Player

Name: Nic/Panda
Active email address: ask!
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Yahoo: Sugarplummage
AIM: Stupid Grrl05
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How did you find us?: I own you ALL!
Previous RPG experience: 8/9 years.

Character

Full Name: Remus John Lupin. He was Moony once upon a time but that’s been buried with the people that gave him the name.
Gender: Male
Blood: Half-Blood (muggle grandmother on his mother’s side)
Canon or Original?: Canon
Date of Birth: March 10th, 1960
Place of Birth: Oxfordshire, UK
Immediate Family: Mother: Yvette (deceased). Father: Tobias (deceased)

Occupation: Remus does several things to earn a living. After years of struggling to get any work at all, he now tutors children in all the basic subjects. He also works with the Hogwart’s Education Fund.

Physical Description: Remus stands at a modest 5’10 and is of an equally modest build. He is not wasting away and nor is he struggling with a paunch, however, age has been unkind to him and it shows in the way his skin hangs awkwardly from his body as if it doesn’t belong to him. It hangs from his darkly stubbled jowls and his neck.

From expressive gold eyes to the deep lines that age his face, Remus’ face is a canvas for his long and eventful history. The most obvious testament would be his eyes. Despite their golden colour, on dull days they can be passed off as a shade of green. However, there is no sense in hiding what which Remus is:

A werewolf.

Once upon a time his eyes were a dark blue, like those of his father, but Remus can’t recall ever seeing himself with any eyes but the ones he has now. They are expressive—especially for someone who shows emotion with their entire being.

His hair is worn short and business like but it grows rapidly and is streaked, not with grey, but with the light brown that used to be his hair colour. His skin is light, but he has the good fortune of catching the sun easily (should he spend enough time out in it) and aside from a myriad of scars that litter his body, he has no birthmarks or blemishes to speak of.

Slowly the quality of his clothing has improved. Now instead of patched robes, he can afford new ones—though he spends his new found money carefully, only spending it on the things he needs.


Personality: He laughs openly, remorse cripples him and Remus is so grateful for moments of fleeting joy that everyone is aware of how wonderful it is. Remus’ condition has branded him as someone who is, ‘not a people person’, however, contrary to reputation, Remus loves people. Moreover, Remus is incredibly grateful for any show of friendship that is pushed his way. It just goes to show that in many ways he doesn’t have to spend his days all on his own.

This love of people however, led to a naivety in his younger days, letting his best friends get away with murder. However, time, and the betrayal that led to the deaths of his friends have nurtured this naivety like a weed. It has grown and changed to harden him against the grim things in life and moreover, means that he finds it incredibly difficult to let things go. He will hold a grudge for a lifetime if he can.

Despite being intelligent and often erring on the side of caution, Remus has developed a self-depreciating attitude that has grown as he has. It isn’t blatant, nor does it crow for sympathy. Instead it is understated and simply exists as fact in his eyes. He is his own worst enemy, his own best friend and his own confidant.

Since the death of the Marauders, Remus has struggled to open up to anyone and because of this; Remus throws himself into the problems of others. He will fall over himself when someone else is in need and throws himself into the problem so fully, that sometimes he will lose sight of his goal. When this happens, Remus needs an anchor; someone to pull him back when he’s getting too involved but as the years have rolled on, fewer and fewer people have been up to the task.

Because friends are few and far between, Remus clings to his, despite his head telling him it’s not a good idea. His instincts take over. Instinct is accountable for a side to Remus that is seen in flashes. He would lay down his life for his friends, tear an enemy limb from limb and fight ruthlessly for the things that are his.

History: From the age of two, Remus has been something more than human. Some would say he became something worse. At two years of age, Remus was bitten by a werewolf and miraculously, survived. At this time it made him one of the youngest in Europe to survive a bite.

The attack on Remus was the result of a conflict between Tobias and Fenrir Greyback. For years, Tobias and Yvette had run a farm on the outskirts of Oxford. The property had come cheap because of bad soil and so had more acres than they knew what to do with, however with a few charms and treatments on the land, they were steadily producing food to sell at local farmer’s markets, as well as providing for small restaurants and cafés in Oxfordshire.

Fenrir Greyback had been spotted a few times near this area in the last year, but Tobias and his wife quietly assumed that bad things happened to other people—that Fenrir would not stray near their home. However, Fenrir did not only stray near their home, but regularly invaded it for several weeks before the Lupins became wise.

For months Tobias and his wife had debated how to best use the extra land at the rear of the house. A piggery was finally decided—his wife thought they would add character and Tobias was eager to expand into the carnivore market. Though the land had not been touched a great deal by themselves, when they came to inspect it for suitability, they found the grass kicked up or loose in several large plots. Initial digging did not reveal anything untoward until Tobias came to remove large sections of turf in preparation for their work. A new mound had appeared by this time, the grass obviously disturbed. Tobias did not have to dig a great deal to find a human hand protruding from the earth, the lack of decay suggested it to be fresh.

