death to capslock

Lol, I wander here after maybe a year of absence, and what greets me but my favorite topic. :-)

No no no, this is JKR's world. You know, like our world, only even more screwed up, and with the gender roles more rigid. Oh I bet there *is* a spell or potion for wizards, but can you see them bothering? I can't. *Especially* Lupin. The person passive about next to everything, and incapable to take *once a month* something as vital as wolfsbane.

Ok, I guess it didn't have to be Tonks's "fault" (though I'm very much convinced it was :-)). It could have been an accident, or the spell/potion could have been tempered with by someone else. But afaik magic doesn't usually fail, and I don't see how Tonks's pregnancy by Lupin could be in anyone's interest. Even Molly probably isn't marriage&maternity freak enough! :-)

I guess they might have been acting under the belief that werewolves are sterile, though. Lupin at least seems to be surprised, and says something to that effect. "My kind doesn't usually breed", or something like that.

And anyway, we have no proof that the kid was actually his. I think it was here, at DTCL, where I read the immortal: "No way is Lupin the father. He's such a wimp, he doesn't have the equipment to father children." :-)

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oneandthetruth.livejournal.com

Squeee! You remembered! I wrote that! I repeat it in chapter 11.

Re Lupin's remark about not breeding, I always thought that meant werewolves chose not to breed because (1) they didn't want to pass on their disease, and (2) they were afraid of killing or maiming their children in their wolf state.

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'Course I remember! It was just so brilliantly put and full of wisdom. :D (By the way, I hope I didn't horribly misquote you. :-))

(Sorry I forgot it was you! :( Actually this is the only article I read here after an awfully long time.)

Me as well, and I'm sure that's how the remark was inteded, too. But I guess it can be read many ways if one wants to. :-) (I've come up with all sorts of crazy theories over the years. :))

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Well, it could be that they invented the male potion first more or less by accident a few decades ago (maybe it gave some wizard the opportunity to experiment on himself, and "conducting magical research on oneself, especially without taking proper safety precautions" does seem right up their alley), and magicals being as ridiculous and lazy as they are, just quit researching after that :D And Tonks, well, she does seem rather... optimistic about Lupin's character. Everything's great! Of course he'd remember to take his potion! (Which could be weekly or monthly or even quarterly, after all.) I mean, does she know the full details of what happened in PoA? Who would have told her? Certainly not Lupin! Or at least, he would have phrased it in such a way that it sounded like he was being entirely to hard on himself for something that was obviously not his fault at all, maybe Snape's or just bad luck, and he was dashing off heroically to rescue the children (this works better if Wolfsbane is more effective when taken in the evening or something, but denial works too)... So she was just deluding herself, and Lupin was irresponsible, woopsie.

But hey! More alternatives for all tastes!

- There are potions for both sexes, and they both screwed up, Lupin out of self-sabotaging carelessness and Tonks out of youthfully irresponsible forgetfulness.

- There are potions for both sexes, and Lupin passive-aggressively "forgot" to take his (perhaps as semi- or entirely-conscious resentment for being pressured into marriage, so danger and time off from the career for her, so there!) and Tonks on-some-level-manipulatively "forgot" hers too (you can posit whatever level of unconscious or conscious intent you like).

- Tonks "forgot" hers and sabotaged Lupin's, because we're all like Merope in the end, don't you know.

- Lupin "forgot" his and sabotaged Tonks's, because he was Ever-So-Evil all along (and just never got caught) and this was an unexpected opportunity to take one of the Order's fighters out of the running for a while with the perfect cover. (That darn apothecary shop must have stored them improperly and rendered them ineffective!)

- The apothecary really did store them ineffectively, either because accidents happen, or wizards are incompetent, or a DE had an actual cunning plan and thought sabotaging the WW's birth control would be a nice chaotic monkey wrench in things.

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ETA: or any variant of the above with a potion for only one of them, of course.

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condwiramurs.livejournal.com

I am rather fond of Evil!Lupin theories....

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A variant: Back in Y6 Severus warned Remus that if he was going to have a relationship with Tonks he might want help modifying contraceptives to his werewolf physiology (remember Remus noting how well Severus prepared the Wolfsbane during his New Years Eve visit?). But after Severus killed Albus Remus decided Severus was just saying that to taunt him, so just went along with the standard potions.

