Draco's potion making skills WAS: Scary Teachers - Good Teachers

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 153058

Magpie wrote:
> > Are you honestly telling me that you didn't get that that line of
Draco's is about Draco blowing hot air to scare other students?  Even
with Neville  following it up by saying that his family is friends
with Marchbanks and she never speaks about the Malfoys?  You think
Marchbanks was in the Malfoy's pocket?
> >
> 
> Alla responded: 
> No, I did not think that Draco was just scaring other students. I 
> mean, think about it, if Marchbanks is indeed in Malfoys pocket , 
> would she mention it to her friend?
<snip> 
> Neville does not say that it does not happen, he just says that she
> never mentions Malfoys.
<snip> 
> So, I am NOT saying that Marchbank is necessarily in Malfoy's 
> pocket, I am just saying that Neville line does not disprove it to 
> me.


Carol responds:
My curling iron is heating, List Elves! I can't let this one pass.

Let's look at who Madam Marchbanks is, and what she does and says,
before we assume that she's in a little braggart's pocket and is in
any way subject to a fifteen-year-old boy's influence, or that of his
coin-jingling father.

Madam Marchbanks, along with Tiberius Ogden, resigned her office in
the Wizengamot to protest the appointment of Dolores Umbridge as High
Inquisitor at Hogwarts. The first thing she does when Umbridge greets
her is ask where Dumbledore is: "'Now I haven't heard from Dumbledore
lately!' she added, peering around the hall as though hopeful he might
suddenly emerge from a broom cupboard. 'No idea where he is, I
suppose?'" (OoP Am. ed. 710-11).

She's a friend of Augusta Longbottom, Neville's grandmother, who
whatever her faults is another Dumbledore loyalist ("My gran says
that's rubbish," Neville says after Seamus implies that the Daily
Prophet's stories about DD are true, 219). The Prophet attacks Madam
Marchbanks, too, saying that she has links to "subversive goblin
groups"--goblin groups that oppose the Ministry's repressive policies,
possibly? It is most unlikely that this brave and ancient witch is a
friend of the Malfoys or in their pocket. Draco is either "inducing
panic," as the narrator, reflecting Harry's viewpoint, indicates, or
he is just blowing hot air.

Madam Marchbanks tells Umbridge that she examined Dumbledore in his
Charms and Transfiguration NEWTs and that he "did things with a wand
[she'd] never seen before," (711). She supervises the Potions exam, in
which Harry and Ron receive E's and Hermione an O. These are, as far
as can be determined, the marks they deserve. Whatever Draco's mark,
and it seems to be an O, it is almost certainly the mark he deserves.
It is no fault of Professor Marchbanks' that Harry fails Divination
after telling her that she "would shortly be meeting a round, dark,
soggy stranger" (717), or that the Astronomy exam, which she proctors
with Professor Tofty (another friend of Tiberius Ogden's and therefore
probably of Dumbledore) is interrupted by Umbridge's attack on Hagrid,
causing him to lose concentration and then stop working completely.

There is no indication of unfairness or a connection with the Malfoys
on the part of Professor Marchbanks, who seems to be  a person of
remarkable integrity and courage.

Carol, who thinks that a friend of Dumbledore's who opposes the
Umbridge Inquisition should not be judged on the words of Draco Malfoy