Full Name: Remus John Lupin
Date of Birth/Age: March, 10 1959/37
Parents: John and Mary Lupin.
Siblings and Other Family of Note: No siblings, or particularly notable family, though I suppose Fenrir could count.
Home: Wales then Hogwarts then he traveled about a lot. He settled briefly with Sirius at Grimmuald, then went to spy for Dumbledore with Fenrir's 'pack'. He's back at Hogwarts now.
House (if a Hogwarts student): Gryffindor, when he was there.
Wand: 10 inches, Oak, dragon heartstring
Favorite subjects: D.A.D.A. He liked, and likes, it both because he's good at it and because it is as close as he'll allow himself to come with playing with the Dark Arts. Also, there's a definite appreciation for the irony of a dark creature defending against dark magic.
Least favorite subjects (as above): Potions and Care of Magical Creatures are nearly tied for the title, but for very different reasons. Remus dislikes potions because they play havoc with his heightened senses. His dislike of Care of Magical Creatures is largely because creatures just plain don't like them. He smells, to them, like a very large and dangerous predator and incites a flight or fight response in most of them. That makes them dislike him and hard for him to work with them.
Profession: Member of Order of the Phoenix, Spy.
Appearance: Remus is tall and skinny rather than just thin. His brown hair needs cut and is streaked with gray, his blue eyes look faded and tired, his robes are *always* shabby. He looks older than he is, but only exactly as tired as he is - which is bloody well exhausted.
Personality (strengths, weaknesses, quirks, etc):
General:
His first impression is of being unimposing and unassuming. He's really not at all remarkably except that he looks very poor, very tired, and frankly sick. He is over all very polite, intelligent, and soft spoken. He's so soft spoken and mild in fact that he can be hard to argue with - he just simply doesn't. He smiles, nods, and does whatever the hell he wants, anyway. He's very stubborn.
He's got a nearly unhealthy obsession for tea and books. Tea and books are the only things he's never given up for very long no matter how rough his living situation. He's the very image of a shabby professor. He always, no matter what, has chocolate somewhere on his person. He does not understand Quidditch or particularly want to. Talking sports with him will have his eyes glazing over quickly. He has excellent control of his physical and emotional responses - or at least how much of them he shows.
Beneath all that there is a man who has lost every person he has ever loved - and a wolf. He is reserved, can be a bit standoffish and aloof. He doesn't make eyecontact often or casually, and he doesn't casually touch people. His appetite is ungodly yet he never seems to gain weight. Near the full moon he gets more irritable, his temper gets shorter, and he gets restless. He does not ever allow anyone to see him in the process of transforming.
Relationships: None current.
Friends: James, Sirius, and at one point Peter were all very good friends. Harry, the Weasleys, and a whole assortment of Order members and students.
Enemies: He really, really, detests Pettigrew and Greyback -- and of course Voldemort, Death Eaters, etc.
Background:
Remus John Lupin was born to a wizard father and a muggle mother. He had a normal, if someone lonely (he was an only child) childhood. He exhibited magical abilities when he was seven and repaired a broken windowpane without meaning to. He was excited - it meant he got to go to Hogwarts, and he was looking forward to going to the wizarding school he'd heard about. He was really looking forward to having more time with children his age.
He'd already received his letter when his father offended Fenrir Greyback (Remus still doesn't know what his father did that upset him) and Remus was bitten. He wasn't killed, but was instead infected, and his life went straight to hell. When he recovered from the attack he was registered with the Ministry and very nearly didn't get to go to Hogwarts. Dumbledore managed to pull enough strings to get him in, and he went.
The years at Hogwarts were beyond all doubt the best Remus has every had. Remus was quieter, more bookish and more concerned with playing by the rules than James and Sirius - he was nothing like as Quidditch mad as they were. They didn't always agree, and things weren't always perfect - far from it! - but it was a good time in his life.