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That's quite possible (especially the part about normal contraceptives not working for werewolves). But all in all using ineffective contraception is the same as using none at all, no? Same reasons (laziness, carelessness, ignorance...), same results.

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Yes, but I think the detail gives it a Remus twist - that it was his opinion of Severus that he used as excuse to be irresponsible.

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If only it was any other couple...

But Lupin doesn't want Tonks to like him, he wants to get rid of her. ;) In any case, it would have been easier for him to let *her* take care about contraception, and if there is one character known to consistently choose what's easy.... :-)
Anyway, it's the woman who runs the risk of pregnancy. Would Tonks risk getting pregnant from a random one night stand, or even rape? (after all there's a war going on)

- Tonks "forgot" hers and sabotaged Lupin's, because we're all like Merope in the end, don't you know.

Reminds me of my golddiger!Lily theory. You know, that Harry conceived so promptly was just a way to make sure James's money *will* go her way. :-) Hey, it's not *my* awful sexist prejudice! I'm just trying to think like Rowling. :)

I love the last two! :D Shame DEs and Lupin are too dumb and boring for that.

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It would have been so easy for them to be less dumb and boring! Why, JKR, why?

I'm sure Tonks wouldn't intentionally put herself at risk, but without a few more years of life history of making and seeing others make mistakes, she just might not have the level of urgency that the situation really warrants. That's when "oops... well, just missing one of the weekly doses by a day won't really make much difference, will it?" accidents happen. A lot depends on what wizarding contraceptive methods are available, though - it would be a lot easier to screw up entirely unintentionally with a daily potion than a monthly spell. And we just don't know. (Though really, they should have easily-reversible magical tube-tying and vasectomies, if they have any brains... which they don't...)

Another thought: could Tonks's metamorphmagery interfere with its effectiveness? If they're really rare as she claims, there might not be enough case history to even know that it is a risk.

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terri-testing.livejournal.com

Not only that, Tonks is an active-duty Auror. How many active female Aurors do we see?

And she told us she aced her field trials for disguiase, as a Metamorphmagus. Everyone else had to rely on Glamours.

Or, um, Polyjuice.

How many witches out there regularly take Polyjuice, or regularly Morph into an entirely different being?

And when they morph back, what's the effect on that once-a-month steriility potion?

I mean, if I morph back into exactly the same physiological state I was in before the last change, that's one thing. As long as I've been Morphed for only an hour or two.

It would throw my monthly dose off by an hour, no big deal.

If I morph back into what I feel to be my standard (my mid-cycle top-of-the-world best), that's quite another..

From the point of view of a monthly, cycle-dependent potion.

I'm rather suspecting that Wolfsbane, too, might suddenly prove ineffective, if used on werewolves throwing their cycles off with Polyjuice, Metamorphmagicery, Animorphmageri, et al.

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Now I'm wondering if Neville exists because Alice used Polyjuice a few times too many in the course of her duties. Tonks Morphing into the wrong stage in her cycle sounds like the easiest way to screw things up, but maybe Alice was chugging Polyjuice like there was no tomorrow once the violence ramped up in 1980.

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Sorry for the thread necrophilia. :)

That's stuff people would have noticed. I don't mean metamorphomagi or werewolves, just in general. Most muggles DO know that some medicaments can't be combined with each other (with milk, alcohol, ...), and what side-effects they have. And if they don't know, they go and ask an expert. And we know that wizarding world DOES have potions experts, so what's problem again? They were too lazy and irresponsible to really take care of everything in their power.

Edited Date: 2013-04-10 06:25 pm (UTC)

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dracasadiablo.livejournal.com

Do we even know if there's any kind of contraception in WW?
Sure, common sense demand that there must be, but I'm not sure JKR would agree.
In seven books most of everything happens because "destiny / plot says so" so maybe kids are magically conceived or not conceived that way too. And there's no need for potions.

But yes, if there are potions I think it would be perfectly in character for Remus to forget drinking them.
It's not like he can be responsible and take care to drink potions even when it's a matter of life and death. Why would he think more about contraceptive potion then about wolfsbane potion.

Hm, that got me thinking, do we ever hear something about how potions should or shouldn't be mixed?
In our world pretty much all meds come with "don't drink if you are already drinking: ______" instructions.
If potions can mess each other up, then maybe wolfsbane potion in some way canceled or made contraceptive potion less effective?

