Harry Potter Theory: Why did Snape teach potions, not DADA?

[Themrys]

I have recently heard about a very intriguing theory on this, but would like to hear other people's headcanons first.

Up until recently, I had thought that obviously, Dumbledore still needed Snape, and couldn't risk him to the curse of the position.

But after I heard of the abovementioned theory, I re-read, and it is mentioned in book one of the series that Snape wants the DADA position. He has not reason to pretend that Dumbledore does not fully trust him at that point (and Dumbledore does, in fact, fully trust him), as there are no hints that Voldemort might possibly return. And he has been at Hogwarts for long enough to have seen that something is wrong with the DADA post, so he must think his Dark Mark would protect him. Which he has probably discussed with Dumbledore (who I do think would be able to do something about the curse? He is shown to be superior to Tom Riddle jr. in any other way, plus, he has the Elder Wand)

Keeping in mind that Rowling is really good at those "it looks like this is the reason, but in reality, something entirely else is" plot things, and hasn't revealed everything about her characters in the books. (I know there's a controversy about Dumbledore, but one, his "friendship" with Grindelwald was rather close for such a new friendship, and two, Rowling has made no secret of being a gay ally in other regards, so I do tend to think that Dumbledore has always been gay.)

What is your theory?

[Mightymosy]

Dd wanted the 1 potion specialist at potions, and nobody is better than the halfblood prince at potions?

[Forum Explorer]

My theory is slightly different. Dumbledore wants Snape as a potions professor because it is insanely difficulty to get a good potions proffessor. Snape on the other hand, wants to teach DADA because of the curse. He's the sort of man I imagine absolutely hates teaching, but has been guilted into it by Dumbledore, and wants to leave. Thus using the curse to force himself to lose his job.

[Fyraltari]

If Dumbledore could protect anyone from the curse he would have done so years ago. Being better at magic than Voldemort doesn't mean he can just wave his litteral magic wand and undo whetevr the Dark Lord did as is obvious from Half-Blood Prince.

[Kitten Champion]

My assumption is - as others have said - that he's qualified for teaching potions.

However, there's also some clear politics evident in hiring the staff of Hogwarts that we see as the series goes on. Given that the Slytherin house is in close proximity to the potions lab and the only other potions teacher in the books was also the head of Slytherin house, it would not surprise me if an unwritten custom exists that the position of potions master goes to someone with strong Slytherin sympathies if not someone willing to be the leader.

Maybe it goes all the way back to Salazar Slytherin, who knows?

[Palanan]

It's been a long time since I read the books. Is there an actual curse involved with the Dark Arts position, or is it just a case of suspicious coincidences and/or lapses in vetting certain candidates?

You know, werewolf.

[Fyraltari]

It's been a long time since I read the books. Is there an actual curse involved with the Dark Arts position, or is it just a case of suspicious coincidences and/or lapses in vetting certain candidates?

You know, werewolf.

Nobody's really sure. But it did start when Voldemort was turned down for the job and he is petty enough to do that if he could.

[Aedilred]

I think there are essentially two reasons.

First is professional. Snape appears to be legitimately world-class in the field of potions, almost certainly the best of his generation and possibly longer. So having him in that position just makes sense.

(He is, it's true, not a very good teacher - or at least not a very good potions teacher - he does appear to be a little better at DADA. But pure teaching qualifications don't really seem to concern Hogwarts when it comes to recruitment.)

Second is the DADA curse. Now, some good points are raised about Snape believing he is able to handle it. But it's clear that the position is still a risk. The curse apparently remains in place even after Voldemort's disappearance, so Dumbledore has reason to believe that there's something still in play that he's not able to overturn. We don't know enough about the other appointees between Voldemort's disappearance and Quirrell's appointment, but it might be that Moody was a trial run. If anyone can handle the curse, it's him, so if he survives the year maybe he can consider risking Snape in the position. But of course that goes to hell and probably only underscores the problem.

And even if Snape thinks he can defy it, losing him is still an unacceptable risk for Dumbledore. This is probably enough to give rise to frustration on Snape's part: he wants the job and has confident in his own ability to do it, but Dumbledore won't give it to him. It's not that Dumbledore doubts his loyalty, it's that he on some level doubts his competence - and that's got to be pretty aggravating in itself, especially when he sees people like Lockhart and Umbridge given the job ahead of him.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It's been a long time since I read the books. Is there an actual curse involved with the Dark Arts position, or is it just a case of suspicious coincidences and/or lapses in vetting certain candidates?