Then there was the first War, and Voldemort. Things got harder, but for a while they were okay. James and Lily married, Harry was born and Sirius was the Godfather. As the war progressed, things got harder, and started coming apart at the seams. His relationship with Sirius grew steadily more strained as the war progressed. Toward the end they didn't trust one another at all. The only person they did trust was the one they shouldn't have.
The War ended, but it ended with Sirius in Azkaban, and both his parents James, Lily, and Peter (he thought) dead. His world had fallen completely apart around him. He blamed himself; he hated Sirius. He hated himself; he blamed Sirius. Remus stayed around just long enough to see Harry with his family - he wasn't (and isn't) legally considered a person by the Ministry. He certainly couldn't have taken him in legally and after all that had happened he wouldn't have trusted himself to, even if he could have.
The decade that followed was not a happy one. He'd lost his family, biological and chosen. He traveled between the muggle world and the wizarding one, staying largely to extremely remote areas where the risk of injuring innocents during the full moon was the lowest, and tried to forget. He worked hard to bury the memory of Sirius with James, Lily, and Peter. The difficulty of simple survival in a world that denied him even basic human rights was difficult enough that he almost, if never quite, managed.
When Sirius escaped Azkaban and was said to be headed for Hogwarts Dumbledore called him back. He didn't particularly want to return but as far as he was concerned it was his responsibility, and he wasn't going to avoid it. He knew he could transform there safely and was promised a supply of wolfsbane, so he went. He returned as a professor. He saw Harry for the first time since Harry was an infant on the train. Harry really did look like James.
For the next nine months he tried to teach Harry what he needed to know to fight Dementors and get to know him without betraying who he was. Watching Harry with Ron and Hermione was like seeing James, Sirius, and himself years ago (If anyone is interested he associated himself as Hermione, Ron as Sirius, and Harry of course as James). It was bittersweet - the bitter being the conviction that Sirius was there, and trying to finish what he'd begun - killing Harry.
Finding out that it was Peter who had betrayed them, that had cost James and Lily their lives, and seeing Sirius - or what was left of him - was. To say it was shock is an understatement. It was gut wrenchingly painful and he was in those moments more angry than he had ever been. The sheer bloody hate he felt for Peter has never really left him. As proud as he honestly was of Harry for talking them out of killing Peter, not killing Pettigrew is one of his greatest regrets.
When Snape outted him to the school as a werewolf the school year was over and Sirius was gone and being hunted by the Ministry. He wasn't angry at Snape - he honestly did agree that he was a threat and danger to the school - but he was also relieved. He trusted Harry with Dumbledore at the school and he wanted to at least try to find Sirius. He didn't know what he was going to do when he found Sirius but he had to try.
It took a bit less than a year, and some interference from Dumbledore before Remus found Sirius. They stayed together at Grimmuald for quite some time. He - they- worked with Order of the Phoenix, and they worked on their relationship. Sirius was paranoid and broken from time in Azkaban with hate as his only focus, and Remus had his own baggage after all those years as a social outcast. He wanted desperately to fix Sirius and fix them. There were some spectacular fights, but they were trying.
They tried right up to the battle at The Department of Mysteries when Sirius fell through the veil and Remus had to hold Harry to keep him from following Sirius to death. All he could think was that they hadn't quite made it back, and when he grieved this time it was for the opportunity that had been lost, and all the potential Sirius had had, beautiful and laughing, when he'd been a student.
Remus broke completely and without drama. He just shut quietly down.
He continued to work with The Order and went to infiltrate the group of Werewolves lead by Fenrir. Gathering the information about their movements and Voldemort's plans was a job that needed to be done. More than that it was the opportunity to continue to work For The Order without having to live like a civilized human being or see Harry. As much as he loved James, and loves Harry, the cost paid to keep him alive was something that Remus was beginning to feel a bit too personally. He needs the distance.
That's exactly where he is, now. Life there is brutally, viciously, primal and hard. It is also gruesome. He has seen and done things that he will haunt him for the rest of his life - as though the lives and deaths of Sirius, James, and Lily weren't enough. It's giving him an up close and intimate look at why Werewolves are considered Dark Creatures to be and why Voldemort has to be stopped.