It's also possible that "standard" WW contraceptive potion was never meant for werewolves.
Who knows how werewolf's body works. Maybe potions that work perfectly for the rest of WW have no or little effect on them.

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aikaterini.livejournal.com

/Do we even know if there's any kind of contraception in WW?/

That’s what I was wondering when it came to Merope. Sure, contraception wasn’t widely available or accepted in the Muggle world back then, but what about the wizarding world? Was there such a thing as magical contraception back then and could Merope have used it if she only had the means and knowledge to do so?

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Would Merope have wanted to use contraception? She was married to the love of her life. For all we know she thought that once a grandchild was around his parents would want to help them out.

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terri-testing.livejournal.com

Ste. Margaret Sanger, defend and protect us!

I would say, good Catholic that I was raised to be, Virgin and Martyr, but Margaret was most emphatically not a virgin (she was a friend of Emma Goldman's---you know, the one who advocating dancing joyously as the best form of rebellion) and she wasn't quite a martyr to the concept of contraception, though her enemies tried their best to make her so.

Still, if contraception wasn't known or accepted in Muggle Britain by Merope's time, it wasn't Margaret's fault.. There were people out there risking prison to get the word out, that there was a choice beyond "telling Jake to sleep on the roof."

What a witch might know, at that time.... I would imagine would depend on her antecedents.

Certainly if there were ways to control fertility magically (and there must be), the WW would be highly motivated to develop such controls. Who would wield the controls, on the other hand......

Only Merope was, as far as we could see, a motherless, auntless, sisterless, cousinless child. And abused by her father and brother.

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There were probably a lot of things Merope didn't know were possible or didn't have access to. If Marvolo's plan was for Morfin and Merope to bear the next Gaunt heir (there being no more cousins handy), he might even have taken special care that she not find out such a thing as contraception existed. Though we know virtually nothing about her, and that filtered through Dumbledore's suppositions, so who knows whether she would have wanted to use it even if she could have picked it up (or ingredients and a recipe) cheaply once she got to London.

Given the general time period and what we know of wizarding population, you could also concoct a dystopian scenario where contraceptive use is heavily regulated by the Ministry to the ends of breeding more magical people...

Merope's lack of a family network to teach her things raises a good point in favor of Merope having used Imperius on Tom rather than a love potion, if we have to choose between the two. Maybe she would have "found it more romantic" to use a love potion, but did Marvolo or Morfin really seem like the types to be brewing them up for her to have learned how? Imperius, on the other hand... Might even be a family knack, actually, for little Tom to find it so easy to "make" animals and people do things wandlessly.

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jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com

>What a witch might know, at that time.... I would imagine would depend on her antecedents. <

In Marvolo Gaunt's household? That's a big 'if'.

Frankly, we've got a lot of unfounded assumptions regarding the Gaunts. Tom (who wouldn't really know one way or the other) strongly implies that they were never at Hogwarts at all, and the general incompetence Merope demonstrates certainly supports that. But then Albus tells us that she "didn't show to advantage" in the company of her father and brother, which would imply that she did at least attend long enough to sit her OWLs, and her academic record was available to him by the time she was sanctimoniously damning her with faint praise and condescending to her obvious inferiority to Harry.

We've no idea how old she was when she lost her mother -- or precisely who her mother was for that matter.

But it's strongly suggested that her father only valued her as potential breeding stock for future Gaunts, so having a child might well have seemed to her the best way to increase her value and status.

Plus, I'm sure she enthusiastically *wanted* Tom Riddle's children.

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terri-testing.livejournal.com

Oh, yes!

How I see it is, birth control (in all aspects of that phrase, not just contraception) was probably technically possible in the WW long before any of the various aspects were amenable to influence, still less anything to like firm control, by us science-based nerds.

And in the WW, such things were probably mostly controlled by whomever controlled everything else.

Which wasn't, any way you cut it, Merope.

But you're right--to whatever extent she could exert control, she'd have wanted to get pregnent, and expected to be valued more on its strength.

I truly hate to place any weight whatsoever on words of Twinkles, but his suppostion here actually fits quite well--if she'd been dosing Tom Sr. with a love potion, and if she thought that bearing a child increased her worth, then she really might have left off dosing Tom once she was pregnant with his wizard-son, assuming that Tom would start valuing the child, and its mother, as he obviously ought to.

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Sure, common sense demand that there must be, but I'm not sure JKR would agree.

