i talk a lot about how my favorite missing moment in the hp series is the one referenced when harry mentions umbridge and sirius says āyou should hear remus talk about herā but like, here is the reason for that.
remus spends the whole series speaking so cautiously, hesitating before he talks, choosing his words so carefully; something i think about a lot is the rarity with which he uses contractions in his speech, i.e. its always āhe willā instead of heāll,ā etc. what that says to me is that he speaks slowly, he thinks before he talks, he is measured and careful in his speech. everything he says out loud he has already gone through in his head.
and thereās a reason for that, yeah? he does this on purpose, he does it because he has to maintain this exacted control or else people are going to be afraid. if he loses it, it is going to scare people. anger from remus ā a raised voice, an aggressive movement, anything ā is going to be perceived as corroboration of every stereotype and prejudice that he encourages people to resist with his constructed performance as a Good Werewolf. he canāt afford to trust that he can drop that emotional wall, because the reality of it is, maybe he canāt. maybe he drops it and people say āhere it is, here is the proof that he is a monster, and now we must do what has to be done to monsters.ā and so through the entire series, remus is characterized largely by his restraint: what he does not say, what he does not show, what he does not let himself feel.
twice harry (and the reader) sees remus lose control: when dumbledore dies (triggered by grief) and during their fight in grimmauld during deathly hallows (triggered by shame, fear, anger, self-loathing ā a lot of things). extreme situations and emotions are the only things that shake him, right, thats when he breaks, thatās when he drops that shield: when he himself is so broken that he does not have the strength to keep it up any longer.
but here is the point in the long-winded rant where i wrap myself back around to the point:
whensirius says āyou should hear remus talk about her,ā there is (to me, anyway) a clear implication that when remus talks about umbridge, heās pissed. heās angry. he gives himself permission to be angry around sirius and that is important to me because it means that he trusts sirius. he trusts that sirius knows who he is, and he trusts that around sirius he does not have to maintain this constant charade of being a Good Werewolf. he can be angry, and sirius will think no less of him. Ā
there is trust there, and thatās important to me, to know that remus does trust sirius again. itās not a shipping thing or whatever, itās just, the fact of the matter is that remus does not perform this self-protective act around sirius. that means there is one person who remus trusts himself with, and he needs that, and he deserves that. and iām glad that it was sirius, for a very short period of time. iām glad that they had one another back again, that they both had somebody who understood them fully again.
and thatās my piece about it, yāknow, i donāt expect everyone to care that much about this one-off line, but for me itās important. take it or leave it ya feel me?
prguitarman
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