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June 10, 2003
The Private Life of Britain's Most Famous Werewolf
by Hathor Nelson
Remus Lupin is preparing supper, pausing every few moments to jot down notes on a roll of parchment, when Harry Potter arrives home. Almost immediately, they launch into what is clearly a conversation they've had before -- Remus's five-year-old son, Teddy, who is also Harry's godson, has got himself into trouble at nursery school once again.
Teddy is a metamorphamagus. Very young metamorphamagi have limited control over their ability to morph, so Teddy's hair will often change colour according to his mood, and he will occasionally unconsciously mimic the features of someone he sees. This has been distracting in class, and his teacher once mistakenly tried to send him home with another child's parents.
Harry insists that his teacher's lack of experience with metamorphamagery is the root of Teddy's problems at school. Remus doesn't seem to disagree, but fears that confronting Teddy's teacher might only make the situation worse. "I don't want him singled out and treated like a freak," he says. However, this is the third owl they've gotten from Teddy's teacher since he started class last month, and a few minutes later, Remus reluctantly agrees that he has no choice but to go speak with Teddy's teacher. "He's not adjusting to school the way Remus hoped he would," Harry says.
But neither Remus nor Harry is really surprised that Teddy is having trouble fitting in. When he's in a good mood, his hair is usually a bright turquoise, which is enough to make him stand out on his own. But that's not the only way Teddy is different to his classmates. His godfather -- whose home Teddy and Remus share -- is one of the most famous wizarding heroes of the modern age.
And his father is a werewolf.
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For years, Remus Lupin existed just outside of public notice -- he was Sirius Black's flatmate at the time he was arrested and served as executor of James and Lily Potter's will, and he is extensively published in Dark Studies academic journals. But he is best known for his brief stint as Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry during the 1993-1994 school year. In June 1994, he was forced to resign his post at Hogwarts when he was publicly outed as a werewolf and catapulted into the public eye.
Remus was bitten and infected with lycanthropy when he was five years old. He does not remember life before he was infected. When he was six years old, his parents divorced. Matilda was a squib. John was her childhood sweetheart. He was an academic, a leading expert on spell theory, who spent nearly all his time locked away in his workshop. His complete dedication to his research took a toll on their marriage. "At the time, I thought it was because I was sick," he says. "When I was older, I realised it wasn't that simple."
Remus Lupin holds a lot of opinions that most of the Wizarding world would consider quite radical -- and among those opinions is the notion that divorce doesn't have to be bad. Although still regarded as a mostly Muggle phenomena, divorce is on the rise in the Wizarding world today, but in the 1960s it was very rare. "When I was growing up, it was only Muggle-borns that ever had divorced parents. But some of my pureblood friends had parents who hated each other, and it made for a very tense, cold upbringing. How is that better than divorce? The traditional values of Wizarding Britain encourage us to marry young, have children, and stay with the same person for the next hundred years -- but that's unrealistic for most people."
Remus himself has been married once -- to his son's mother for a little less than a year. She was killed in the Battle of Hogwarts when Teddy was just weeks old. But, after much speculation, he has finally confirmed that he was at one point in a long-term romantic relationship with Sirius Black.
Harry, who is Black's godson, leaves the room with a polite apology when Black's name comes up. He says he has work to take care of, although he takes Teddy with him when he leaves and they seem to be heading toward the garden. Harry has rarely mentioned Black in public since the end of the war except to insist on his innocence of all charges connected to his 1981 arrest. Remus says nothing more until Harry and Teddy are gone and well out of earshot.
"It's a different world today. When Sirius and I moved in together in 1978, we were 'flatmates' -- even people who knew didn't really talk about what we were to each other." By contrast, he is very candid about their relationship now.
"We were together for nearly four years -- from our last year at school until he was arrested. He wasn't the easiest person to live with, but he was a good man. When he was arrested..." He pauses. "It was difficult to understand what went wrong. I didn't understand how he could betray the people he cared about. But he didn't. It's quite frustrating that his name is still used to frighten naughty children. He was flawed, of course -- no man is perfect. But he was fiercely loyal. He lived and died for the people he loved."
Though it's obviously a difficult topic, Remus seems keen to share what he calls 'the real Sirius Black', a mischievous, bright young man who seems in every way a contradiction to the manic, sinister image of Black that Remus sees represented in media and popular culture.
"He knew I was a werewolf for months before he said anything. He was thirteen years old. He figured it out on his own. Knowing him, I'm not quite sure how he kept from blurting it out the second he first suspected, but he managed to keep that quiet for a good long while. And then one day, when I was trying to be discrete about getting ready for a full moon, and he said it would be all right if I told him I was a werewolf because he already knew. Not one bit of fear. I can't tell you how many adults seemed to be afraid even to touch me -- I'm talking about when I was seven or eight years old, people in my own family. He was never afraid of me. He never made me feel less than human."
He is more guarded about the details of his relationship with his late wife, Auror Nymphadora Tonks, who was a metamorphamagus like their son. "She wasn't afraid of being unconventional. Everything about her was unconventional. She knew about all of my baggage. She went in to our relationship with open eyes. Perhaps even more so than I did." He stops after that and shakes his head.
Because he has the blessing of those Sirius considered family, he says he feels comfortable discussing their relationship. "If Teddy were older, maybe I'd feel more comfortable talking about his mum. But Sirius was famous long before I started answering reporters' questions about him. Dora was never a public figure. I'd like to keep it that way."
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Harry brings Teddy back inside to wash up for supper. He ducks any questions about plans to have his own children with a laugh and a shrug. The house boasts numerous photographs of him with longtime girlfriend Ginevra Weasley, a rising star in the world of professional Quidditch, but he doesn't seem in a hurry to start his own family. For the moment, he seems to enjoy spending time with his godson and handing him off to Remus when things get sticky -- quite literally, after Teddy blows bubbles in his pumpkin juice.
"Harry taught him that," Remus says, shaking his head but clearly amused. "And then he disappears when it's time to clean up the mess."
Harry laughs and then, true to Remus's words, says he'll be leaving to meet some friends. Once Teddy is cleaned up and dinner is cleared from the table, Remus makes tea and sits in a comfortable arm chair, watching with great fondness as Teddy's face imitates the illustrations in a picture book.
He says thinks the wizards of Great Britain are at a crossroads. "As a culture, British wizards tend to hold on to outdated views. If attitudes like that are going to change, someone has to try to change them."
He says he didn't set out to become the face of lycanthropy in Britain. "Laws that discriminate against werewolves change slowly because werewolves are afraid to draw attention to themselves. The only way they can come close to having a normal life is by not telling anyone they have lycanthropy. Fighting for werewolf rights -- it makes people assume. Since everyone already knows about me, I don't have that concern any more."
And when it comes to talking about his sexuality? "It isn't my place to out anyone, but I know queer wizards who've gone their whole lives carefully avoiding talking about their sexuality in too public a forum. Being a werewolf, that came naturally to me -- there are things you don't say, don't admit because someone thinks it's shameful. But I won't be ashamed. Not of my lycanthropy, not of my sexuality."
Remus Lupin is the author of numerous scholarly works on topics ranging from werewolf rights to the inclusion of the Dark Arts in education, as well as the critically acclaimed novel Unplottable, which explores the effect of social class and blood status on the personal relationships of students attending Hogwarts in the mid-1970s. His non-fiction book, The Marauders, which examines how the close friendship between James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew changed the course of the First War, will be released later this month.