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Happy belated birthday, Remus Lupin!

March 10th is Remus' birthday, and because it's a round birthday this year (born in 1960!) I had the idea of writing a little birthday-related fic about Remus, maybe a series of moments about some good birthdays he's had over the years, despite all the hard times. But my own life has been so intense – I'm in the last flat-out sprint to the end of my dissertation – that I didn't find a free moment even to write this post by March 10th, let alone write a whole fic by then.

But today is my birthday (yes, just 4 days after Remus...well, 4 days and 20-odd years), and I was remembering one time (6 years ago??) when I spent my birthday writing a fic, just because that was what I most wanted to do on that day, as a present to myself. And also because that was back in the days when I tossed off one-shots right and left, instead of pondering and revising things for years before posting them... Anyway, so last night and today I determinedly made time for a tiny bit of writing, so I could at least get started on the first few sentences of a fic. So maybe I'll finish it by, you know, next year or something.

It's hard to feel very birthday-ish right now, as the world hunkers down in coronavirus quarantine. Things are changing fast, over here in the U.S. where we're finally taking the pandemic seriously: over the course of less than two days, my entire town went from "we're concerned, we're taking precautions, but everything's still open" to "SCRATCH THAT, TIME TO PANIC, EVERYTHING IS CLOSED!!!!" I'm really glad we're taking this seriously, but it's hard not to feel like this is the start of the apocalypse. Or, you know, the more visible version of the climate apocalypse that's already been unfolding around us for years.

But anyway.

I hope you all are staying safe, and keeping your loved ones safe.

One last Remus thought:

Yesterday, as I was replying to a reader's comment on AO3, I was struck by this thought: What if Remus had been the one to raise Harry? I mean, in a serious, nearly canon-compliant way. There are lots of fics where Sirius raises Harry, or they both do, or where they're able to step into his life at a later stage and rescue him from the Dursleys (à la Stealing Harry).

But this, I'm thinking, could be a quite plausible canon-divergent-but-nearly-canon AU: Remus raising Harry is something that nearly could have happened, without really having to change the facts of canon. James and Lily still die (not that I'm okay with that), Sirius still goes to Azkaban (not that I'm okay with that), but in this scenario, as in canon, Remus is out there in the world and theoretically could be there for Harry. In my own headcanon, at least, the only thing keeping Remus out of Harry's life is Remus' own self-doubt, his belief that he's a danger to others and the best thing he can do for the people he cares about is to stay away. So what if Remus got over himself (and I say that with love!) and stepped up and demanded of Dumbledore that he, Remus, be the one to raise Harry, not the Dursleys?

Yes, yes, I know there's the whole thing of Harry having to live with a blood relative of his mother's, so that her sacrifice continues to protect him. I think possibly I'd be willing to disregard that, since it's so clearly a plot device created to justify the set-up of canon, of Harry living with the Dursleys and thus never having found out that he's a wizard. (Unlike the more immutable facts of canon, like James and Lily's deaths and Sirius' imprisonment.)

OR, though, this Remus-raising-Harry scenario could be done even keeping that plot element: What if Remus did some digging and was able to find out that he's actually distantly related to Lily? Making him a blood relative and thus an acceptable candidate to take Harry in? It's not totally impossible; certainly it's a little more likely that Remus could be related to James on his wizarding side, since the wizarding world is so small, but it's not impossible that he could be related to Lily on his Muggle side.

So every other thing about canon stays the same, except that Remus raises Harry from the time he's one year old. And then Sirius comes into the picture too, but only later, after he escapes Azkaban in book 3, same as canon. And they all have to figure out what they are to each other then, what that new constellation looks like. Whereas Remus has been raising Harry all along, as a single parent, and holds the role of Harry's go-to father/uncle/mentor figure the way that Sirius does in canon. Has anyone written this? I kind of want to write it. But also I'm deeply aware that this would need to be a big, long story to do the premise justice, and the last thing I have time for right now is a big, long story! (When I already have a big, long Remus/Tonks WIP that I haven't had a chance even to touch in months...)

By the way, does anyone have any experience making fanmixes, for example on 8tracks or a similar site? (Do you have to be a member/subscribe in some way in order to use the website? Can you only use songs they already have in their collection, or can you upload anything?) I've long thought it would be fun to put together a mix of all the songs I use as the chapter header quotes in each chapter of "Be the Light in My Lantern," as a little fun extra for readers (and for me!), but it would need to be reeeeally simple for me to be able to work out how to do it...