It's been going on for over a decade, so there is a clear pattern. As to the poor vetting, we know that by book 1, Dumbledore was already scrapping the bottom of the barrel (a recent graduate with no actual skills). The thing about curses is, I'd imagine, that qualified DADA teachers can tell there is something going on after about 5 of their colleagues have not lasted a more than a year, so qualified candidate pool would have already dried up by the time HP went to school.

As to the OP's question, I don't think there is any tricky business. Snape needed to maintain a façade of disagreement with Dumbledore so he'd have the cred for when the time came to rejoin the Death Eaters, and a public complaints over class assignments is an obvious way to do it, even more so when "the one he wanted" was Voldemort's own preferred subject.

But pure teaching qualifications don't really seem to concern Hogwarts when it comes to recruitment.

This is just not true. Other than Snape and the DADA lineup, both of which are under exceptional circumstances, every teacher at Hogwarts is clearly amazing at their jobs. Yes, even Bins - sure, the narrative makes him sound boring but the one actual piece of characterization in book 2, when he rails against anything that isn't verifiable history does do him credit. (I'll grant that Trelawney might not be a great teacher, but honestly, it is unclear that divination can be taught at all).

Grey Wolf

[Themrys]

My theory is slightly different. Dumbledore wants Snape as a potions professor because it is insanely difficulty to get a good potions proffessor. Snape on the other hand, wants to teach DADA because of the curse. He's the sort of man I imagine absolutely hates teaching, but has been guilted into it by Dumbledore, and wants to leave. Thus using the curse to force himself to lose his job.

Snape wanting to get out of Hogwarts is an interesting theory. Makes sense.


So, the theory I heard about was that potions was possibly not even Snape's best subject (he loves DADA, obviously) but it was the one Lily was very good at. The theory is that Dumbledore wanted Snape to teach it to constantly remind him of Lily, his "morality leash" so to speak.
That would explain why Snape is always in a bad mood ... who wouldn't be when everything about the subject he teaches reminds him of how much his best friend - who is dead - enjoyed it.


I have to say, I myself suspect it might be more about the potions teacher position being very difficult to fill - Snape does mention in his monologue at the beginning how the subject may seem boring to the uninformed, and the only other potions teacher we meet is Slughorn, who doesn't seem to be as interested in teaching as in furthering his own acquaintance with the celebrities of tomorrow.


And if Snape's wish to teach DADA is, indeed, just a cover, it might be that he needed plausible deniability to the death eaters, who would have expected him to secretly teach the unforgivable curses if he did have the DADA position.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

So, the theory I heard about was that potions was possibly not even Snape's best subject (he loves DADA, obviously)

...

He was correcting and improving the textbook when he was 15. He is one of the few that can be trusted to prepare the werewolf potion. Even if "his best" was DADA, he was still bloody amazing at potions.

Grey Wolf

[Zarrgon]

Well, it would seem obvious that Snape was quite good at potions, so it was an obvious class to teach.

Potions is also a "low rank" slot that no one really wants, so it's an easy spot to fill, if say you want to teach at the school full time forever. You won't have any problem taking the job each year.

Also, as a "low rank" job nobody wants...nobody really notices you and when they do is a vague dismissal. "that Snape really could have altered reality...but now his is just a potion teacher haha!"

Also, I'd have to check the books, but is not Potion Class a class students take every year? This sure is a sneaky way to watch the students (or a special chosen one student) as you will have them in class every year.


And if you want the real world answer: JKR hated chemistry, so she made Snape a potion teacher....

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Also, I'd have to check the books, but is not Potion Class a class students take every year?

Technically, no, it is not, but only because there is no such thing - in year 6 and 7, every class is optional. But that is pure technicality - Potions is indeed one of the core obligatory subjects of the first five years, yes.

Grey Wolf

[Themrys]

And if you want the real world answer: JKR hated chemistry, so she made Snape a potion teacher....

That doesn't really sound plausible. I mean, she has as good as admitted that Hermione is something of a self-insert ... does that mean that Rowling secretly wanted to create insanely difficult to make chemicals in a girls' toilet despite hating chemistry?

(Besides, I really hate maths, but have always been able to acknowledge that except for that one guy in primary school, my maths teachers were pretty okay people)

Snape might be based on Rowling's chemistry teacher (is he, though? I read he was inspired by a teacher, but don't recall which subject), which would be the Doylist explanation, so to speak, but not the Watsonian one.

