OOP: The Fifth NEWT (Spoilers)

[the firey chasm from whence it came...]

No: HPFGUIDX 67103

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Phyllis" 
<erisedstraeh2002 at y...> wrote:
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
> E
> R
> S
> 
> McGonagall tells Harry that a minimum of five NEWTs are required to 
> become an Auror, but then she only tells him about four:  Defense 
> Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Potions and Transfiguration.  Any 
idea 
> what the fifth one is? 

Possibly the fifth one could be an elective? So possible COMC would 
count, I don't know. I'm not sure how he's going to manage a Potions 
NEWT anyway, seeing as how he almost certainly didn't get an "O" for 
his Potions OWL and Snape requires and O for his NEWT classes. Then 
again if he defeats Voldemort, maybe the Auror office will just let 
that one slide. ;)  

<snip>
> Also, I thought it was interesting that McGonagall put such a heavy 
> emphasis on both Transfiguration and Charms during the career 
advice 
> session, since Ollivander tells Harry in PS/SS that James' wand 
> was "excellent for transfiguration" and Lily's was a "nice wand for 
> charm work."  This information, coupled with the new knowledge that 
> both Lily and James were in the Order during the first war and 
defied 
> Voldemort three times, leads me to change my mind about Lily and 
> James being Aurors.  I didn't used to think they were, given that 
> they don't appear to fight against Voldemort when he attacked them 
at 
> Godric's Hollow, but I now think they were.

I'm not sure if that's enough information to go on. JKR mentioned in 
an interview that James had a lot of money left to him by his parents 
which enabled him to not have to worry about making a lot of money. 
So perhaps they didn't have jobs at the MoM. Which isn't to say that 
they didn't fight against Voldemort, I'm sure they did. But I'm not 
sure if they did it in an official capacity as Aurors or anything. If 
they had been Aurors, why wouldn't Harry have been told? It doesn't 
make sense to me to keep something like that a secret. Heck, if they 
were Aurors it probably would have been a matter of public record, 
which would make keeping it from him even more nonsensical. 

~dream