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Remus Lupin Headcanons.
Full moons become progressively worse as the werewolf grows. As a child, Remus was in pain, but since his body was still developing, it was a bit more bearable.
Double full moons were the worst because Remus’ body would barely have any time to recover before it’s forced to transform again. The second full moon of the month would leave the poor guy with gruesome internal injuries that take much longer to heal, broken bones, and more.
Remus gets physically sick whenever he’s around silver. He’ll get lightheaded, struggle to breathe properly, and feel nauseous (or throws up, depending on how close the silver is). All of this is multiplied whenever he accidentally touches it, plus it burns his skin.
Lupine flowers are another weakness. They cause the same symptoms of a regular allergy, so it’s easier to play off, but it can cause him to pass out or struggle to breathe. If he consumes it, it will kill him.
Embarrassingly, Remus follows the stereotype of werewolves fearing fire. It’s why he always sits as far away from the fire in the common room as possible, and why he always yells before running away whenever he encounters fire unexpectedly.
Remus has a younger sister (by five years) named Caron B. Lupin. They adore each other despite their age difference.
Remus is always trying to spoil her as much as he can because he believes that she deserves to have the childhood he didn’t have.
Caron is always doing everything she can to bring her brother comfort after full moons.
Caron is a squib (or just not a witch, I’m not sure if half-bloods can be squibs).
Hope is Remus’ best friend. She’s quite a hippie; she has a garden of medicinal plants for Remus, and smokes quite often (sometimes her cigarettes smell suspiciously of weed, though she would never admit that they are). She’s also generally accepting of pretty much everything, hence why she barely blinked when Remus came out to her.
Lyall, on the other hand, was much more complicated. He wasn’t a bad father, per se, but he made a lot of mistakes while trying to deal with Remus being a werewolf. He does try his best, in his own way.
The Lupins have a Great Dane male dog named Arawn. He’s supposed to be a security dog, but Caron softened him up after she was born. There’s nothing intimidating about a dog wearing a tiara and a bedazzled scarf.
The Lupins visit Hope’s family very often. It’s a big family, which has five children including Hope herself.
Because Lyall is often absent, Remus and Caron grew up mostly speaking Welsh. They both have heavy accents whenever they do speak English.
Hope was a Historian who specialized in (Welsh) Mythology. She had to quit her job to take care of Remus after the incident. Once Remus left for Hogwarts, Hope enrolled Caron into a muggle public school and started working again.
Lyall and Remus are the only ones who enjoy reading books, it’s one of the few things they bond over.
Hope likes taking the kids into the woods so that they can catch little animals like frogs, bunnies, etc.. They let them go afterwards, but it’s always fun to chase the small animals.
Lyall always takes Caron very seriously when she asks him to check for monsters under the bed, and does a complete sweep of the room. He will not make the same mistake twice.
Remus is afraid of the dark, so Lyall made him a small nightlight that illuminates the room to his liking. Hope hopped in and made it so that it would spin and carved some stars so that the room looked like the stars were dancing around his bedroom.
Remus brought the nightlight to Hogwarts, though he would only turn it on behind closed curtains.
Lyall disappeared for ‘work’ whenever the full moon neared. He wouldn’t return until a couple of days after, and he would always bring Remus a small bag filled with chocolate. This is why Remus is so attached to his chocolate, especially during and after full moons.
Caron has the habit of kissing Remus’ wounds because “kisses make everything better!” and Remus loves it.
Remus started using a cane during his fourth year, after a double full moon.
That month (October, 1974) was also very traumatic for a lot of people. After the second full moon, Remus was tired of being babied by the matron, his friends, the headmaster, and Head of House, so he snuck out of the Hospital Wing to attend his classes as if nothing. Even though he was feeling like absolute crap. Long story short, he started coughing up blood, passed out, busted his already problematic hip while falling, traumatized everyone present.
Loves reading books, hates anything school-related. If it weren’t for James’ constant harassment, Remus would be failing every class.