And since she planned the whole series out pretty early, I would suspect there is something more to it.

[Traab]

I still say hiring snape as potion professor and head of slytherin was the dumbest move dumbledoore could have made. He could have hired Snape on as the schools potion brewer and researcher as an obvious sign that he trusted snape and relied on him being nearby, giving him the same benefit of being a teacher for his potential future double agent stature. Snape does NOT seem to enjoy teaching. Even putting aside his petty vindictive bullying of harry and neville, he clearly doesnt want to teach as "The directions are on the board, get to work" isnt teaching. Now as for why he keeps pushing for the DADA job instead, its entirely possible that he despises watching amateurs mess up potions all day every day. Thats his craft, his profession, his specialty. It would be like a master carpenter watching a group of kids in third grade shop class try to build a cabinet and wincing at the fact that even the "good" jobs are so far below acceptable to him that its mentally painful to watch. So switching to DADA would be far less offensive for him to watch kids fumble at casting stunners and basic shields. Its also something he is very good at, but its not his passion like potions is.

On the other hand, its entirely likely that dumbledoore was planning very far ahead indeed and wanted snape established as head of slytherin because he knew the most likely time for voldemort and his followers to start stirring would be when harry shows up in the magical world again and he wanted snape to keep him informed on how bad things were with the pureblood families. I still think he could have basically created a new staff position of potion brewer for the school and as a staff member he is allowed to be head of house but meh.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I still say hiring snape as potion professor and head of slytherin was the dumbest move dumbledoore could have made. He could have hired Snape on as the schools potion brewer and researcher as an obvious sign that he trusted snape and relied on him being nearby, giving him the same benefit of being a teacher for his potential future double agent stature.

Being the head of Slytherin also put him in close contact with the children of Death Eaters and through them to their parents, though.

Grey Wolf

[Sapphire Guard]

If Dumbledore could undo Voldemort curses, he surely would have undone the one that killed him.

Snape is much too valuable to risk, and Potions is an extremely useful post, because he has excuses to not be around at any given time (The ingredients need to be put in at 1:23 am by someone that has blinked 3.42 times in the previous minute) and roam the dungeons as he wishes. Head of Slytherin helps him cosy up to people like Lucius, making him useful as a spy even if Voldemort's return doesn't happen.

Lockhart apparently didn't realise that the potions professor was a really good duellist when he set up his duelling club, so it helped him fly under the radar a bit.

Agreed that he probably hates teaching.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Head of Slytherin helps him cosy up to people like Lucius, making him useful as a spy even if Voldemort's return doesn't happen.

There is also the non-impossible possibility that Harry himself might have ended up in Slytherin - the DE certainly thought he might, and Dumbledore might have wondered about it too given the chunk of soul he probably suspected was responsible for Harry surviving the AK.

(We don't know the Heads of House had to also be teachers, but it does look like a distinct possibility)

Grey Wolf

[Anonymouswizard]

Well, it would seem obvious that Snape was quite good at potions, so it was an obvious class to teach.

Potions is also a "low rank" slot that no one really wants, so it's an easy spot to fill, if say you want to teach at the school full time forever. You won't have any problem taking the job each year.

Also, as a "low rank" job nobody wants...nobody really notices you and when they do is a vague dismissal. "that Snape really could have altered reality...but now his is just a potion teacher haha!"

Also, I'd have to check the books, but is not Potion Class a class students take every year? This sure is a sneaky way to watch the students (or a special chosen one student) as you will have them in class every year.

Considering we know that two heads of Slytherin have also been Potions teachers, I'd really question if it's that low on the totem pole. It's probably a middling subject given respect for just how difficult it is but considered a more useful subject than Divination. Not the same Prestige as Charms or Transfiguration, but relatively respected.

Honestly, Snape is the equivalent of the person with two PhDs teaching at your school, he's clearly brilliant at both Potions and DADA and with the track record on the DADA position it's believable that he might have been shuffled into Potions just to keep him around. Because, setting aside his bullying of Harry and a couple of other character faults*, he's not half bad as a teacher (not as great as the other Hogwarts teachers we get to see, but good enough to get students signing up to his NEWT course), plus he kept his allegiance to Voldemort relatively quiet during the first war, so that doesn't tarnish his reputation that much, and potentially brings significant prestige to the school for just being that good.

