[HPforGrownups] DADA position.

[Patricia Bullington-McGuire]

No: HPFGUIDX 58685

Yes, I'm replying to my own post.  Tacky, I know.

On Mon, 26 May 2003, Patricia Bullington-McGuire wrote:

> And
> learning a counter-curse without knowing about the curse it is supposed to
> counter is utterly pointless.  

If the DADA professors don't know how to cast dark curses, then how would
the students ever get a chance to practice their counter-curses?  If the
DADA class is really worth taking, the students need hands-on experience.  
Lupin gave his third-years that with the boggart, but what did the
higher-level students get?  If they are going to be able to protect
themselves later in life, the first time they try out a counter-curse had
better not be when they are being faced down by an experienced dark wizard
who wants to do them harm.  So, not only do I think it is essential that
DADA professors know how to perform Dark Arts, I even think they are
likely to use them *in class* to teach students how to defend against them
(much like Crouch!Moody did with the Imperius Curse, which in fact did
teach Harry a valuable lesson in how to resist it).

----
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"