What is it about Remus that makes him your favorite? :)
What about him isn’t my favorite? That’s a much easier question. It’s nothing. Nothing makes me dislike him.
He knows his stuff. He knows his remedies. He goes to Hogwarts prepared for the dementors with exactly what he needs.
He comes from smart. Lyall is an expert on non-human spirits. And Hope was in the real-estate business, which takes a sharp mind.
He isn’t even bothered by his O.W.L.s, not that he didn’t study like hell for them. But “He’s sitting on my chair” doesn’t speak to a Remus who is really bothered by the exams.
He can read people well. He was a spy. He knows how to sit quietly in a room and absorb the facts, without an uttered word.
Remus is one of the kindest characters in-book. In his very first lesson, he’s able to identify Neville as a target of bullying–an underdog, really. And he helps raise Neville’s spirits up against the man whom Neville feared the most, and he did it with laughter.
He goes over without prompt to the werewolf in St. Mungos, willing to talk to a complete stranger about the realities of an illness which will from then on command both their lives.
He works with Sirius to get Harry a birthday present, even though he has no job.
He treats Harry like Harry, not like James Jr.
He doesn’t blame the world for what happens to him in his life. He knows the difference between blind stigma and genuine hate, and he does manage to forgive.
He’s wounded. He knows–and understands–the suffering of others.
And that makes him wiser. It makes him compassionate.
It makes him a warmer person, because he knows all too well that there isn’t enough of that out there.
His motto is a little like, “There’s no excuse or bad time to be kind.”
He’s seen the worst in others, but he’s also seen the best in people others have deemed the worst.
So he supports the underdog.
He consciously makes the effort to try and not judge others.
He doesn’t take his own hurts out on others, and helps people even when he’s hurting.
He runs from Tonks because he’s terrified.
Years of self-loathing and external hate take their toll. He isn’t immune.
He’s so wrapped up in this idea that he’s a monster that he actually believes that prolonged contact with him actually damages other people’s lives, whether through helping him with his poverty or by “association with a werewolf,” or what have you.
He fears reproach from Dumbledore in PoA, because Dumbledore is the man who gave him everything he has in Remus’ mind.
He lets his friends get away with to much, because he’s so desperate to be liked and loved, without realizing that they will love him anyway.
He doesn’t contact Harry because he thinks Harry’s better off, because Petunia wouldn’t let him, because it would be a whole host of awkward, because he always wanted to but was always so busy, and what does he say, and he wants to, but he can’t.
He joins the first Order around 17, right out of school.
He REJOINS the Order, probably without hesitation.
He spies on the werewolves for Dumbledore, something that for someone with Remus’ history and traumas would have been an emotionally taxing task. But he did it for Dumbledore.
He’s loyal. To Dumbledore, to the Order, to harry–to the idea that things can and will be good and right again. And those are the things which push him to keep going.
That, I think, is one of my favorite things. Remus is a character who has had everything taken from him over and over, be it his future at the age of five, his parents, his friends, his job–and, somehow, he keeps going. That, I think, is… the best. One of his most endearing qualities, to me. The sun will come up, is a good phrase for him.