Plus yes, being taught from years 1-5 is a pretty good way for Snape to keep tabs on Harry and other students, and it's possible that a lot of effort went into manipulating Harry into wanting a career where Potions was a required subject.

* such as blatant favouritism towards one House.

Technically, no, it is not, but only because there is no such thing - in year 6 and 7, every class is optional. But that is pure technicality - Potions is indeed one of the core obligatory subjects of the first five years, yes.

Grey Wolf

Yeah, because the school system is basically just the UK school system with a slight change. You pick your OWLs a year before real world students pick their GCSEs, and you have certain compulsory core subjects and a number of optional picks (apparently something like 5+2 or 7+2 at Hogwarts, at my school you studied seven compulsory and four elective), but you begin and end your NEWTs at the same time as real life students begin and end their A-levels, and there's no compulsory subjects at A-level (although depending on teachers and time tabling some schools may disallow some combinations).


EDIT: Harry also does portray some of the core character traits of Slytherin, just like with Hermione and Ravenclaw. It's more subtle, but he certain has ambition and pride, it's just that he also has the traits of Griffindor in equal measure, which being in the House then nurtures.

It's likely that Dumbkledore gave Hagrid very specific instructions and set up the meeting with the Weasleys to move Harry into Griffindor because being in Slytherin would have him too close to known Death Eaters for comfort, and McGonnagal was possible the next best choice to act as a protector.

[Aedilred]

This is just not true. Other than Snape and the DADA lineup, both of which are under exceptional circumstances, every teacher at Hogwarts is clearly amazing at their jobs. Yes, even Bins - sure, the narrative makes him sound boring but the one actual piece of characterization in book 2, when he rails against anything that isn't verifiable history does do him credit. (I'll grant that Trelawney might not be a great teacher, but honestly, it is unclear that divination can be taught at all).

Grey Wolf

Binns - that excerpt verifies that he's a good historian. But as a teacher he's hopeless: he bores his students rigid. No matter how well he knows his subject that's not good teaching.

Hagrid is a mediocre teacher at best. Trelawney is absolutely hopeless, even taking into account the difficulty of the subject. Snape, as a potions teacher, is appalling: no matter how well he knows the subject, his favouritism towards the Slytherins and bullying of the rest - Harry one can almost forgive given the personal history, but not Hermione - is dreadful.

Flitwick and McGonnagal are good. Slughorn seems alright. I don't think we really see enough of Sprout, Burbage, or the others to judge. Hermione says Vector is good, but that's Hermione.

The DADA teachers - of course there are special circumstances. We can't blame Dumbledore for Umbridge, and there doesn't seem to be any criticism of Quirrell as an actual teacher. But of the others, there are still big question-marks. Lupin was decent, but it seemed he did neglect a large portion of the curriculum. Moody obviously wasn't the real Moody, but even so, he was basically torturing his students in the name of education, and Dumbledore didn't lift a finger to stop him. And Lockhart? Even the most cursory interview should have exposed his incompetence.

Overall and at best it seems as though Dumbledore values loyalty and extracurricular usefulness at least as much as he does actual teaching aptitude.

Honestly, Snape is the equivalent of the person with two PhDs teaching at your school, he's clearly brilliant at both Potions and DADA and with the track record on the DADA position it's believable that he might have been shuffled into Potions just to keep him around. Because, setting aside his bullying of Harry and a couple of other character faults*, he's not half bad as a teacher (not as great as the other Hogwarts teachers we get to see, but good enough to get students signing up to his NEWT course), plus he kept his allegiance to Voldemort relatively quiet during the first war, so that doesn't tarnish his reputation that much, and potentially brings significant prestige to the school for just being that good.

Do people take his NEWT course because he's a good teacher, though, or because Potions is a required subject for careers they want to pursue? We only really see that from Harry's perspective and - albeit a special case - he would certainly have dropped Potions if he could have.

In practical terms, the way we see potions classes taught isn't great. They're told to open the textbook, make a potion, and then at the end of the class the teacher tells them it's crap and off they go. In Snape's case it's punctuated with random and unjustifiable abuse of students he doesn't like. There doesn't seem to be much attempt to impart knowledge. That is probably a limitation of the medium, of course, and we have to go off informed ability to an extent, but even then nobody really raves about Snape's teaching, only his potions expertise.

His Occlumency teaching is also poor. While he's not helped by Harry's reluctance to learn, he again just seems to do the same thing over and over again without actually trying to help Harry get any better at it. He does seem to be better at teaching DADA, although we only see one lesson.