Tobias did not think of himself as a secretive man but he didn’t act on his discovery immediately. Fear caused him to conceal the body again and return to the house, quiet and moody for the entire evening as his wife forced conversation out of him while battling to feed a two year old Remus. When he finally retired, he found he was unable to sleep, the image of the hand creeping back into his vision. So instead of turning it over in his mind, Tobias left the house in the dead of night and returned to the land at the back of their house, wand in tow.

When he arrived, he was not alone. A hundred yards away in the dark, shadows were moving, dragging something across the long grass and muttering to one another. Whether it was bravery or stupidity was up for debate, but Tobias illuminated the area with his wand, exposing two haggard looking men dragging a dead, bleeding body across the grass to a spot in the earth that had been freshly dug. Behind them, Fenrir Greyback was supervising. For weeks Fenrir had been using this seemingly abandoned plot of land to dispose of those victims who had not survived their first transformation. Given who it was owned by and what little land they were using for their business it had been the ideal place to hide the bodies. Only now that they were discovered, instead of killing Tobias where he stood, Fenrir made a deal. They left this plot of land alone and Fenrir wouldn’t do something he might regret.

Tobias’ refusal to co-operate nearly led to his bloody demise but Fenrir called off the men, taking the body with them. This was not the last time Tobias would encounter Fenrir. In the early hours of the morning, their crop was torched to send them a message. Instead of backing down, Tobias broke a golden rule and took matters directly to the Ministry of Magic.

Over the course of several days more bodies were uncovered. Five in total, all of which sustained bite marks. Tobias was taken into Ministry custody endured intense questioning over several days. At first the Ministry did not count Tobias out, but the evidence was circumstantial at this junction and thus, they turned their attention to Fenrir Greyback and his long list of criminal, often savage acts.

The first night that Tobias was able to return to his family, Fenrir paid them what was to be his final visit. Fenrir was able to break into the house at the cost of only one guard, sent by the Law Enforcement Department. Fenrir dragged Remus from his room and disposed like a doll on the kitchen floor where he bled and screamed. Fenrir was not caught, nor was he ever caught for this, or in fact any other offence.

The bodies were removed from the farm, business evaporated after the news and the Lupin family were forced to sell their home and their land to muggle property developers, relocating to a smaller, poorer area of Oxfordshire. All the while, three times a month as he grew, Remus was taken quietly down to the basement where his father would shackle him to stop him from doing any harm. No one in the Lupin household slept on these nights, the sound of a child desperate for his mother before transforming into the savage snarls of a monster was a sound that would haunt Yvette and Tobias for the rest of their days.

Both parents took up jobs of their own—Yvette cleaned houses and Tobias worked as a clerk in a potions shop, between them they earned a very modest living that allowed them very little frivolous spending. Remus grew up to recognise this as the way it had always been, always careful with his pocket money and learning never to complain about the state of his robes or toys.

It wasn’t long before Remus, unsurprisingly started to manifest his magical ability. Small things such as sparks or the disappearance of large objects such as the kitchen table caused the parents to start looking into the cost of private tuition as he neared his eleventh birthday. However, it was a shock for Remus to receive a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when he finally turned eleven. By this time he was well versed in his affliction and had already assumed that his parents would teach him magic as they had all other aspects of his education. He knew he was dangerous and so did not immediately reply to the letter.

Others were sent—four or five—but Remus replied to none, deciding it was safer to remain at home, no matter how much he might want to go and study with other, normal children. Maybe even have friends. Eventually the letters stopped and for a couple of weeks Remus assumed that would be that. That is of course, until the deputy headmaster turned up at his doorstep, requesting a meet with the boy.

Dumbledore, it was explained, knew more about Remus than he had expected and had already made preparations for him to attend Hogwarts safely with the other students. A tree had been planted—Whomping Willow—with a weak spot that would allow Remus to travel underground on those treacherous nights, and spend them far away from the other students in a house on a hill on the outskirts of Hogsmeade village. Hogwarts had privately purchased the property for this purpose.

Needless to say, Remus ended up attending Hogwarts, after all.

Remus was sorted into Gryffindor and thus he began his education with very few expectations in terms of a social life. So instead, he readied himself for classes, certain that he could at least, enjoy that to its full extent. What he didn’t bargain on were three dorm mates of his: James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. Remus had never had friends before and thus he was more than happy to lap up the attention given to him by the others. However, as much as Remus relished the company of his new found friends, he persistently felt detached, unable to share with them a big part of his life—a part of his life that forced him out of his bed after hours and into the shrieking shack. Despite this however, the group not only proved themselves to be intelligent, but incredibly mischievous. Between classes they made a name for themselves through pranks. Remus was the more withdrawn of the lot, James going out for Quidditch, Sirius winning over the girls and Peter…well, Peter thrived off the shared popularity of the rest of them.

