Minerva McGonagall's background

littleleahstill cmjohnstone at hotmail.com
Fri Jun 25 22:26:58 UTC 2004


No: HPFGUIDX 102849

Salvador, Anjali" <asalvador at s...> wrote:
> > "How long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?" Professor Umbridge
> > asked.
> > "Thirty-nine years this December," said Professor McGonagall
> > brusquely, snapping her bag shut.
> > -Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, page 321 (American
> > edition)
> >
> > Was anyone other than myself confused by this? Why would
McGonagall
> > have started teaching in December? After all, she teaches
> > Transfiguration, and in CoS it says that Dumbledore taught
> > Transfiguration himself, so she, presumably was his successor.
> What,
> > though, would have made Dumbledore stop teaching in the middle of
> the
> > year?

Leah:

We know from the Diary that Dumbledore was Transfigurations teacher 
when Tom Riddle opened the Chamber.  I make this 1942 but I stand to 
be corrected.  We are told by the Chocolate Frog cards that 
Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald in 1945. We have to surmise off canon 
here, but it seems unlikely that defeating a dark wizard was 
something Dumbledore did during his summer holiday, which would 
suggest that he perhaps took a break from teaching around this time.  
Did Dumbledore take a sabbatical in response to Tom Riddle leaving 
Hogwarts- are Riddle and Grindelwald connected?  We also of course 
don't know if anyone else filled in as Transformations teacher 
between circa 1943-1956, or whether Dumbledore returned at any 
point.  However, it seems quite possible he was not McGonagall's 
immediate predecessor. In fact, I wonder if DD had a period as the 
DADA teacher.

This still leaves us with a Minerva shaped gap. Someone mentioned 
earlier that MM and Riddle must have been contempories at Hogwarts, 
and that is an interesting thought.  I seem to remember when I first 
lurked on these boards that there were some postings on ESE Minerva-
even a bit of MM/Riddle shipping going on. Does this ring any bells?  
Of course it is possible Minerva left school and assisted DD in the 
Grindelwald conflict.  Was she an auror? Or was she honing her 
animagus skills?  Or perhaps she just stayed in Scotland and wrote 
terrible poetry.              






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