J. K. Rowling presents Umbrigde's backstory

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

In time for Halloween JKR gave us another short story (more background info to be honest, it's not like it has a plot). You can read it at Pottermore (if you have an account and can actually remember your user name and password) or you can read it here: J.K. Rowling writes Harry Potter Halloween tale profiling 'malicious' Dolores Umbridge

My personal take on this little story is that it's wholly pointless. It just repeats that Umbridge was always a nasty person with no depth to her and she's worse than blood purists. Nothing really new or insightful is revealed, nor do I believe did anybody care to know this sort of stuff about Umbridge. I also found it very unbelievable that anybody would buy her claims of being a pureblood, considering how small the wizarding community is. And of course she was a Slytherin, because where else could an evil person in HP have come from.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

Ok, something related only tangentially: There's a line in OOTP chapter 12 where it says that there were 30 classmates listening to Harry challenging Umbridge. I'm thinking, maybe Harry's DADA class in 5th year was a Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff class and the Slytherins had a separate class where Umbridge let them practice spells? Because we know there were at least 25 students in Harry's NEWT-level DADA class the following year (Severus collects 25 essays on dementors), and they included Draco and Pansy at the very least.

We know 7 Gryffindors, 5 Hufflepuffs (including Hannah who dropped out when her mother died, so not included in the 25) and 4 Ravenclaws practiced in the DA meetings, but at least 10 non-DA students got good enough grades on their OWLs to enter the NEWT class. One of these was Seamus (did Dean practice with him in private while circumventing the parchment-curse?) But I think the bulk of non-DA students in 6th year DADA were Slytherins, and I think Umbridge did try to give that House an advantage. (She was also quick to approve the renewal of their Quidditch team.)