What Remus didn’t know was that his friends were well versed in his disability. They had followed him on more than one occasion, and instead of turning their back on Remus, they seized the opportunity to take their antics one step further. By their fifth year, the other Marauders had achieved full, unregistered animagi forms, revealed to Remus as a tribute to his ailment, and by way of helping him to cope on those long nights. They nicknamed themselves Moody, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Remus felt shame at keeping this part of his life from his friends, but they thought nothing of it, seeing it as an opportunity to do even grander things.

During his later years at Hogwarts, the situation with Voldemort slowly began to escalate and after graduation, although Remus returned home to live with his parents as he struggled to find work, he kept an ear to the ground and it was a year after graduation that he and his friends were enlisted in The Order of the Phoenix, a group set up by Dumbledore to fight back against Voldemort’s rising power.

The group, however valiant, were divided by tragedy. The Death of Lily and James Potter as well as Peter Pettigrew, and the betrayal by (as far as Remus knew) Sirius Black. He was certainly the loudest of the bunch, the most obnoxious by far, but surely not loyal to Voldemort. Remus could only assume the constant pressure put on Black by his family had caused him to buckle and thus he accepted the tragedy with great difficulty, scraping by in life on the underbelly of society. While everyone else celebrated the vanquish of the Dark Lord, Remus mourned. He mourned for his dead friends—his only friends—and for Sirius Black who was sentenced to rot in Azkaban Prison.

Remus fell into depression, losing the will to continue to find work, even when his father passed away, leaving him to help support his mother. Years later, going from job to job, Remus hit rock bottom after the death of his mother but someone was there to offer him help. Dumbledore, who fought to keep tabs on the former Order members, had maybe hoped Remus would pull himself out of it, but when he didn’t, Dumbledore began to pull strings and call on favours to keep Remus in employment and get him jobs that were not shady. This came to a head in 1993 when Dumbledore offered him the Defence Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts, claiming he was ‘well suited’ to the task given how well he had done in school and his experience in the Order of the Phoenix. Remus took the position despite his pride, suspecting that Dumbledore wanted him near because of the recent news of Sirius Black’s escape from prison.

This proved to be one of the most eventful years for Remus. His status as a werewolf was kept tightly under wraps and he taught the students at Hogwarts, finding he had a knack for it. Even when Sirius reached the castle, Remus was steadfast, determined not to be driven away from the school he loved so dearly by a festering sore from his past.

Maybe for better, maybe for worse, but Sirius Black made his appearance in full, action-packed colour one night in the shrieking shack—a full moon, no less. It was in the shrieking shack what had once been merely suspicions, were realised fully when Peter Pettigrew not only was discovered to be alive, but had been the real culprit behind the murder of James and Lily Potter. Fresh grief, along with elation followed that evening, but it was short lived. The same night that Peter Pettigrew escaped the capture of the children, Sirius and Snape was one of the few occasions in Remus’ adult years that he changed without the help of Wolfsbane.

He can remember very little, but thereafter news of his affliction had reached the students as well as their parents and thus, Remus resigned, unable to face the angry mob that would have undoubtedly come hammering on his door.

Once again Remus returned to taking jobs where he could get them, largely working as a shop assistant or store clerk in Knockturn Alley. It was the following year when Remus found himself a purpose that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

The return of Voldemort was not debated by members of the Order—they took Dumbledore’s word as gospel and immediately got to work on rebuilding forces to protect themselves and others against him, something made especially difficult by the resistance met by way of the Ministry of Magic. For years Remus operated in two levels. His ‘ailment’ allowed him to become more easily accepted by the underbelly of society and he spent the next three years with his ear to the ground, taking whatever jobs came his way that enabled him to report back any findings. Most importantly, he tracked the movements of Fenrir Greyback during this period and managed, by and large to go unnoticed—Remus, in comparison to other Lycans, is easily missed.

Following the vanishing act pulled by Voldemort in 1998, the Order relaxed briefly but Remus, presently unemployed and with previous teaching experience, was encouraged to take on an open position at Aeternus Sapientia University. From where, Remus was able to keep an eye on Harry, while at the same time, thrive in his ideal environment.

He had a brief encounter with a fellow professor—transfiguration professor to the first years—which led to a fatal conclusion. It was very rare for Remus to forget himself, but so taken was he with Darby Cheswick that he made what he now considers to be one of the bigger mistakes he’s made. Darby later revealed her allegiance with the resurfacing Voldemort—taking advantage of Remus’ situation to report back on any nuggets of information he had inadvertently fed her. She was disposed of the same night she admitted her involvement, at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange. For obvious reasons, this is not a moment in his life he talks about.

