Ellei's essay on Remus, in which she doesn't mention slash even once

Without a doubt, the greatest fictional influence in my life up to this point has been J.K. Rowling’s series about the young wizard Harry Potter. I adventured into the fantasy world of magic and Muggles when I was only seven years old and was caught up in the excitement of a world both similar to and completely unlike my own. I could entertain myself for hours dreaming of enchantments and mythical creatures. As I grew older, it seemed as if the books were growing with me: I developed crushes on the characters, I began to identify with the situations, and I started to see parallels between the challenges in my world and Harry’s. More and more it seemed like the books were not only an
entertaining escape, but a primer guiding me through lessons that would one day help me to be not only a better reader but a better person.


Although there are a multitude of characters my age that I could possibly relate to, the one figure who I have undoubtedly connected the most with is Remus Lupin. At first glance there are not many similarities between us. How much can a teenage girl have in common with a middle-aged wizard cursed to be a werewolf from the time he was a child? I admit, on most levels I will never measure up to him, and in many ways I would never want to, but over time I found myself identifying more and more with him.


The first thing that caught my eye about Remus was that he was a professor. My teachers, frompre-school to high school, have been some of the most influential people in my life. Yet, I had never come across a Hogwarts professor that really struck a chord with me. Remus filled that void as he
proved himself to be accepting, collected, and an excellent and very hands-on teacher. He seemed to care a lot about each individual student’s needs and that meant a lot to me, since I’d witnessed firsthand how ridiculous it was to treat children as if they all learned at the same pace and in the same way. His work in the classroom revealed to me how kind he was and the value that he placed on being well-educated.


Of course, Remus wasn’t always a professor. There are more than thirty years between his birth and the time that he is introduced to us in the third book of the series. Without a doubt, the most important event in his life before he became Professor Lupin was a night during the unhappy chapter of his childhood, when he was infected with lycanthropy. At around seven years old, he was forced to learn to deal with transforming into a savage werewolf every month. This fact really helped to explain a lot of Remus’s traits, both good and bad. His mild manners and amazing control are from years of first trying to suppress and later simply to conceal his animalistic instincts. His shabby clothes, sickly appearance, and noticeable loneliness are no longer a laughing matter; they are now a symbol of the social and economic status that werewolves carry in the wizarding world.


I cannot claim to fully understand even half of Remus’s plight; it is hard imagining what it would be like to be outcast for what is essentially a medical condition, and not one that he could have prevented as a vulnerable child. However, beyond Remus’s isolation as an adult, he was a bit of an outsider when he was younger for many different reasons. Of course, his disease had an impact on his life even then, but more than that, it was evident that Remus was different in other ways. Quiet and bookish, he wasn’t quite the prankster that his school friends were proud to be. If there is anything that I truly understand about Remus, this is it. Growing up with children who squealed with glee when the dismissal bell rang at the end of the school day, I could never quite grasp their outlook on things. Even now, as a teenager, I feel myself considering young people from the outside looking in. While I love to joke around and have fun, I increasingly find that I don’t see fun the way that a lot of my friends do.Remus undoubtedly went through this every day with his mischievous companions. Instead of shrinking away from the daunting task of keeping up with them, Remus chose to make an effort and keep his
rambunctious friends. I am almost amazed at his ability to fit into their world while still being himself, and it is one of the many skills that I’ve attempted to learn from him through my literary adventures.


Although I have learned from so many of his positive traits, no man is perfect, and Remus Lupin is no exception. While I find Remus’s capacity for blending in admirable, it can sometimes go too far. As a teenager, he avoided being too confrontational with his friends, even when they acted against his principles. I can easily understand that he only acted this way in fear of losing his friends, who were really the only people who had ever accepted him. As he got older, his confidence grew a little and he didn’t give in quite so easily when it came to his beliefs. In fact, another one of the negative traits I’ve found in Remus is that he can be incredibly stubborn when his mind has become set on something. In the later books, he is so afraid of marrying Nymphadora Tonks that he spends a good amount of time arguing with her about all the reasons that he isn’t fit to be married. In another case, he has become so enthralled with the idea of accompanying Harry on a journey that it takes a direct attack to his morals to make him back off.


These qualities in Remus are important to me because I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older that it is easy to learn from someone’s achievements, but it is often more worthwhile to learn from their mistakes. While I see a lot of the things that I can be in Remus, a few of those things are, instead, things that I can try to avoid becoming. Through my disappointment in some of his actions, I’ve learned to look more clearly at myself to see if I am staying true to the person that I am and that I want to be: a good student, a giving and accepting person, and, hopefully, someone who can be truly looked up to by young people that may see in me some small reflection of themselves.

This was an absolutely lovely essay, and I enjoyed reading it

Remus Lupin = <2

Your assessment of is character has depth, and I could never have written that. XD

Also, your title made me giggle

Aww, thank you muchly. Remus Lupin will always equal less than two, even when I am not writing him patches at his elbows and knees and shy smiles and awkward angles *sigh* You can tell I'm really in love, can't you? So sad that he's only a written character. Perhaps I should lover-stalk J.K. Rowling instead, since he came from her head? I'm unsure.

Thank you! I was hoping it had depth. Mum told me if I wrote about him just because I had "a crush" *rolls eyes* on him that they wouldn't like it, so I tried not to fangirl too much.

My title was the only thing that fit properly.

a) I love the title XD But really yeah.

and I remember when you were writing this, and it's very good, I like it; Very much. *nods*