Number of Years Teaching at Hogwarts -- ?Significance

[mtwelovett]

No: HPFGUIDX 74232

 Elle wrote:
> I was listening again to the audiotape today and was struck by how 
> much detail there is in the passages in which Umbridge interviews the 
> teachers about their positions at Hogwarts.  She makes a point of 
> asking each teacher how long they have been at Hogwarts. 
>  
> Trelawney said 16 years--significant obviously because of the 
> prophesy she made 16 years before.  Dumbledore clearly wanted to 
> protect her (and the prophesy--possibly in her memory) from Lord V 
> and the DEs, so he kept her at Hogwarts despite her minimal skills as 
> a teacher.  
> Snape said 14 years--so he apparently came to Hogwarts around the 
> time or immediately after Lord V's attack on Harry and his family.  
><snip>
> McGonnagal said something like 38 years (sorry, I don't have the book 
> here).  Does this just indicate that she is an "old-timer", or does 
> that number have other significance?
>                                 


I think to some extent this may have been a way for Umbridge to find
out first hand who had been appointed by Dumbledore (and thus a good
canidate for a staunch supporter of him) and who had been appointed by
someone else, where the loyalties may not be as strong in her view. Of
the ones we see, McGonnagal was appointed prior to Dumbledore as
headmaster, and she gets off slightly easier than the others as far as
questioning goes until she is pushed to further butt heads with
Umbridge later and really loses her temper. Trelawney and Hagrid of
course see the worst of it, but she questions Snape a lot.

Mtwelovett