I'm going to get you for that one, Grindylowe. Oh, not for the bit about transsexuality; I mean for situating Lupin in Iowa. ^_^;; (Argh! We're fixated on the Americas!) Personally, I can see him better back in England where he belongs, just finishing a Doctorate in Anthropology (or maybe Folklore? Kind of the way Séan McCann was working before he dropped out to join The Band - mua ha ha) at Oxford. And maybe teaching a bunch of howling brats to Talk English Right at some local comprehensive. Or maybe he'd be in France. I'll leave that one up to Jemima - she's the French Lupin advocate here.
You know, Lupin always struck me as quite masculine, in his own sober fashion. In fact, d'you know, he reminds me very much of Stephen Maturin from the Patrick O'Brian books, albeit not quite so eccentric (i.e. he doesn't sail around in a man-of-war, picking up sloths, wombats, emus and accusing the sailors of drinking the spirits meant for preserving specimens in along the way). He'd get along well with women, that I can see (one of Stephen's main traits), but he's still very much a member of the opposite sex. He'd have to do some deep digging merely to unearth his feminine side.
Ah, but meh, that's only my impression. I might be blind, or insane. I don't particularly care, really. I'm too busy trying to write up a snaggit at the moment. I'm just taking five minutes to write this post and then I'm running off again. ^_^
I can see Sirius Black as a crime lord - hah, no, just kidding. I'm not entirely sure if this is in any way accurate, mind, because I seriously misinterpreted Sirius' character the first time I met him, and I've been selling him woefully short for the last eight months, but hear me out and tell me what you think. ("Telling me what you think", by the way, can legally include whomping me about the head with your desk lamp until I come to my senses.)
Sirius Black I can, if you can believe it, see living in one place, possibly on the outskirts of Bristol or Glasgow - or maybe in Wales - painting and writing for a living. (Gah! **Ducks hail of vengeful desk lamps.**) Or maybe he'd be a globe trotter, off in India snapping photos most of the time, invading National Geographic with his stories. Either way I can see him as a sort of British metropolitan Emily Carr, always shoving ahead in the artistic/academic world.
I arrived at this (admittably wacky) impression, by the way, by re-reading Azkaban. Sirius may be a little wild, but his vocabulary and his way of expressing himself indicate someone who is not only educated but enjoys it as well, and is always eager to learn more. Yeah, I can see him trying to learn Sanskrit or participating in a Kwakwaka'wakw potlatch. (I could really see him chatting avidly with my previous First Nations Studies teacher, Corrine Michel, but that's beside the point.)
I think Severus Snape would still be trapped teaching a bunch of snotty kids in Chemistry. It just seems to be his destiny.
Dumbledore would be dead by now if he were a Muggle, so we needn't worry about him.
Harry, Ron and Hermione fall under the same category, because they're still in school either way and not yet required to know what they're going to do with their lives. (But I think they'd be whining in Career and Personal Planning as much as I do.)
Minerva McGonagall (it's a funny name, I know, but it's not too hard to spell) would be Co-Chief Executive of some aggressive international company. Right now she'd be planning the downfall of the U.S. economy, see if she wouldn't. ^_^
Bah, that's enough for now. I'm sure if I thought hard I could probably come up with lifestyle prospects for every person mentioned in those books, but it occurs to me that most likely no one wants to hear me, and I'm still stuck trying to decide whether the Dementors of Azkaban have a human Warden (yeah, that's the snaggit again).