[HPforGrownups] Re: OOP-Spoiler: Poisoned Honey?

[Patricia Bullington-McGuire]

No: HPFGUIDX 55231

On Sat, 12 Apr 2003, finwitch wrote:

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Patricia Bullington-McGuire 
> <patricia at o...> wrote:
> 
> > But Harry told Dumbledore that Lucius Malfoy was present at the 
> > circle of 
> > Death Eaters in GoF.  What kind of idiot would DD have to be to 
> > then go 
> > and hire Malfoy's wife as a professor and give her free run of the 
> > school?  
> > I think he'd hire Fleur first, and Fleur is profoundly unqualified 
> > for the 
> > job.
> 
> ....
> 
> I don't think she's all *that* unqualified. She does not deal well 
> with a female dragon, but her Veela-charms might work on a male one. 
> She was caught by grindylows, yes (maybe *those* were females, too?). 
> In the maze, she was stunned by Moody!Crouch - otherwise she might 
> have had a chance.

Fleur's biggest problem is that she is very young and unexperienced.  I
don't hold Moody!Crouch's treachery against her, but her inability to
handle mere grindylows indicates a fairly weak understanding of dark
creatures.  Grindylows just aren't that menacing.  If she can't handle
them, how is she going to handle a Dementor or a Lethifold?  Since she
seems to lack some of the most basic DADA knowledge, I doubt she's
advanced enough to summon a Patronus.

> And what comes to poisoned honey... I think that describes what a 
> Veela... I think the new DADA teacher could be Fleur. Only female DE 
> I've noticed, was Mrs Lestrange... A Veela would have no trouble in 
> making the male DEs fight each other over her, I guess - but "our" 
> side needs to be educated not to fall on that, too!

Some Veela (or part-Veela) could make good DADA professors.  I just don't
think Fleur is one of them.  Being Veela alone is not enough of a
qualification.  The professor also needs to know the material.  If Veela
charms are the only strength she has to fall back on, I'm afraid she's not
going to last long.


----
Patricia Bullington-McGuire	<patricia at obscure.org>

The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered
three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the
purely hypothetical.  They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each
nonexisted in an entirely different way ... 
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"