Magic in Harry Potter extraordinarily high turnover of staff members—throughout the series no Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher has retained the post for more than one school year. Harry is exceptionally skilled in this subject. During the period the story takes place, the class is taught by Quirinus Quirrell (book one), Gilderoy Lockhart (book two), Remus Lupin (book three), Bartemius Crouch Jr impersonating Alastor "Mad-eye" Moody (book four), Dolores Umbridge (book five), Severus Snape (book six), and Amycus Carrow (book seven). Hagrid suggests in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" that ""They're startin' ter think the job's jinxed. No one's lasted long
Religious debates over the Harry Potter series number of Wiccans and other commenters have argued that the critics' definition of Wicca tends to lump together many and various spiritualist practices that actually have little in common. They have also highlighted the differences between magic within Wicca, which is invocational and derives from the divine powers, and that depicted by the "Harry Potter" books, which is a purely mechanical application of spells without invoking any deities. A Wiccan review of "Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged" pointed out that "communing with the dead and spirit world, sorcery, curses, occult symbology, black magic [and] demon possession"—all cited by the book as