More in Defense of Hagrid

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 40354

Jenny:

>>I'm sorry, but he is not supposed to be 
Harry's friend. I am there for my students and I've listened to 
many a sob story, have given advice and have laughed with my 
students many times. They even know a bit about my life - but I 
DO NOT cry to them or expect them to help me if I make a 
mistake. I don't tell them when I am having problems at home 
and I don't expect them to pick me up when I am down. In fact, 
they never know if I am dealing with somethig outside of school 
because I keep that to myself. I don't care what position Hagrid 
has at Hogwarts; he should not EVER have Harry and Co. 
helping him out and sneaking around in the middle of 
the night when he messes up. Hagrid needs to learn how to take 
better care of himself.<<

Considering that Hogwarts is the only wizarding school for the 
UK, all the staff who aren't from all-Muggle families are likely to 
have relatives among the student body, perhaps even children 
and grandchildren. It doesn't surprise me that Hogwarts  would 
have a more relaxed attitude toward mixing personal and 
professional relationships.  The wizarding world as a whole is 
so close-knit and clubby that such things probably  aren't 
considered unusual. There's no hint that anyone thinks it's 
wrong  for Lavender and Parvati to lunch with Professor 
Trelawney every day. 

JKR isn't blind to the fact that such dual role relationships can 
cause problems and I'm sure Dumbledore isn't either. We see 
hints of it with Snape and Karkaroff.  However, Muggle-borns 
who enter the wizarding world are  cut off from their natural 
families by their diverging experiences, even if, unlike Harry, they 
had solid relationships to begin with. Dumbledore may feel the 
risks of emotional isolation, especially for Harry, are worse than 
whatever problems he might run into as a result of being 
entangled in Hagrid's affairs. And I think Hagrid learned his 
lesson after Norbert and Aragog--he never again takes 
advantage of  the Trio's willingness to break rules on his behalf, 
and chides them when he finds they have done so.

Hagrid's emotions are outsize, like his body. Unlike Madame 
Maxime, he hasn't mastered the social and physical graces he 
needs to be unobtrusive among the normal sized population. 
The problems he has blending into the wizarding world aren't 
any different than the ones Harry had  at his elementary school. 
Think of all the times Harry did things that alarmed his Muggle 
teachers when he was upset or scared.

Yes, Hagrid drinks too much on occasion...this *is* a story set in 
Scotland. It would be absurd to pretend that hard drinking isn't  
part of the traditional culture. The damage caused by Hagrid's 
drinking isn't white-washed. Hagrid knows he's to blame for 
letting Fluffy's secret out. This is another case where he's 
learned a lesson. Rita Skeeter doesn't get anything damaging 
out of him in the Pub. She learned about his parentage from 
eavesdropping at the Yule ball. Harry sees her there in beetle 
form, though of course he doesn't know it's her. Rita probably got 
Fridwulfa's name from digging into old records, just as Fudge 
accused Harry of doing. I can't see Hagrid telling her that out of 
the blue, and she couldn't have risked asking him without 
revealing what she already knew.

All Rita's able to do with the information she got from Hagrid in 
the Pub is insinuate that there must be something illegal about 
the skrewts, because Hagrid refuses to tell her if he had 
permission to breed them. Considering that they are one of the 
hazards in the Maze, he probably did have permission, just as 
the Ministry gave permission to import the dragons for the first 
task. Of course he was forbidden to tell her that, since the 
purpose  was to have the contestants confront an unfamiliar 
creature. (Hagrid's fourth year class could raise the skrewts 
since they were supposedly too young to be contestants.) So 
Hagrid *was* being discrete, and Rita made him look bad for it. 
She'd have done the same if he'd refused to talk to her at all.

I would also like to say a few words in defense of the 
much-maligned flobberworms. Flobberworms seem to have 
been the standard curriculum as recommended by the Board of 
Governors, which makes some sense to me. The students need 
to master basic animal husbandry before going on to interestin' 
creatures, and they also need to learn that, yes, taking care of 
animals can be dull and  repititious. You can't stop taking care of 
an animal that's depending on you to feed it just because it got 
boring.

Has anybody ever thought that the reason Ron picked Care of 
Magical Creatures as an  elective  was that it had a reputation for 
being less challenging? Dumbledore, or JKR, may be making a 
point about taking what we used to call a "pipe" course.

This also could shed some light on why McGonagall let 
Hermione experiment with her impossible schedule. If she had 
been limited to two electives, she might have chosen Divination 
and CoMC in order to be with her friends, and missed out on 
discovering Arithmancy, her favorite subject, altogether. 

Pippin