Will Lyall Lupin be in “Fantastic Beasts”?
Lyall Lupin is Remus’s father and a contemporary of Newt Scamander. There is a strong possibility he might make an appearance in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trilogy – but even if he doesn’t, the connections between them are interesting.
Newt Scamander had significant interest in werewolves. So much so that he instituted the Werewolf Register – it came into effect in 1947 (although Scamander is not very proud of this achievement). The Register wasn’t maintained very well and wasn’t popular with werewolves; indeed, “werewolves did all they could to avoid being registered” – one of such being Fenrir Greyback.
It is extremely likely Lyall Lupin was acquainted with Newt during this period since they were both professionally active. (Remus was born in 1960, so before that time Lyall was undoubtedly already working.) Newt and Lyall worked in the same department at the Ministry, although Lyall seemed to be more of an expert on Non-Human Spirituous Apparitions than Beasts (which were Newt’s forte) around this time.
By the 1960s, when the Ministry was recruiting experts on Dark creatures in order to combat Lord Voldemort’s growing army, it is likely Newt (since he was still working at the Ministry) assisted the Ministry during this time, as did Lyall Lupin. Newt wasn’t working in the Beasts Division at this time anymore since he was working on instituting a Ban on Experimental Breeding, but there is no doubt that by this point they must have known each other. In fact, Newt’s Ban on Experimental Breeding in 1965 may have been a reaction to the Ministry’s discovery of hybrid Dark creatures bred by Voldemort or his followers.
By 1965, Lyall Lupin moved into the Beasts Division in order to be on the panel that determined Fenrir Greyback’s lycanthropy (which led to Greyback seeking revenge and biting a young Remus). Lyall Lupin at this stage viewed werewolves as “soulless, evil, deserving nothing but death.” Later, after his son contracted lyncanthropy, he changed his mind. We do not know how Newt Scamander felt about werewolves for some time, but his institution of the Register points toward his bias against them – since he clearly believed they needed to be tracked (even if he believed this out of sympathy). After 1975 he seems to express a more empathetic approach, recommending “a heartrending account of one wizard’s battle with lyncanthropy, […] the classic ‘Hairy Snout, Human Heart’ by an anonymous author (Whizz Hard Books, 1975)” in Fantastic Beasts.
Do you think any characters already mentioned in Harry Potter will make an appearance? If so, who?