Let's just ignore the obvious solution for a while... :-)

Do we even know if there's any kind of contraception in WW?

Since the Weasleys aren't the average wizarding family, I guess there really must be. :-) And judging by the Black family tree, for quite a long time.

It's also possible that "standard" WW contraceptive potion was never meant for werewolves.

Yes I think this is very likely, but they're both (supposed to be...) educated adults, they should know. And if they can't be sure, they probably shouldn't take any chances. No matter how I look at it, they always come out as irresponsible idiots.

Although, I don't rember - is anybody else apart from Lupin affraid that the child might be a werewolf? Perhaps lycanthropy isn't a hereditary disease at all, he was just wangsting about nothing and their irresponsibility was no worse that anybody else's. (I personally see a big difference between a "normal" child, and a horribly afflicted child + dangerous dark creature.)

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dracasadiablo.livejournal.com

Oh, I do think that the fact that every wizarding family is not .... as prolific as Weasleys shows that there must be some kind of contraception in use.
But I'm not sure that, if she was asked, JKR wouldn't just shrug and say something like "the magic decide when a child will be made" or something just as silly.

Yes I think this is very likely, but they're both (supposed to be...) educated adults, they should know. And if they can't be sure, they probably shouldn't take any chances. No matter how I look at it, they always come out as irresponsible idiots.
Agreed.
But it's not like Lupin would ask anybody about it. And Tonks might have just assumed that Lupin is old and experienced enough to know what kind of potions he should drink.

Although, I don't rember - is anybody else apart from Lupin affraid that the child might be a werewolf? Perhaps lycanthropy isn't a hereditary disease at all, he was just wangsting about nothing and their irresponsibility was no worse that anybody else's. (I personally see a big difference between a "normal" child, and a horribly afflicted child + dangerous dark creature.)
For all we know it's even possible that werewolves are mostly infertile and only because Tonks was metamorphmagus they were able to make baby Teddy.

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She would ask how old the questioner was. The response you gave is the response to the under 12 crowd.

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I'm not so sure. If literally everything else is magic, why not reproduction. :-)

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I bet Snape put that warning label on the flask during HBP, too, if that's a known side-effect XD

If there is a potion interaction - which since Wolfsbane is relatively new and most werewolves are living off the grid might not have been documented much yet - and if metamorphmagery also interferes with whatever form of contraception Tonks might have been using - which might not even be a known risk if metamorphagi are really rare - that might almost let them off the hook. On the bright side, based on their characters, it's hard to believe at least one of them didn't do something foolish, so we don't have to give them a pass yet!

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danajsparks.livejournal.com

I'm not sure that Teddy was an accident. This is because Lupin and Tonks asked Harry to be Teddy's godfather, despite the fact that Harry was only 17 and had a very high likelihood of dying in the near future. Indeed, given the fact that Voldemort wanted him dead, it was highly likely that Harry would die young. And he would probably die childless. Which means that Teddy, as Harry's godson, probably had a very high likelihood of inheriting both the Potter and Black estates.... or at least the Black estate.

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That gives a completely new twist to evil Remus! Send Tonks to her mother, where she can be hidden safely. Join the trio on their mission to make sure Harry stays alive long enough until Teddy is born and Harry can be named his godfather, then bring Harry to Voldemort to ensure his death and Teddy's inheritance.

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danajsparks.livejournal.com

Yup! :) I originally thought of this when discussing evil Remus with Swythv. But I think this idea also works if Remus was "good." Harry was very likely to die, and Harry didn't have an heir. Who would have gained control of the two estates if Harry had died without an heir? I can imagine this potentially being a concern for the Order.

Come to think of it, this might explain why several of the families who were actively involved in the first war conceived children during the height of that conflict. They were producing heirs in case they died.

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Now this is an interesting idea! Iirc, if Harry's out of the running, some of the other possibilities would by Draco, maybe Neville, or Andromeda's descendents. And if Tonks already wants to marry him anyway, and Harry's life expectancy isn't good... Yeah, it probably works better with evil Remus, but as a contingency plan to make sure Draco doesn't get it could work too.

I wonder how that conversation would have gone, though (for a non-evil, non-potion-sabotaging version). Post-7 Potters battle: "Well, you did say you wanted children, and the way things are going, maybe we shouldn't wait..." That would have been some tense and interesting conversation.

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