Remus Lupin
C/O: The Arctic Hotel, Nuuk, Greenland
Hello Remus, old chap, this is your old friend Arthur Weasley! You're a jolly hard man to track down. I had to call in at least twenty favors spread out through Ministries in fourteen countries. Finally, a friend at the Danish Ministry let me know of a werewolf working as a docent at a Muggle history museum in Greenland. And here we are!
I'm writing you because my son Ron has become best friends with Harry Potter. Harry is a very good, if strange, boy who's made significant waves since arriving at Hogwarts. He, along with Ron and a Muggleborn named Hermione Granger, were all sorted into Slytherin and have made it their personal mission to redeem the house's reputation. Harry certainly has cunning and, presumably, ambition in spades, but he's also a very sweet, caring boy who's willing to do anything to defend the weak. He thoroughly bested Lucius Malfoy's son in a duel despite being only allowed to use Muggle weapons.
However, I am very concerned about his home life. At this point, I'm working alongside Hermione's parents – absolutely lovely people – to ascertain the exact circumstances, so I'd rather not say anything specific until I can confirm it. I also don't want to divulge any information to you without running it by Harry first. I don't believe he's in imminent danger, but I don't believe his relatives – Lily's sister Petunia and her husband Vernon – love him. We're currently working on trying to remove Harry from their custody, but progress has been slow going due to a variety of legal roadblocks.
I was wondering if you could write Harry and try to get to know him. He's a mostly well adjusted young man, if a little off center at times, but I feel he could benefit from having a loving adult presence in his life. I know you're wary of spending time in the magical world due to its pervasive prejudice, but perhaps I could persuade you to at least try to have some outings with him in the Muggle world over the summer. Hopefully, custody will be transferred by that point.
I'm glad you've managed to get back on your feet after the…difficult few years you had in the aftermath of the Potters' deaths. I don't think I could give up magic to lead a purely Muggle existence, but then again, I'm not a werewolf. As you well recall, our family owes you much, so if you need a favor from us, you only have to ask.
Warm regards,
Arthur Weasley
...
Hello, Arthur! Talk about a blast from the past. Yes, it has been a while. I keep trying to persuade myself to return to Britain, but there are so many bad memories there and I'm worried it might lead to a relapse if I return. Nonetheless, for Harry's sake, I'm willing to give it a try.
I find it puzzling that Petunia is mistreating Harry. Lily always spoke extremely highly of her sister, especially her strong moral fiber and her willingness to keep to her values regardless of how unpopular they were. I'm not doubting you in the slightest, to be absolutely clear. If Harry says Petunia is an unfit guardian, I trust his judgment. It just seems rather at odds with how Lily presented Petunia. Is it possible Vernon could be responsible here and Petunia is being coerced by him somehow?
No, that's probably paranoia. I've struggled with it over the years. I've gotten a therapist to help me with my issues, but since the only therapist around here is Muggle, I've struggled converting my issues to Muggle ones. I've not been able to talk about my lycanthropy with her, though I have been able to tell her that my best friend betrayed another one of my best friends to a criminal gang and killed another. She says it's not my fault, and some days I believe her. Other days not so much. On the bright side, last week marks five years of sobriety for me!
Please let me know if anything further develops with Harry.
Remus
.....
I got a letter out of the blue from Remus Lupin, one of my father's best friends. Remember that photograph I showed of the friends? He was the bookish man. Lupin's very cagy about what happened to the others, but he told me the long haired man (Sirius Black) is in prison and the other man (Peter Pettigrew) is dead. Lupin hid exactly what Black did and how Pettigrew died, probably because he's an adult and adults have this thing about hiding information from children because they think their tiny little brains can't handle it.
Aside from that, Lupin seems a nice enough person. According to him – and again, he's pretty cagy about this – he was in a bad place after my parents died and wasn't able to take me in. He also is aware something is up with the Dursleys, because he apologized for leaving me with them. According to him, Mum always had nice things to say about her sister, so he had no clue she was…well, Petunia. I don't know if he's lying or not from a letter. Still, I'll give him a chance if we manage to meet in the summer.
I don't blame Lupin for not wanting to provide me with details about Dad's friends – it's clearly a very sore topic for him – but I still wanted to know the answers. So I charged forward to the library! Oh, listen to me, I'm starting to sound like Hermione. The librarian, Madam Pince, and I don't get along. But then again, Pince seems to hate everyone. Ooh, picture! We need a picture!
[Image description: A vast, cavernous space filled with shelves and eerily reminiscent of the Bodleian library in Oxford.]
My goal? Find whatever records I could of Mum and Dad. And their friends, I suppose, but Mum and Dad were my top priorities. Despite Pince hating me, she must have had a soft spot for my parents, because she used a spell to summon a variety of old copies of the Daily Prophet to one of the tables. Then she threatened to use my skin for binding books (which is actually a thing according to Hermione, though of course they used skin from corpses) if I so much as creased a page, so that's Pince back to normal right there.
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