Hello again, flist friends who love Remus like I do!

I've butted up against a couple of thorny I'm-trying-to-be-canon-compliant-but-canon-is-so-darn-vague questions again, as I forge forward in writing the latter part of my massive R/T fic (yes, it's coming, really!), so I thought I'd call in the experts at being thoughtful on Remus-related questions – i.e., you guys! So feel free to weigh in if you have any thoughts:

Question 1: Once they're back in human form after a full moon, do werewolves retain their memories of what they did while in their wolf form? For whatever reason, I always thought they don't – maybe they have some vague impressions (like how Remus at the end of PoA is able to say definitively that he didn't eat anyone/anything during the night he was loose on the Hogwarts grounds) but not concrete memories. I guess I always assumed being "out of their minds" while transformed meant exactly that – separated from their human mind entirely, not just divorced from their human sense of morality. Then again, Remus reminisces fondly about adventures they had on full moon night, with him transformed and the other three Marauders in their Animagus forms, so maybe he does retain memories, if he's able to talk fondly about those experiences...? The Pottermore info on werewolves is no help; it just says, "While in his or her wolfish form, the werewolf loses entirely its human sense of right or wrong" – but nothing about whether they lose or retain their memory, or other aspects of their mind.

(This is relevant because I have a plot thread in the Remus-with-the-werewolves part of the story where he's stunned to learn that the wild werewolves he's living with are able to retain their memories from their "wolf mind" even once they've returned to human form – the way I've written it, it's a skill that takes a lot of training, and is passed down from werewolf to werewolf, so Remus as a human-raised werewolf never got the chance to learn it from an elder werewolf. But of course all that doesn't work if it's canon that all werewolves can retain their memories.)

Question 2: Are werewolves officially defined as a subset of "humans" or as a separate species? I thought the latter – separate species, not considered "human" – both because the Harry Potter Wiki lists Remus' species as "werewolf" and "human (formerly)" (i.e., if he's a werewolf, then he's no longer technically human) and because I'd thought Remus himself makes statements in the books about himself not being "human." I wouldn't know where to look for those quotes, though – so does that ring any bells for anyone? Also, Pottermore says, "Werewolves have been shunted between the Beast and Being divisions of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for years," which to me implies that they can't be classified as humans, because humans are definitely Beings. Thoughts?

(ETA: This is significant in terms of how the werewolves talk about themselves, since I have them drawing a clear distinction between themselves and humans, and rejecting talking about themselves with terms like "man" or "human." Which I guess they could do even if they are technically humans, but I thought maybe I should try to figure out for sure what they're defined as, in order to make a better-informed decision about this.)

Special bonus question, just for fun: As far as I can tell, it is hard and fast fanon that if the Marauders were a rock band, then unquestionably James would be the lead singer/lead guitarist and Sirius would be the bassist. (I, too, have written a story with that configuration in it!) Is this only because James is presented as sort of the "leader" of the Marauders in canon and the lead singer/guitarist is generally the "leader" of a rock band, and then since bassist seems like the obvious "second" role, that goes to Sirius? Or are there actual character reasons why we think this way – for example, James likes being the center of attention, so he's the singer, and bassists are sexy and dark and mysterious, so that must be Sirius...? Discuss! ;-)

Hello out there Harry Potter friends! I've been trying to figure something out, and thought I'd put the question to your collective wisdom:

Does canon ever tell us exactly when "The Prank" (Sirius telling Snape how to get past the Whomping Willow and thus nearly getting him killed by a transformed Remus) took place? I think I've seen some fic writers place it in the Marauders' 6th year, but is there evidence for that? I went back and checked in the book (PoA chapter 18) where Remus describes the incident, and he doesn't say anything specific about when it was. (In fact, he doesn't even say whether it was before or after the other Marauders became Animagi in their fifth year, so theoretically it could have been much earlier, in their third year or something!) Remus' bio on Pottermore doesn't say either.

This is for a story I'm writing about Remus and Sirius reconnecting and revisiting some of the demons from their past just after GoF/just before OotP (yeah, the whole thing of stepping back from one-shots for a while so that I can focus both on my long fic, and on original writing, isn't quite working... though I'm also working on the long fic, and on original writing... no wonder I feel so discombobulated lately!)

It's not essential to know this – I could just mention "when Sirius played the prank on Snape," as opposed to "when Sirius played the prank on Snape in their Xth year" – but it's something that's always niggled at me, and I thought maybe someone out there might know!