In her article, “Hairy Snout, Human Heart? Werewolves in Harry Potter’s World and in European History,” Eveline Brugger talks about how the idea of werewolves changed throughout history and compares that to the how werewolves are seen in the Harry Potter novels. She then compares and analyzes to experiences of the two prominent werewolves in the series, Remus Lupin and Fenrir Greyback. At one point Brugger compares being a werewolf to having AIDS as they are both dangerous, contagious illnesses that often result in a social shunning by society (303).

This comparison is a fair one to make as there are many similarities to how people who are werewolves are treated in the Harry Potter novels and how people with AIDS were treated, especially during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. When the AIDS epidemic started in the 1980s no one really knew what caused AIDS but it was noticed that people who were homosexual or did drugs seemed to be the only people to be getting AIDS.

It was commonly thought that AIDS could be passes from person to person by touch, even though that was untrue, and therefore people who were known to have AIDS were highly discriminated against just as people who are werewolves are in the wizarding world. In the beginning of the epidemic no one knew where it was coming from; they just knew people were getting sick and mostly in the homosexual community. And just as people who contracted AIDS didn’t ask for it people who were werewolves didn’t ask for it either, “humans turn into werewolves only when bitten” (Brugger 294) and “men who turn into wolves don’t do it of their own accord” (Brugger 295). People with AIDS and those who were werewolves didn’t ask for what happened to them but just became victims of circumstances they couldn’t control and for which they were, and are sometimes still are, viciously discriminated against.

In the 1980s people who died of AIDS were often denied a proper burial and were cremated in the hospitals often without the consent of the family members. People who were in homosexual relationships often weren’t allowed to see their partners due to the intense negative stereotyping around homosexuality at the time, partners of people with AIDS were often not allowed to see their partners in the hospital or go to their funerals because families wouldn’t allow them to see their partners. People with AIDS lost their job or couldn’t find housing because no one wanted to work with or live around someone with AIDS. People who were werewolves in the wizarding world came across similar treatment in that they weren’t really accepted in the general population so often created their own communities outside of the general population as Lupin tells Harry, “’they have shunned normal society and live on the margins, stealing – and sometimes killing – to eat’” (HBP 334). Finding and keeping a job once people knew you were a werewolf was also problematic as we see when Professor Lupin as to leave Hogwarts at the end of Harry’s third year, despite the fact that he was their best Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, “’this time tomorrow, the owls will start arriving from parents…. They will not want a werewolf teaching their children, Harry’” (POA 423).

But all hope is not lost. Similar to AIDS there is no cure for being a werewolf but in both cases, there are medicines that can help alleviate pain and extend a person’s life who has either condition. As Brugger quotes from Fantastic Beasts, “there is no known cure, although recent developments in potion making have, to a great deal, alleviated the worst symptoms” (294), even though one cannot reverse the process that made them a werewolf there is a way to make the transformation more manageable. Professor Lupin talks about this potion, Wolfsbane Potion, when he is explaining how he keeps himself safe in the school during the full moon, “’it makes me safe, you see…. I keep my mind when I transform…. I am able to curl up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again.’” (POA 353). The same is true for people with AIDS, there is no way to cure a person of AIDS over the years there have been a lot of developments in treatments for AIDS that have helped prolong the lives of people who have AIDS.

So, despite the fact that Brugger’s article only makes the comment that being a werewolf is like having AIDS there are a lot of commonalities between but just how people with either condition is treated but also to what extent the malady can be managed. Werewolves and people with AIDS have been shunned by society and there is little that can be done about their conditions when it comes to curing them but that doesn’t mean that those people can or should be treated as subhuman.