What Dumbledore taught at Hogwarts

I just completed the Chamber of Secrets full-cast edition audiobook, and well, it reminded me of why the books are much better than the movies. And listening to the full cast edition was pure magic!

If you have a Dolby-enabled phone, listen on it with earphones plugged in for the full aural experience. I mean, it was much better than watching the movies in so many places. The narration, voice acting, background sounds and music (I can go on) are all top-notch. This full cast series of Harry Potter audiobooks and the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks have spoiled me. The peak has been reached for me, and anything less will be less than satisfactory!

I have watched the movies more number of times than I have read the books, and listening to them made me realize I had forgotten so much of the actual canon. For example, I had forgotten that the Weasleys meet Hermione Granger's parents in the books. I did remember Harry seeing the opal necklace in Borgin and Burkes though. It is a pity that that scene has been glanced over in the movie. Talk about placing the Chekhov's gun in the second book and firing it in the sixth!

Guess what else Harry saw in Borgin and Burkes that plays an important role in the Half Blood Prince!

And regarding the end of the book, my memory had been completely rewired by the movie. I had no idea that Ginny's parents come to Hogwarts when she had been taken into the Chamber. I don't remember ever reading it! Just goes to show how fragile our memories really are.

A similar incident happened when I was rereading the Time Ships by Stephen Baxter. It is the official sequel to the Time Machine by H.G. Wells published exactly 100 years later. Anyway, when I was reading the book for the second time(what I assume), I wondered if I had actually read it before. I had forgotten so much of it. I highly recommend the book, if you are a fan of Stephen Baxter and liked The Time Machine and ever wondered what might have happened to the time traveller. More on that in another post probably.

I started the Prisoner of Azkaban audiobook just now and it was fun recalling the passage on witches enjoying getting burned in the middle ages. I remembered that alright.

So, what did Dumbledore teach at Hogwarts? In the second book, when Harry goes into the vision that Tom shows him through the diary, Professor Dippet is Headmaster. Dumbledore was still a teacher. Dumbledore taught transfiguration at that time. I just researched to make sure he was not the DADA teacher; he was, he was the Defence against the Dark Arts professor before he became Professor in the Transfiguration department. I don't recall reading that in any of the books, for now!