[Sapphire Guard]

Lockhart was literally the only person to apply, they were stuck with him.

Hagrid knows his subject, but is tremendously unlucky- a student was injured in his first class, and in year five the ministry inspector went out of her way to have him fired because she hates part-humans.

Trelawny seems to actually teach effectively, (the tealeaf readings and such are accurate), she just can't predict on command (and had the fortune to actually prophesize at her job interview)

Binns... I don't know that I trust Harry's perspective on him.

Snape is a horrible person, but seems to teach okay.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Binns - that excerpt verifies that he's a good historian. But as a teacher he's hopeless: he bores his students rigid. No matter how well he knows his subject that's not good teaching.

It's almost unavoidable - From my memories of school (and I went through the same school system as J.K. Rowling), History was widly felt to be the most boring of subjects.

Also, we see this mostly through Harry's eyes. Hermione seems to like him

Hagrid is a mediocre teacher at best.

Most teachers are mediocre (I may be a little biased here - both of my parents were teachers, and many of my extended family are teachers - I'm quite cynical about the subject...).

This is a little unfair to Hagrid, however - He was doing quite well until his lessons were sabotaged by Malfoy. Remember that this was also literally his first time teaching (and unlike the real world, the Magic world doesn't seem to go in for teacher training courses)

Trelawney is absolutely hopeless, even taking into account the difficulty of the subject.

Trelawney wasn't employed for her ability as a teacher - If I recall correctly she was failing the interview until she uttered the prophecy, at which point Dumbledore employed her for her own protection.

As to the difficulty of the subject, she was more doing fortune telling than prophecy. When the centaur took over the course (I forget his name - Rowan?) theit suddenly became more popular and focussed.

Snape, as a potions teacher, is appalling: no matter how well he knows the subject, his favouritism towards the Slytherins and bullying of the rest - Harry one can almost forgive given the personal history, but not Hermione - is dreadful.

I tend to agree, however in Boarding School fiction there is usually a teacher like Snape to act as a house antagonist for the protagonist.

Flitwick and McGonnagal are good. Slughorn seems alright. I don't think we really see enough of Sprout, Burbage, or the others to judge. Hermione says Vector is good, but that's Hermione.

The DADA teachers - of course there are special circumstances. We can't blame Dumbledore for Umbridge, and there doesn't seem to be any criticism of Quirrell as an actual teacher. But of the others, there are still big question-marks. Lupin was decent, but it seemed he did neglect a large portion of the curriculum. Moody obviously wasn't the real Moody, but even so, he was basically torturing his students in the name of education, and Dumbledore didn't lift a finger to stop him. And Lockhart? Even the most cursory interview should have exposed his incompetence.

I don't recall Moody torturing students - he used Imperio on them in a classroom setting, but that's as far as it went. He seemed to be a pretty good teacher beyond that.

Lockheart? Well, yes - Dumbledore was not so much scraping the barrel at that point as refilling it from the water pipes below.

Overall and at best it seems as though Dumbledore values loyalty and extracurricular usefulness at least as much as he does actual teaching aptitude.

And so he should - remember that this is a boarding school: the staff are literally in loco parentes. It is not a day school where the teachers are employed just to teach.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Binns - that excerpt verifies that he's a good historian. But as a teacher he's hopeless: he bores his students rigid. No matter how well he knows his subject that's not good teaching.

His students learn the subject. It's history, not drama. I had that kind of "make history fun!" teacher and they were crap - skipping all the "difficult" bits and instead had us drawing pictures and reading poems about the topic... and the result was a year lost in which no actual history was learnt. Being told the events and how they progressed? Boring. But far, far far batter lesson of history.

Hagrid is a mediocre teacher at best.

Grubbly-Plank outright stated that he was a good teacher.

Trelawney is absolutely hopeless, even taking into account the difficulty of the subject.

No, she is not. She does decently enough. Nothing in her classes seems outright bad in how she approaches them - theory and practice. It reminds me a lot of how my art classes used to go. That I had never even an inkling of ability didn't mean the teacher didn't do their best to instill the various artistic choices.

I don't think we really see enough of Sprout to judge.

We definitely see enough Sprout classes to see she is a good teacher.

Lupin was decent, but it seemed he did neglect a large portion of the curriculum.

No, he didn't, unless you want to take Fake Moody's opinion that post-OWL subjects should be taught to third-years.

