lupin. “Werewolves,” he added, at Harry’s look of incomprehension. “Nearly all of them are on Voldemort’s side. Dumbledore wanted a spy and here I was… ready-made.”
He sounded a little bitter, and perhaps realised it, for he smiled more warmly as he went on, “I am not complaining; it is necessary work and who can do it better than I? However, it has been difficult gaining their trust. I bear the unmistakeable signs of having tried to live among wizards, you see, whereas they have shunned normal society and live on the margins, stealing - and sometimes killing - to eat.”
His work environment (as I’ll call it) is incredibly toxic. Remus is forced to live in the colonies of werewolves, which we know are dirty, filthy and very unhealthy emotionally. Even there he is treated out of caste by his “equals,” for showing signs of living among wizards. This puts Remus in a place that will exaserbate his anxiety and reignite his PTSD symptoms, if not cause new ones.
Greyback is fond of turning children, so there are potentially children living among the werewolves who reflect Remus’ own trauma. He confronts them and deals with them daily, and probably tries to help them as much as he can because he lived their pain. Very easily, this is something that he could relive through them the more his psychological condtion worsens as he is perpetually exposed to the werewolves.
During both wars, he is isolated. He is under a strict no-contact order, in order to protect his status as a spy. During these times, he is left completely alone with no system of support from others.
Remus also probably had to kill. It is never stated openly, but it is heavily implied. When he goes to kill Peter in PoA he is extremely nonplussed by the idea of taking a life. This is war we’re talking about, and we know clearly that Voldemort’s forces are not in the business of hesitating before murdering.
“Harry, the time for Disarming is past! These people are trying to capture and kill you! At least Stun if you aren’t prepared to kill!”
“We were hundreds of feet up! Stan’s not himself, and if I Stunned him and he’d fallen, he’d have died the same as if I’d used Avada Kedavra! Expelliarmus saved me from Voldemort two years ago,” Harry added defiantly. Lupin was reminding him of the sneering Hufflepuff Zacharias Smith, who had jeered at Harry for wanting to teach Dumbledore’s Army how to Disarm.
“Yes, Harry,” said Lupin with painful restraint, “and a great number of Death Eaters witnessed that happening! Forgive me, but it was a very unusual move then, under the imminent threat of death.”
When it comes to close combat, it is lose your friends or lose your innocence, meaning that Remus was probably put in the position of having to kill to save the life of someone he cares about. The human brain is coded for compassion, for guilt, for a kind of empathetic pain that causes the person inflicting harm to feel a degree of suffering that is in many ways as intense as what the victim is experiencing. The act of taking another life is a singularly traumatic experience no matter how or why it happens. When you personally take another life and you go up to that lifeless body with a hole in it and you look down on it, and you say, “I did that,” there is a resulting loss of self due to the directness of the killing. You repress the emotions of sadness or regret for the sake of your own survival; it is tucked away so that it can be justified later in a way that will protect your mind. That kind of trauma leads to the development of PTSD in any soldier, and Remus was not just any Order member.
Directly at the end of the war, Remus loses everything he loves in a single, traumatic night.
James and Lily’s murder was one of the single most traumatic experiences in Remus’ troubled life. His friends meant even more to him than to other people, because he had long since accepted the fact that most people would treat him as untouchable due to his lycanthropy, and the possibility of marrying and having children seemed ludicrous for a werewolf. Even worse, within twenty-four hours he had also lost his two other best friends. Remus was in the north of the country on business for the Order when he heard the the news about what Sirius had done.
There is a very tragic likelihood that Remus was not able to attend the Potter’s services at all. James had no living relatives other than his infant son, and so the burden of the burial and funeral were thrust onto Petunia Dursley. Petunia was not in contact with Lily much, if at all, and it goes without saying that she probably had no real inkling of Remus’ existence at all. Thus he would not receive any sort of welcome or invitation to attend a service he was not made aware of, and if he did go he would have attended alone, without anyone for comfort.
The possibility that Remus blamed himself partly for James and Lily’s murders is very real. Sirius thought he was the spy, just as Remus also suspected him. But Remus was away spying on the werewolves for Voldemort (a mission kept so secret that not even his friends knew details of) and whether he told James of his suspicions is unclear but I think very unlikely. James would have considered it “the height of dishonor” to mistrust his friends, and James meant everything to Remus. He probably fell into his old trap of not wanting to hurt someone he loved and continue to be liked. As the sole remaining Marauder, Remus probably felt that he “should have known” or been able to do something “if only” he had seen. This is the same toxic, self-hating guilt and abuse that Remus is known to do even without war driving his emotions. It is fuel to further the fire of depression and anxiety.
James was also Remus’ financial provider because, as predicted, Remus was unable to get a proper job. This is something that would have impacted his sense of self worth, because he avoided his own father rather than “burden” him with Remus’ presence. Having James support him would have been something he disliked and felt guilty for. But with the remainder of James’ fortune going rightfully to Harry, Remus is forced to sell his belongings for necessities and eventually it is canon that he becomes homeless.