So petty. And I mean this in a will-perform-a-sticking-charm-on-your-bed-and-stick-it-to-the-ceiling kind of petty. The pranks are relatively harmless (most of the time) but they’re such a hassle to undo.
He’s the funniest member of the Marauders. He always makes the snarkiest remarks, but only loud enough for his friends to hear. You’d always see the boys absolutely pissing themselves from laughter while Remus sits in the middle as if he’s just as confused as everyone else.
He doesn’t hesitate to throw his friends under the bus just so he doesn’t get detention. He has a very good poker face, so it’s easy to get away with it.
i have always been a Romulus Lupin truther!! I'm like you where I don't really like ocs if they impact the main plot but i make this once exception. Idk if it's my major bias towards Remus but he just doesn't seem like an only child to me and I think Hope and Lyall would've had more kids if Greyback never happened
I've seen a few hcs once that Romulus did exist but Remus killed him during a full moon before he joined Hogwarts so he never talks about him. Personally I go completely off of cannon in this instant and hc him to be six years older then Remus (im just a sucker for siblings) and he dies with Hope during the first war
I love your post on the possibilities of him sm, everything you said makes such perfect sense and it's just so heartbreaking to think of Remus having a twin brother who gets to be all the things he can't
You’re so real for the Romulus being older than Remus thing! Remus gives off such younger sibling vibes. On the topic of that, our Moony is definitely the younger twin. He’s definitely not older. They would definitely have had siblings if Greyback didn’t get involved, I think.
That headcanon that Remus killed him is wild. That would never happen. Hope and Lyall were so careful about it that’s it’s just kind of ludicrous. Him dying with Hope in the war definitely sounds much more plausible than a lot of the other Remus-has-a-brother things I’ve seen around.
I’m a sucker for angst, lol. I feel like they would both have a long few years of deep resentment, probably spurred on by going to Hogwarts and being treated the same by staff, then coming back home to the unbalanced treatment. They get along really well pre-Hogwarts, but things change and they grow more and more distant.
They end up working it out after Regulus dies, because it makes Remus realize that the possibility of losing a family member is very, very real, and he doesn’t want to end up like Sirius and his brother. Then they meet up, talk it through, and Romulus and Hope die like a year later. That got way darker than intended but y’know.
On more kids if Greyback didn’t happen, though: I think that Hope and Lyall were not only too busy with Remus, but also afraid of Greyback coming back for more. Although, Remus’ condition would take up a lot of time. I do think they’d have younger cousins, though (I have Remus’ whole family tree planned out in my head).
I don’t typically like OC inserts if they play a big part in the plot (no hate to anyone who does, it’s just not my thing) but I recently got the idea of Remus having a twin called Romulus into my head. I won’t write it and probably wouldn’t read it unless it really fit my headcanons for characters and had all my ships, but it sounds fascinating. I feel like it’s a missed opportunity for his character tbh (Remus and Romulus being the twins raised by a she-wolf who ended up finding Rome). Could’ve been super interesting and has a lot of potential, I think.
Also, mythos-Remus being killed by mythos-Romulus could be a great metaphor for Remus being a heavily coddled werewolf and Romulus being more free is cool. Plus with Remus being simultaneously sheltered and his parents (in the beginning) being a little scared of him, I feel like Romulus would have all sorts of freedom but less attention.
I think Romulus would be a Ravenclaw, because he’d probably be a lot like Remus, just a little less shy and doormat-ish (the defining thing that put Remus in Gryffindor is his lycanthropy, which made him brave, so, y’know). He wouldn’t have the werewolf thing to overcompensate for, so he’d be more confident. They’re probably pretty close because Hope and Lyall didn’t get very close to anyone so Remus wouldn’t be found out, so Remus and Romulus would spend a lot of time together. Maybe that built up some resentment of Remus? Maybe Romulus’ freedom makes Remus resent him, in turn? Lots of potential there, I tell you.
Idk. It’s interesting. If anyone does anything with it, tell me. I’d love to see what you guys think of that. If this really ends up giving me brainworms and you guys are interested, I’ll see about a oneshot or something.