ps/ss chapter 5

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 192526



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff" <geoffbannister123 at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Alcuin York <alcuinyork@> wrote:
> 
> Liz:
> > I'm just rereading ps/ss and have a couple of thoughts about the beginning
> > of chapter 5 - Diagon Alley
> > 
> > Hagrid commented that Quirrell was fine when he taught from books, but when
> > he took a year out he came back scared of his own shadow. This implies that
> > Quirrell taught DADA at some point before Harry's first year. And that
> > Hagrid had socialised enough with him after he came back from Romania (I
> > think it was there!) to know how different he was, and how scared he had
> > become. But isn't the DADA job cursed? Nobody lasts in it longer than a
> > year?
> 
> > Also, to state that Hagrid said Quirrell was scared of the students, which  
> > implies he had been teaching AFTER he came back.
>  
> Chris:
> > First possibility: Quirrell taught some other subject before his hiatus and was assigned to the DADA job when he returned (not very plausible, but I don't think it's inconsistent with the text, which I don't have in front of me right now).
> > 
> > Second possibility: The DADA curse was something JKR thought of after PS/SS. Wouldn't be the only thing either, as Quirrell is shown doing wandless magic, which makes nonsense of Dumbledore's death scene in HBP.

> Geoff:
> THere is a possibility as you suggest that Quirrell taught a different subject
> before his year out, although Hagrid says that he took "took a year off ter get 
> some first-hand experience.." (PS "Diagon Alley"p.55 UK edition). This does
> allow for different interpretations.

Pippin:
Quirrell is described as young, so he can't have been teaching before the curse was applied, which seems to have been when Voldemort first returned, about ten years before Harry was born. Like much of JKR's chronology, Voldemort's career is a bit fuzzy: he was sixteen in 1942, vanished a few years after he left school, and reappeared, supposedly ten years later, only it had to be about 1970. Go figure. Wizards may not count differently from other people, but JKR does. 

Anyway...

Maybe Quirrell and Dumbledore  tried to cheat the curse by having Quirrell take a mid-term leave of absence before it could strike at year's end, and maybe that only made it stronger when Quirrell returned. Considering the shape Quirrell was in when he came back and his ultimate fate, Dumbledore could hardly have regarded such an attempt as successful. 

It is disturbing to note that Lupin and Snape also resigned the post uninjured only to be slain after returning to the school. 

There are some instances where JKR's powers of invention clearly outran her ability to keep things straight. Some of them were discussed so often that they got names, like problems in geometry: The Missing 24 Hours, or The Wand Order problem.

But I don't think wandless magic is one of them. 

There are examples all through the books, most prominently the animagus spell, which both Peter and Sirius  perform without a wand. 

Dumbledore could perhaps have summoned his wand, but it wouldn't have been *his* wand unless he then defeated Draco. But that was not his aim. He wanted to appear defenseless, so that Draco would have to discover for himself whether he was a killer or not. 

Pippin