I spent my entire shift at work thinking about an AU where Remus keeps his job at the end of PoA, and Umbridge comes in 5th year to do inspections and keeps trying to find a reason to fire him but no one literally has any bad things to say about him.
Not Draco Malfoy “I know I’m usually the first to throw someone under the bus but also O.W.L.s ARE this year and I’m not losing a competent teacher and risking my O.”
Not even Severus Snape, who, when questioned, has to some very fast mental math between who he hates more- Lupin or Umbridge. Not to mention, implying that Lupin could be dangerous due to his lycanthropy would be a self-burn on his own potion making skills, and he assures Umbridge there’s not a person in the country who brews a more effective wolfsbane potion.
And when Umbridge observes his class (classes, actually, she’s determined to find a slip up), she sees nothing but students acting ridiculously well behaved, engaging in non-threatening and non-aggressive defensive magical theory, and Lupin standing demurely at the front of the room smiling at her.
(Lupin didn’t ask them to do this, of course, but there’s an unspoken understanding amongst the students that the kid who loses Lupin for the school is going to have their social life fuckin destroyed by every 7th year who finally feel confident in their ability to pass a DADA NEWT, not to mention the unbridled wrath of one Hermione Granger)