Moody obviously wasn't the real Moody, but even so, he was basically torturing his students in the name of education, and Dumbledore didn't lift a finger to stop him.

No, he didn't? He cast curses at them under extremely controlled circumstances and taught them to resist them. Unless you take Umbridge's word on how much DADA should be taught.

Grey Wolf

[Themrys]

If Dumbledore could undo Voldemort curses, he surely would have undone the one that killed him.

Good point (although I could entirely see Dumbledore pretending to Snape that there's nothing to be done about it so that Snape will kill him), but that jinx on the DADA teaching position was done by Tom Riddle junior when he... um, still had a nose? He was barely out of school at that point.

It is of course possible that Rowling was tapping into the sort of "once done, it cannot be undone" mysterious magic like you have in Sleeping Beauty, where the last fairy can't lift the curse, only alter it. Lily's sacrifice and Tom Riddle junior's "ressurection" hints at there being still mysterious kinds of magic in the world that cannot be simple explained by the mechanics of "point stick, say words"

@MangaShoggoth: That's a good point, about it being a boarding school.

Hagrid certainly loves the students and is a very fatherly type. (I mean, he did give Norberta a teddy.)

Snape on the other hand ... hm. Well, I guess he was probably a good head of Slytherin and gave the students the feeling that even if everyone else hated them, Snape was firmly on their side. Perhaps Dumbledore thought that would discourage the kids from joining Riddle junior.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

that jinx on the DADA teaching position was done by Tom Riddle junior when he... um, still had a nose? He was barely out of school at that point.

No, it was done in his second visit (the one where he hid the horcrux in the room of requirement), at which point he was already on his way to no-nose voldy. AFAICR, it was just before the first Voldemort war, so maybe 22-25 years prior to Harry's first year? (I did say 15 above, but I had forgotten to factor in the 10 years of Voldemort war)

Grey Wolf

[Gnoman]

No, he didn't, unless you want to take Fake Moody's opinion that post-OWL subjects should be taught to third-years.

Fake Moody was over the line with the level he was operating at, but he had a very good point at the start. Lupin prepared them excellently for dealing with monsters of all sort, but spent almost no effort teaching them to defend against another wizard. This in a setting where "your school could easily be attacked by evil wizards" is just a statement of fact.

[hamishspence]

No, it was done in his second visit (the one where he hid the horcrux in the room of requirement), at which point he was already on his way to no-nose voldy. AFAICR, it was just before the first Voldemort war, so maybe 22-25 years prior to Harry's first year? (I did say 15 above, but I had forgotten to factor in the 10 years of Voldemort war)

We know Dumbledore had fairly recently become Headmaster when Voldemort visited.

I originally thought that he promoted McGonnagal to replace himself as Head of Transfiguration, on becoming Headmaster, in 1956 (McGonnagal states she would have been a Transfiguration Professor for 39 years that autumn during her inspection by Umbridge in 1995)

but the problem with that, is that Remus's account of events after being bitten by a werewolf as a child contradicts this.

(he originally thought he'd be unable to go to Hogwarts, then Dumbledore became Headmaster and told his parents that, with the right precautions, it would be doable)

which dates Dumbledore's promotion to Headmaster to 1965 at the absolute earliest - the year Remus was bitten.


Which suggests that she was a junior professor rather than Head of Department.

[Chronos]

I think that Dumbledore kept Snape out of DADA because the position was dangerous to him. Not because of the curse, but to Snape personally. Remember, Snape was still a Death Eater, and performed a lot of Dark Arts himself. He may be reformed out of love for Lily, but it's still a terrible temptation for him to relapse. Dumbledore wants to keep him as far away from that temptation as he can.

[Mightymosy]

Granted, DADA sounds sexy, but really Potions is awesome.

Sure, DADA let's you become wizard police or something similar, but Potions is where the real magic is.

*I* would study Potions :-)

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Fake Moody was over the line with the level he was operating at, but he had a very good point at the start.

Good or bad point is not the topic. Aeildred's point was, and I quote (emphasis mine):

Lupin was decent, but it seemed he did neglect a large portion of the curriculum.

Nothing indicates that Lupin "neglected" the curriculum. Starting with "these are creatures that can hurt you and this is how to protect yourself from it" before moving to "this is how other wizards can hurt you and this is how to protect yourself from it" is an eminently reasonable approach to the subject.

Grey Wolf