McGonagall first subject

[macfotuk at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 114625


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "M.Clifford" <Aisbelmon at h...> 
wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 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.

Mac: I agree with Valky. That is, it was my own first explanation 
that DD was not always a teacher. Perhaps the time when TMR was at 
school was particularly trying and a promising wizard (DD) was 
recruited for just that period, much as DD has had several 'fixed 
term' DADA teachers (though his choices seem especially suspect in 
retrospect - we may one day find out what this means).

As for DD not being up to potions (Yb), as someone else (sorry not 
to be able to recall who) pointed out (much better) a few weeks back 
DD was, according to the chocolate frog card, the discoverer of 12 
uses of dragon's blood and helped Flamel (himself perhaps the best 
alchemist ever) as well as defeating Grindenwald by means unknown. I 
doubt there is much he isn't good at, including potions.