Voldemort’s power escalated and Remus found himself in the thick of a battle a year later, earning scars that are lost among the many, many others his body already hosts. However, a crushing blow was delivered that same night when he caught word of the destruction of Hogwarts. The demolition of his second childhood home was a crippling blow that he reacted very differently to. Instead of letting it break him, Remus’ resolve hardened. This was the first event that would toughen him considerably against the worst that could be thrown at him. With nothing solid to tie him to his past, Remus mustered enough strength to draw a line under events and plough through his ghosts. He did not succeed entirely and to this day is still haunted by the life he could have lived, had his friends or Hogwarts survived, but he pushes it much deeper than before. Remus signed himself up for everything possible, but his movements were restricted to the University until Harry had graduated. For the remaining years there, he watched as Harry picked away at his problems, squashing anything that made him feel happy or safe for fear of losing it. In hindsight, Remus believed it was foolish of him to simply let Harry prepare himself for a death that never came about.

The crest of the war against Voldemort came about like the slow ticking time; inevitable, no matter what you did. Remus didn’t ask to be included in the battle—it was simply assumed he would be there. He fought with no care for his own well being—throwing himself in the line of spells that doubled him over in agony. The day of the battle at Merlin’s temple was the day Remus was convinced he would die. He fancied himself going down in a blaze of glory but instead, when the dust had settled, Remus was one of the ‘fortunate’ to drag himself up from the rubble. Dumbledore’s passing was a bitter pill but Remus had to wonder if Dumbledore also expected to die.

Harry’s coma was taken hard—the deaths of people he had fought beside of years only rubbed salt into the wound. He, like so many others, glued himself to Harry’s side for a long time, until finally he couldn’t take the financial strain. He had to get up, get a job—ensure he could be around to offer Harry some kind of support when he woke up, because he would wake up. Remus was utterly convinced of that.

Remus didn’t return to a life of trailing from shop to shop. Instead, he took advantage of the lack of schools in the UK and advertised himself as a tutor for a wide range of basic subjects as well as intensive tutoring for teenagers approaching their DADA OWLs or NEWTs. It was not well received by the general public, but the hesitant requests for his help turned into regular appointments. None of the parents—nor many of the students—were ever completely comfortable with his ailment, but Remus let it roll off his back, focusing on producing over-achieving pupils in his core subjects.

The years rolled on and the Ministry began to pull itself out of an economic slump. It didn’t completely recover, but they were in a position to support the Hogwarts Education Fund. This was an organisation set up by parents and ex pupils to raise money for the rebuild of Hogwarts. Remus wrote several owls of support, detailing his life at Hogwarts, holding back none of the grisly details. He did this both to support what the group was doing as well as for himself. Being able to get it down on paper made it more manageable for him, somehow.

It was in 2008 that Remus received his first owl from the organisation, some twelve months after he started writing to them. The chairman and founder of the growing charity wrote Remus a sizeable owl thanking him for his many letters as well as extending to him an invitation to join their board. Since that time, Remus has been working on a part time basis with the organisation, providing them with as many details as he can recall about Hogwarts—most importantly, the areas of the school that so few knew about.

During this time, the Ministry continued to struggle—people going missing here and there wasn’t something they paid more than polite attention to. They seemed to follow procedure, treating the first few as a fact of life. It was only when numbers started to increase in later years that they sat up and paid attention. It was then that Remus started to collect newsclippings and hearsay, keeping a steady record as each disappearance took place as the Ministry imposed a curfew.

It was the spring of 2010 that he finally acted on his growing concerns. Determined that something ought to be done about the disappearances. He extended invitations to people he had met through his colourful background, some tiny part of him wanting to do his ghosts proud. This group was named the Knights of Pendragon and Remus is presently working three jobs—one to keep him financially afloat, one to help raise money to bring back his childhood and a third to squash the mystery of the disappearing wizards once and for all.

Wand: 9” Ash Unicorn tail hair.

Do you know what you want to do with your character? Do they have purpose?: Remus is a pretty solid part of this game, so yes. Definitely.

Miscellaneous: Remus Lupin is a card-carrying werewolf. Quite literally. He can also cast a patronus (hare) and he can apparate. He has no pets to speak of. The one time he thought he could use the company, he ate it during “time of the month”.

Note: All characters mentioned have been mentioned within the context of the board history of what appears on the applications/in the background of other characters.

I’ve excluded mention of his ‘ward’ due to the absence of that character’s player.

I also read this through, but pretty much went blind from all the information part way through, so a fresh pair of eyes to catch my inconsistencies would be great.