Overview

Professor Silvanus Kettleburn is the Care of Magical Creatures teacher in Harry's first and second years at Hogwarts.

Role in the Books

Strengths

Weaknesses

Professor Kettleburn seems, from what we learn in Dumbledore's commentary in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, to have the same fondness for dangerous creatures, and perhaps the same mistaken belief in his own ability to control them, that we later see in Hagrid. Perhaps this is a requirement for the post.

Relationships with Other Characters

Analysis

Most of what we learn about Professor Kettleburn comes form a book written after the final book in the series. The Tales of Beedle The Bard, supposedly written as a collaboration between Professor Dumbledore and Hermione Granger, includes a number of anecdotes about events at Hogwarts involving Professor Kettleburn. We learn there about damage to the Great Hall caused by his Engorging an Ashwinder for use as a prop in an ill-fated play, and we also learn there of the specific limbs he has lost in his career, and how he lost them. It is quite likely that Professor Kettleburn was brought in to book 3 as a single-occurrence jape, as he is never mentioned anywhere else in the main series. Why he was put in such prominence in The Tales of Beedle the Bard is uncertain, but while his contribution to the series is negligible, the humour in his appearances in this later book is quite welcome.

Questions

Greater Picture