McGonagall first subject

[M.Clifford]

No: HPFGUIDX 114545


> 
> kmc wrote:
> > In OotP, McGonagall tells Umbridge that she had been teaching 
for 39 years this December. Using the dates from the HP-Lexicon, 
> > McGonagall began teaching in 1956. Dumbledore did not become 
> > Headmaster until 1970.  Dumbledore was the Transfiguration 
teacher when Tom Riddle was at Hogwarts in 1942. 
> > 
> > What subject did McGonagall teach when she started at Hogwarts 
> > December 1956?
> > 
> > If she started as the Transfiguration teacher, did Dumbledore 
> > teach anther subject like DADA or Potions?
> 
> Yb:
> What makes you say DD wasn't the headmaster in 1956? Is that on 
the  Lexicon? (Tools around, doing some research... Drat! Timelines 
are down at the HPL! Drat!) Well... I'll assume you got that from 
the Lexicon, and they got it from Lupin's quote in the Shrieking 
> Shack, "Then DD became Headmaster, and he was sympathetic." I 
always felt that DD took over after Dippet, and that said quote 
could be interpreted different ways... Anyway, IF DD had to teach 
another class (because I'm almost certain McGonagall has been 
teaching Transfiguration, and only Transfiguration, for four 
decades, she just seems so solid on it, and we never saw her 
substituting for Lupin in PoA, now did we?) he probably taught DADA. 
Just a hunch. Potions is less likely. He'd get his beard in the 
cauldron by accident.
> 

Valky:
Another possibility is that between the time when DD was a 
transfiguration teacher and the time when he became Hogwarts 
Headmaster, which most likely includes 1956 he was doing something 
else entirely. It is not too much of a stretch to imagine DD holding 
some *other* position of importance in the WW before he was asked to 
Headmaster the school, as opposed to him moving directly there from 
a teaching role.