[HPforGrownups] Chapter Discussions: Chapter 8, The Hearing

[lovefromhermione at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 87497

Oryomai asked:

<loads of snippage>
 
6.  Was it entirely legal for Professor Lupin to teach
Harry the Patronus Charm?  In the Ministry's eyes, I
mean.
 
Ray responded:

I suspect it's more a matter of timing.  All of the
OWL students were required to perform the spell, so
one can interpret for this that the Charm *is* part of
the normal curriculum.

Julie clarifies:

Lupin stated, "The spell I am going to try and teach
you is highly advanced magic, Harry- well beyond
Ordinary Wizarding Level. It is called the Patronus
Charm" ("The Patronus," US p. 237). When Harry
produced the Patronus during his DADA O.W.L., it was
purely for Professor Tofty's enjoyment, a "bonus
point." 

I think this fact that Harry could perform the charm
being presented before the Wizengamot was one of the
catalysts that stuck Hogwarts with "that Umbridge
woman." Fudge was beginning to realize that a realm in
the WW was completely outside of his control, and he
couldn't have that, especially when Hogwarts was under
the direction of the only enemy that Fudge could see,
Dumbledore. I can see it enraging Fudge to find out
that a professor (a werewolf, at that) could teach a
student a spell that Fudge thought inappropriate for
the student's age. I can also see him believing that
this was the rule rather than the exception, and we
start down the "Dumbledore's Army" line of reasoning.
Why else would a thirteen-year-old wizard be learning
such highly advanced magic?

Perhaps the hearing didn't achieve Fudge's intended
results, but it gave him something to think about. And
even though he couldn't get Harry expelled, he
succeeded in making Harry's life there pretty
miserable, which was the next best thing.

Julie, who thinks she'll never meet anyone as paranoid
as Cornelius Oswald Fudge


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