On top of dealing with the pain of incredible loss, Remus had to face the reality that he would now be alone–truly alone. His entire support system was based in his friends. Forced into extreme poverty, Remus effectively disappears from the record for many years. This chain of traumas that culminated in the Potter’s deaths would have caused a depressive spiral so deep that it probably took him months or even years to fully come out of. Especially at the beginning of this 12-year span, the loss of his entire life would have been crippling to him. I imagine there came a point in the early eighties where Remus was severely crippled by depression, though. A point where he struggled with such a deep, overwhelming darkness that he struggled to get out of bed, to really take care of himself. I imagine he withered away to near nothing. He may even have considered (and nearly attempted) suicide. For the first time in his life, he was without support. His friends and his mother were dead, and his father was kept at a distance. He had no money, no home, no anything. And the future, to him, was this black pit where the only thing he could be assured of was continuing to suffer alone because of what he was. This can be considered the darkest period of his life, where he suffered from his mental illnesses and lycanthropy as they pushed him to his brink.
Compound this with immense poverty, social ostracism and the nutritional and other physical effects of homelessness, it is nothing short of a miracle that Remus was able to survive as he did.
REMUS IS INCLINED TOWARDS SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR (trigger warning below)
I should mention up front that I’m not distinctly talking about self-injurious behavior. To get that out of the way, I’ll discuss it briefly:
If Remus were ever going to self-harm, it would be while he were suffering the worst of his illnesses’ effects, namely his depression or anxiety. It would probably have been during the Lost Years as a method of coping before he learned to sort himself out and was able to get back on his feet. And it was probably for reasons including a sense of control and to curb emotional numbness.
I highly doubt teenage Remus self-harmed during his Hogwarts years, because it would be very obvious to James, Sirius and Peter who help him through his transformation. They would see the marks and love Remus enough to knock him back to his senses. But during the Lost Years, the carpet is essentially ripped out from under him. Remus has lost control of his life because all of his efforts to remain standing are met with significant resistance due to his lycanthropy inhibiting him socially. No matter how good a person he is, people will always see him as a dangerous werewolf first.
It was during a period of unbearable emotional pain that I myself first experienced the urge to self-harm. I didn’t understand it at the time, but my body physically craved pain like it did salt or sugar. That is no exaggeration. That is exactly what it felt like. I started small, pressing the prongs of a fork deep into my forearm just to see what would happen. But when that wasn’t enough the thought of breaking skin came to me as a natural next step. I mention this because if Remus were to self harm, I think that he would find himself in a similar position. Most people find the idea revolting and disturbing, but when there is enough emotional pain and trauma over an extended period of time, it is a self-preservation defense mechanism that kicks in. It is a poor, last-ditch effort by the brain to relieve emotional pain: transforming it into physical pain, which is more acute and can be dealt with. At the point of the Lost Years, Remus is in the worst place he has ever been in. It is not outside the realm of possibility for him to have gone that route, especially where emotional issues of control come into play. Remus cannot control his life, cannot control what happens to him, but he can control this. And the scars left behind by his personal method of choice blend in with his other scars if he does it right, so there’s an almost “it won’t matter anyway” feel to it.
More on the original point of discussion, self harm isn’t just the tendency to cut or burn, or what have you. Anything that purposely causes harm OR puts yourself in harm’s way can be considered potential SI. And the things about Remus that strike me in this regard are those he does in reaction to Tonks: Remus avoids confrontations like this almost instinctually. But this time, he throws himself into his work with the werewolves–work that was clearly very dangerous–in order to avoid dealing with the situation, and, more importantly, to avoid dealing with his feelings. This is a coping mechanism that puts him directly in harms way.
If not potentially self-injurious, Remus is certainly self-destructive/self-sabotaging:
He blatantly refuses the position of Professor at Hogwarts even though he lives in a derelict cottage, and only accepts once Sirius Black is mentioned.
He voluntarily resigned said position at Hogwarts because, “This time tomorrow, the owls will start arriving from parents – they will not want a werewolf teaching their children, Harry. And after last night, I see their point. I could have bitten any of you… that must never happen again.”
His arguments for denying his feelings for Tonks were, essentially, “I’m not good enough, and I think that’s pretty obvious.” This comes with the self-loathing and other negative self views Remus has that lead him to act on impressions that don’t necessarily reflect the truth of the situation.
He leaves Tonks for those same self-loathing reasons, fearing that he has ruined her life and the life of an unborn child. He volunteers to go with Harry on what could potentially be a suicide mission to deal with the most powerful dark wizard in the world directly rather than face Tonks, which is something I consider to be a sign of his leanings towards the self-injurious behavior when under extreme duress.
All of these things are very important factors to consider when we look at Remus Lupin in the Prisoner of Azkaban. He is the perfect person to teach Harry the spell that is the literal embodiment of happiness, when after so many years of what was obviously a life full of hardship and turmoil, Remus remains a good person. He does not allow himself to become corrupted by his despair or lost in his sorrows. He does not become bitter, and still brings himself out every day to try and do better. He believes fundamentally in the goodness of others and tries to bring out the best in others, like when he brought Neville out of his shell.
It can be said that Remus is an excellent example that each of us can overcome, even when it is our bodies or our minds that bring us down. Remus teaches us that it is not what we are but who, and that even a hard life does not predetermine a life of failure. For all of his self-loathing, Remus is potentially one of the greatest allies Harry ever had. He is a leader, a compassionate human being and someone who vouches for the underdog and gives people that necessary first chance. Remus’ live may be dominated by the bad things that happen to him and the illnesses that he deals with, but they do not define him like he believes. True to point, Remus is seen throughout the story as a man of honor and integrity, someone Harry–and indeed many readers–look up to fondly. And it is no surprise that he was awarded an Order of Merlin First Class, the first werewolf ever to do so.
In the end, Remus is a minor character in the overall scale of the story of Harry Potter, but he is a critically important one and for this reason he is deserving of recognition.
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