Trelawney / Incompetent teachers/Binns theory

[lifeavantgarde]

No: HPFGUIDX 110587

>>>macfotuk at y... wrote:
I re-read OotP and it occurred to me that Sybil Trelawney's very 
near ousting from Hogwarts by Umbridge was an ideal way to put 
Trelawney out into the world so that LV or the DE's could get their 
hands on her. 
I believe that this is why DD took her on and defends her despite 
not rating her as a teacher - to keep her safe from LV.<<<

Stefanie:
HERE HERE! I posted on this a while back (in relation to Snape 
actually) and I still remain convinced. JKR made an effort to let us 
know certain teachers' years of employment in OotP and from those 
numbers, you have Trelawney being hired directly after her prophecy 
and Snape being hired in the same year Dumbledore reveals him as a 
spy. 

At the end of OotP, Dumbledore never goes into what he did with 
Trelawney after the prophecy, or the reasoning thereof. DD seems to 
have faith in hereditary divination skills, but judging from his 
tone, he doesn't have faith that they can be taught. I don't think 
one quite accidental prophecy would change his mind about that. 
(Trelawney hadn't shown him any ability at *teaching* in her whole 
interview). It's been smashed down our throats that Hogwarts is the 
safest place to be...why wouldn't DD bring the speaker of an 
overheard prophecy back there under the rather unremarkable guise of 
continuing the post?

Then we have Snape, who does indeed know his stuff, but really shows 
no signs of wanting to do what he's doing. Surprise, surprise, Snape 
was hired right around when Dumbledore revealed his spy hood at 
Karkaroff's trial with, not only DE Karkaroff present, but many 
others as well. It's not that far-fetched (especially with the 
example of Trelawney) to think that Dumbledore would've hired Snape 
to keep him safe from any revenge-seekers after his rather large 
secret was spilled.

If one is going to look at things this way, then going down the list 
of teachers (save the DADA post, as it's notoriously hard to fill), 
those others that seem pointless to have on staff are Binns and 
Hagrid. While we definitely know when Hagrid was taken on, we don't 
know when Binns was hired (he died of old age, but he may've been 
quite old when hired).

As we've seen two positions that were empty near the end of the 
first war, and quite possibly three, since Snape was keen for the 
DADA position (a Professor Potter being another of my favorite 
theories), perhaps we're seeing backlash from the killings that were 
quite thick at the time. Also, perhaps the History of Magic position 
was one of these vacated posts. What if Binns were hired around the 
same time as Trelawney and Snape also to be kept safe? Of course, 
now he's dead, but we saw in CoS how ghosts can be affected by magic 
(Nick's petrification)...perhaps even ghosts' memories can be 
pilfered and Dumbledore is keeping on the ineffectual Binns to 
prevent just that?

Stefanie
Who isn't sure she believes the Binns bit, but enjoys speculating at 
4AM :o)