Dolores Umbridge: How could she cast a patronus

Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter. In this post, we will be discussing the distinguished Patronus charm, and Dolores Umbridge. We all know that our least favorite character in the Harry Potter series is Dolores Umbridge as she is known for making the lives of students at Hogwarts as miserable as possible during her realm at Hogwarts in the book and the film "Order of the Phoenix".During her time at Hogwarts, she had enormous power over the students, teachers curriculum, grounds, and...basically everything. She is known for having a cruel and twisted character, with nothing but evil running through her veins but how can she cast a patronus. She can cast a cat patronus and she can be seen casting one in the movie Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 1.  The question that I’m going to answer is: How could Dolores Umbridge cast a patronus? There’s no pinpoint answer for this question, but I think we have enough information to theorize.  First of all, we need to know about Umbridge’s past to get a greater understanding of her overall character.

Early Life:

Dolores Jane Umbridge was a British half-blood witch and was born on the 26th of August 1965 or earlier. She was the first child of a wizard named Orford Umbridge and a muggle named Ellen Cracknell. She also had a younger brother who was a squib. Her father blamed her mother for giving birth to a squib. Under her father's influence, she hated her mother (her own mother!!) and her brother since they were both non-magical people and she considered her father and herself as more superior. When Umbridge was about 15 years old her father and herself denounced their family and Ellen and her son had to live with the muggles never to be seen or heard of again. Dolores and her father continued to live in the wizarding world. Before heading off to school, she traveled to Ollivanders to get her wand, and she was the recipient of an unusually short wand ( 8 inches and made from birch and dragon heartstring). Garrick Ollivander has expressed that the length of a witch's or wizard's wand can be an indicator of their moral character (so now you can begin to imagine what this says about Umbridge). Ollivander also stated that: Most wands are between 9-15 inches long. Wandmakers often match the wand length to the height of witch or wizard who will use it, but Ollivander considers this measure inadequate. In his experience, longer than average wands tend to be drawn to those with a physical peculiarity or a bigger personality whereas abnormally short wands select people whose character lacks in something.

Hogwarts:

Just like everyone else, when she was 11 she began attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and was sorted into Slytherin. Her head of house was Horace Slughorn. Slughorn disliked Umbridge, so she did not have a good relationship with him and Slughorn even referred to her as an ‘idiotic woman.He never rewarded her with any position of power ( Prefect or Head Girl), despite wanting it more than anything, only fueled her fire more, as her career at the Ministry of Magic exploded after her graduation.

Career:

She quickly rose to influential position. She started as an intern in the Improper Use of Magic Office. Before reaching age 30, with her ruthless tactics under her sweet attitude, which also involved taking credit for other people's work she managed to secure a position as the Head of the Office. Dolores, being very power-hungry, was ashamed of her father, who was a low-level worker in the Department of Magical Maintenance, while she was seeking a career. Under her pressure, he finally retired and she promised him a small monthly allowance in exchange for quickly and quietly leaving the public sight. From that point on she lied about her family, claiming that she was a pure-blood rather than a half-blood. She eventually became Senior Undersecretary to the Minster of Magic  and had a place in the Wizengamot. Whenever she was asked, the question: Are you related to that Umbridge who used to mop the floors here? She would smile and deny any connection, claiming that her deceased father had been a distinguished member of the Wizengamot. People who wanted to remain on her good side pretended to believe her version of her ancestry. Umbridge's hatred towards half-breeds led her to start an anti-werewolf legislation in 1993, which made it nearly impossible for werewolves,to find work.After her suspension from Hogwarts and the fall of Ministry of Magic, Umbridge ran the Muggle-born registration commission and ruthlessly prosecuted many innocent people. After the second wizarding war, she was sentenced to Azkaban  for her crimes against Muggle-borns, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

So, this pretty much covers Umbridge’s backstory it doesn’t look like there is a whole lot of good in her past. Everything about her history points to her cruelty. It seems like Umbridge was just rotten to the core but how can she cast a patronus. The patronus charm is famous for it’s representation of light, happiness, and purity (everything that a dementor feeds upon), and it’s produced when a witch or wizard says the spell "Expecto Patronum." There are two types of patronuses, corporeal and incorporeal, and the type that the witch or wizard casts will depend on their experience / preference. The more standard form of the spell is the incorporeal patronus, which takes no animal form and represents a burst of white vapor, and the more advanced form of the spell is the corporeal patronus. It’s a hard spell to cast, on a technical-level, but the hardest part about it is mustering the necessary emotion to cast it. Not just anyone can do it, and it’s been widely accepted that most dark witches and wizards just don’t have it in them. In fact,Severus Snape was the only death eater that ever that could produce a patronus.

Snape's Patronus

I can imagine Umbridge wanting to be protected at all costs, especially as she works so closely with dementors. We’re told that patronus is a charm that's is a skill reserved for the pure of heart. We are even told of what happens to wizards that aren’t pure of heart who try to produce it in the tale of Raczidian, who was eaten alive by maggots. Umbridge was sick and twisted, just like any other evil witch or wizard, so what gives? Pottermore sheds some light on this, and I believe that it comes down to Umbridge’s own sense of righteousness: While there is a widespread and justified belief that a wizard who is not pure of heart cannot produce a successful Patronus, a rare few witches and wizards of questionable morals have succeeded in producing a patronus. It continues to say that: It may be that a true and confident belief in the rightness of one’s actions can supply the necessary happiness. People who dedicate themselves to the dark arts (Death Eaters) do not feel any effect whatsoever of the dementors since they themselves may ally with the dark creatures and they regard the Patronus as an unnecessary spell to have in their arsenal. What this suggests about the Patronus charm is that, if the witch or wizards moral compass is so broken and twisted that they have hoodwinked themselves in to thinking that they’re doing the right thing, then there is no reason that they wouldn’t be able to cast a patronus. Producing a patronus requires good/happy thoughts, and to Umbridge, law and order were happy thoughts. She had a fundamental inability to understand the empathy or emotions of others. She was focused only on her own objectives, and even by doing bad things, she was able to convince herself that she was doing the right thing. Umbridge genuinely felt that her actions were contributing towards the greater good, and that's why she could cast a patronus.

And that’s it for this post! What do you guys think? Why did you think Umbridge could cast a patronus? Let me know down in the comment section below. Until next time

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