For the past few years on this date, Queen Jo tweeted an apology for a character she mercilessly killed in the Battle of Hogwarts on May 2, the fictional battle’s anniversary.
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Remus Lupin taught Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts in her third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. ‘In the interest of total honesty I’d also like to confess that I didn’t decide to kill Lupin until I wrote Order if the Phoenix’.
“Arthur [Weasley] lived, so Lupin had to die”, Rowling explained. I’m sorry. I didn’t enjoy doing it.
See the tweets below.
The battle – which featured in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – claimed the lives of Lupin, his wife Nymphadora Tonks, Fred Weasley and more, but some characters were not always meant to be axed.
Played by Anomalisa star David Thewlis in the movies – alongside Natalia Tena as Nymphadora Tonks – Lupin was one of the books’ (sort of) reliable good guys, unlike Snape, who continues to cause debate among Potter nuts today.
“I wanted to kill parents”, she [Rowling] said, quickly adding that sounded “terrible” to say.
“I thought I might [apologize] for one death per anniversary”, she wrote past year.
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Lupin’s death is a sore spot for many fans, who fell in love with the werewolf, nicknamed Moony. For her that was the hardest character to kill of and the one that still grieved her to this day. Rowling started the tradition previous year when she apologized for killing easy-going jokester Fred Weasley, telling fans, “Fred was the worst for me, so I started with him”. The deaths at the Battle of Hogwarts would haunt Harry forever.