He is, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed off. He's angry at Peter, he'd very much like to rip Fenrir's throat out, but he's also just plain mad at the word. He's more determined to see this thing over than he has ever been. He's less playful and his humor, once gentle, is now more often cutting.
His outward demeanor has changed very little. He is, if nothing, very good at controlling himself.
Sexual Orientation: Perfectly bisexual. Sexual attraction is a complicated (or very simple) thing with Remus, but it isn't determined by gender.
Kinks: He doesn't have any, he swears. (D/s, more than B/D or S/M. It's not about power play, it's about power. Structure, Dominance, Submission. He's a perfect switch here, too, and his Dominance or submission is based entirely on his partner.)
Turn ons/Turn offs He is attracted to strong, dominant, personalities. That doesn't mean he'll (necessarily) submit to them, it means he'll fight for it and be happy however the chips fall. Mindless, easy, 'natural' submission in a partner is a complete turn off, always.
Bondage, to be frank, scares him. He's claustrophobic and just plain doesn't like it. Pain neither turns him on or off. It's just a fact of life, and an unpleasant one at that. Touching his throat is a surefire way to send him right past arousal and straight into blind rage (fear again)
Basically, sex is primal, and it's about power and dominance - not the appearance of power and dominance, about real power and dominance. Sometimes it's something else. Those times are very rare, especially now.
Political association : Dumbledore, both because he truly believes that he's right and that Voldemort is an evil dangerous man, and because he's suffered a lot of personal loss at the hands of the Death Eaters and their supporters. It's as much personal as political at this point. He wants Fenrir. He wants Pettigrew. He wouldn't mind Bellatrix. He'd like Voldemort, but that kill belongs to Harry.
Werewolf Stuff:
It's a cycle that waxes and wanes with the moon. Leading up to the full moon his reactions become more primal, his reflexes get faster, his senses (hearing and smell, specifically) become more acute, and his 'wolfish' traits become more pronounced.
As a result he reacts more quickly, and there's more for him to react *to*, because there's more sensory input. Basically - he's much more likely to 'snap' if he's not paying attention. It peaks at the full moon and then subsides until the new moon, when he's at his most 'human' -- then it starts building again.
Sure, there are benefits. He heals very quickly from most injuries illnesses (a cursed wound or werewolf specific toxin are obvious exceptions). But he heals quickly because if he didn't he wouldn't survive the massive trauma of transforming, and illness is fought off because his immune system and metabolism are ramped up trying to fight off the virus responsible for lycanthropy.
Because of the increased immune system activity he's always physically warm - like he has a low grade fever. He's used to it and it doesn't bother him, but anyone having any physical contact with him could notice that his hands are always warm. Any healer working with him would certainly notice the raised temperature as well as a higher pulse and respiration rate. And the increased metabolism means he eats, a lot -missing even a couple of meals makes a difference - and while that's hardly going to starve him he *would* get into trouble faster than your average bear- er, person.
The Transformation itself is also traumatic. It does a lot of very ugly damage very quickly, and it hurts a lot. The damage heals fast enough, but it's still a lot of massive physical change, and it happens not once a month but twice within twelve hours (he has to change back to human, too) Morning after is worst - he's exhausted, really hungry, and grumpy.
As he gets older and the more he uses wolfsbane the worse the transformation is- and the harder it is on him. Age slows him down in general of course, and wolfsbane not only keeps him from losing his mind (and causing a blood bath in the castle) but it's another thing his body has to try to fight off. It also, minimally, slows how quickly he heals. He is not aware of the affects of wolfsbane - he thinks he's just getting old.
The general stress on his body on a regular basis and the strain of transformation - means his life span is shortened. He is in no way going to live to reach a normal wizarding life span. Normal human, or close to, is possible, barring sudden death via violence.