Fans of the Harry Potter franchise are gearing up for the expected holiday 2022 release of the upcoming open-world video game Hogwarts Legacy. The title will give audiences the opportunity to go to Hogwarts and attend classes as a witch or wizarding student, which is something many fans have always dreamed of. The game is supposed to be set in the late 1800s, so around 100 years before Harry would ever save the world from the Dark Lord Voldemort.
Of course, this means that, since Voldemort has not yet attended the school, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position will not have been cursed. Back when many still knew him as Tom Riddle, Voldemort had made it so Dumbledore would never be able to keep a teacher in the position for more than a year after having been refused the job himself. This means that every year, Harry had a different DADA teacher, for better or worse. While these teachers often played an essential part in Harry’s story, there are several details about the likes of professors Quirrell, Lupin, Snape, and more than ever made it into the movies, ensuring that only the most devoted of book fans knew their full story.
Quirinus Quirrell Was A Genius
Quirinus Quirrell was Harry’s first DADA teacher, and in the movies, he is seen as little more than a coward. There are never even any scenes depicted in the Sorcerer’s Stone film showing what the professor was like in classes or whether Harry ever learned anything from him to begin with. Instead, all audiences learn is that he secretly had Voldemort’s face sticking out the back of his head.
In the book, however, Hagrid tells Harry that Quirrell was a genius. He commented that the Harry Potter professor could be summed up by his nervous and strange manner but that there were few at Hogwarts that were more clever. This is later supported by the fact that Quirrell was the only person able to figure out where Voldemort was hiding, even if that intellect didn’t save his life in the end.
Gilderoy Lockhart Appeared In Order Of The Phoenix
In the end of Chamber of Secrets, Gilderoy Lockhart finally gets what he deserves. He had spent years stealing the stories of successful wizards and wiping their memories. This made him rich and famous, but, ironically, he wound up with his own memory wiped, and movie audiences never saw him again.
This was not the case with the books, however. In Order of the Phoenix, after Nagini attacked Mr. Weasley, Harry and co. went to St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies to visit him while he recovered. While there, the group happened to run into Lockhart and discovered that he had been living at the hospital since his accident. He still had no idea who he was but had by no means lost his attention-seeking personality.
Remus Lupin Battled With Cowardice
Out of Harry’s DADA teachers, Remus Lupin was by far the best. It was difficult for even the Slytherin students to keep themselves from having fun and learning in his classes. Lupin was knowledgeable, patient, and fair and taught Harry what it meant to face his fears, in addition to giving one of the best quotes from a professor in Harry Potter: “Eat, you’ll feel better.”
However, the books revealed much more about Lupin’s story, including the fact that he was far from perfect. His romance with Tonks was tumultuous, and despite having taught Harry to be brave, Lupin didn’t always practice what he preached. In Deathly Hallows, he even tried to abandon his wife and child, all because he was too afraid of messing up as a father and husband.
Barty Crouch Jr Was Held Captive By His Father
While Mad-Eye Moody was technically appointed to the DADA job in Goblet of Fire, he never really did any teaching himself. Instead, Barty Crouch Jr did the job, using Polyjuice potion to disguise himself as the battle-scarred Auror. In the movie, audiences learn that he was the Death Eater son of Barty Crouch Sr., but that was about the extent of it.
In the book, Crouch Jr. explains that his father and mother had broken him out of prison years before the events of Goblet of Fire and that he had been held captive in his father’s home under the Imperius Curse, which was the worst thing to happen to the pretend Hogwarts professor. Over time, the curse grew weaker and, eventually, he was strong enough to find his master and pull off their evil scheme.
Dolores Umbridge Lied About Slytherin’s Locket
Harry had several bad DADA teachers over the years, but none could compare to Dolores Umbridge. She may have always been able to hide behind the law, but there could be no denying that the professor was perfectly summed up by her evilest quotes in Harry Potter. She cared only about her status and power, and her behavior in the movies made this clear.
While the movie portrayal of Umbridge was fairly close to that of the books, there was a moment in Deathly Hallows that was missed. This was when Umbridge told a disguised Hermione that the locket she wore was a family heirloom from the pure-blood Selwyns. Of course, Harry knew that it was actually Slytherin’s. The fact that the witch would lie about her own blood status while condemning Muggle-borns to prison was just too much for Harry, who snapped and stunned her, despite the consequences.
Severus Snape Still Loved The Dark Arts
After 15 years of trying to secure the DADA job, Severus Snape finally had it in Half-Blood Prince. This was a choice by Dumbledore, who knew that Snape would have to rejoin Voldemort’s side after that year anyway. Before then, it had been speculated that Dumbledore worried that Snape would be tempted by close proximity to the Dark Arts.
While the Deathly Hallows movie never featured Snape’s DADA class, the book spent a good deal of time exploring what Snape was like teaching Harry’s favorite class. As can be expected, he wasn’t much nicer, but it was revealed just how much the professor still revered the Dark Arts. This enraged Harry, who questioned again why Dumbledore would have appointed him. Of course, Hermione was there to tell him that the way Snape talked about Dark magic was similar to the way Harry had in the Dumbledore’s Army lessons, revealing the parallels between fear and reverence.
Amycus Carrow Changed The Class To “The Dark Arts”
The movies said very little about the Carrow siblings, Amycus and Alecto, other than that they were Death Eaters appointed to Hogwarts by Voldemort and Snape. However, in the books, the pair was first introduced in Deathly Hallows, as they were both present at the top of the astronomy tower the night Dumbledore died.
This meant that Harry knew exactly who they were when they were given positions at the school, which inspired a tremendous amount of fear for his friends (since he wasn’t at Hogwarts himself). This fear was well founded, as Neville later told the Golden Trio that Amycus, the sibling that had been appointed to DADA teacher, had changed the class to just “the Dark Arts,” and part of the curriculum was practicing Unforgivable Curses on first-year students.
