A Headmaster other than Albus
Jan. 22nd, 2012 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oryx_leucoryx posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslockSo here is an idea for an AU scenario. Anyone is free to develop it into a fic, but we can just discuss the what-if:
Sometime between November 2nd 1981 and July 1991 Albus Dumbledore died suddenly. Maybe in some magical mishap, maybe a sudden heart attack, whatever. The important bit is he didn't expect this to happen and had no time to do any ad-hoc cover-ups nor did he have a chance to influence the choice of his replacement or to incorporate his death into some plot. The permanent replacement is chosen by the Board of Governors. If this happens early enough Lucius isn't yet on the board, if later he is on, but probably still trying to earn a reputation as an outstanding member of society who would have never joined forces with Voldemort willingly so I don't think he'd support anyone blatantly against the inclusion of Muggleborns. Anyway, the replacement turns out to be someone not as outwardly impressive as Dumbles - not so showy, with perhaps average or slightly above average magical performance, but a capable administrator with good organizational and interpersonal skills, but most importantly someone who cares about the students' well-being and education. It can be someone from Slughorn's network or even someone who thought well of Albus as long as s/he didn't have a chance to look too closely at how Hogwarts was run, but definitely not an Order member or any other close associate of Dumbles. Maybe an older, more experienced and less idealistic version of Percy.
The members of the Hogwarts staff are as we know them in PS (Care of Magical Creatures is taught by Kettleburn, Hagrid is still a groundskeeper), except for DADA. Depending on timing, Quirrell might be the Muggle Studies teacher. I think the DADA curse should still be active, so the teachers are still being replaced annually (we don't want the new school Head to have it too easy).
So I think this new person shows up and tries to run Hogwarts like a normal school. Some teachers object because that's not the way it was always done, some are relieved to have a professional in charge for a change. The handling of disciplinary matters changes. The inter-House politics change.
And then in the summer of 1991 Quirrell comes back from a sabbatical with a personally transplant. And one Harry Potter oddly doesn't reply to his acceptance letter to Hogwarts. (I doubt the new Head had a reason to look into Harry's situation of hir own initiative earlier, but maybe someone can make a convincing argument for that?) So what now?
Sometime between November 2nd 1981 and July 1991 Albus Dumbledore died suddenly. Maybe in some magical mishap, maybe a sudden heart attack, whatever. The important bit is he didn't expect this to happen and had no time to do any ad-hoc cover-ups nor did he have a chance to influence the choice of his replacement or to incorporate his death into some plot. The permanent replacement is chosen by the Board of Governors. If this happens early enough Lucius isn't yet on the board, if later he is on, but probably still trying to earn a reputation as an outstanding member of society who would have never joined forces with Voldemort willingly so I don't think he'd support anyone blatantly against the inclusion of Muggleborns. Anyway, the replacement turns out to be someone not as outwardly impressive as Dumbles - not so showy, with perhaps average or slightly above average magical performance, but a capable administrator with good organizational and interpersonal skills, but most importantly someone who cares about the students' well-being and education. It can be someone from Slughorn's network or even someone who thought well of Albus as long as s/he didn't have a chance to look too closely at how Hogwarts was run, but definitely not an Order member or any other close associate of Dumbles. Maybe an older, more experienced and less idealistic version of Percy.
The members of the Hogwarts staff are as we know them in PS (Care of Magical Creatures is taught by Kettleburn, Hagrid is still a groundskeeper), except for DADA. Depending on timing, Quirrell might be the Muggle Studies teacher. I think the DADA curse should still be active, so the teachers are still being replaced annually (we don't want the new school Head to have it too easy).
So I think this new person shows up and tries to run Hogwarts like a normal school. Some teachers object because that's not the way it was always done, some are relieved to have a professional in charge for a change. The handling of disciplinary matters changes. The inter-House politics change.
And then in the summer of 1991 Quirrell comes back from a sabbatical with a personally transplant. And one Harry Potter oddly doesn't reply to his acceptance letter to Hogwarts. (I doubt the new Head had a reason to look into Harry's situation of hir own initiative earlier, but maybe someone can make a convincing argument for that?) So what now?
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 03:33 am (UTC)Heh, love it. The expression on her face!
Reminds me of how I felt when I first discovered Livejournal, back in the early days of my being in the fandom. After a few months I discovered the H/Hr community, and the profusion of icons that adorned the posts and comments will always stick in my memory as a large part of my overall impression of those times and that part of the HP readership. The myriad facial expressions of Emma Watson with all the clever tag lines! Such a pretty girl, too.
(I always pitied the H/G side of the fandom, who had a sad paucity of instances of Wright's homely visage to work with.)
But I digress ...
Meanwhile, no such consideration is given to Snape, he dared to put in his lot with Voldy and he can never be redeemed, he's an evil bigoted racist, etc. etc. when Dumbles was in the same position.
Yeah, but don't forget, Snape had bad PR. Because he was a spy he wasn't able to tell everyone OH HI I AM REDEEMED.
I can even understand why Snape's true allegiance had to be kept a secret; 'need to know' makes perfect operational sense. Of course, Rowling's series is a farce because she had Dumbledore trust absolutely no-one else at all as a second-in-command ... but she had to do that to keep her story from falling apart. Anyway, poor Snape wasn't allowed to tell anyone that he was a good guy.
(And as far as he acted, as a teacher at Hogwarts, he was a nasty sod. But that ground has been covered before in this community.)
... so their criticism and vendetta against Dumbledore is proof he's a Good Guy and he's doing the right thing!
It's a pity that we don't have some more clear quotes in DH like the "keep an eye on Quirrell" one that Oryx reminded me of that similarly tells us that Dumbledore knew about the basilisk, or Pettigrew, or Crouch. Instead we've just got the very fuzzy "it was essential ... to let him try his strength" nonsense, which might cover the whole set of Dumbledore-places-everyone-in-needless-jeopardy instances, but has some wriggle room for a staunch pro-Jo Rowling defender.
Are we meant to applaud him for wanting to preserve his ~innocence, despite the school being potential collateral damage?
Ultimately I think we just have to accept that the entire series was as flawed as - gasp! - DH. I mean, the errors are *obvious* in the last book, but then if you work backwards, knowing there's no excuses for things that happened in the past, Rowling's mistakes - well, her "don't look closely, just think what I want you to think because otherwise my story won't make sense" plots - become very clear.
Regarding Quirrell, yes, there's some assumptions made there by the all-knowing - as in, knowing-he-won't-be-contested-in-his-muddled-thinking-and-stupid-plans - Dumbledore. But Rowling took pains to ensure that no good guy held an opposing view or questioned the headmaster - as you've said - so there you go. It was just very lazy writing.
Ultimately there's so much of the series that is left unsaid - or skirted by huge DETOUR! DO NOT GO THERE! road blocks in the plots - that one can only shake one's head at Rowling's horribly lazy writing. Again, this was the most obvious (to me, anyway) in DH, where Harry and Hermione never ever considered options to their passive course through the book. But that sort of thing prevailed in all of the other novels too.
sorry for all the edits. I miss 'comment preview'. *sighs*
Yes, it's a big pain, isn't it? I have no idea why LJ had to rip that feature out when they put the new ones in. Well, time for my own post-and-double-check cycle ...
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 04:23 am (UTC)No, it's still BS. You let a child "try his strength" by pitting him against peers. What Dumbledore did was pit a child against a superpowerful adult Dark wizard and his tools. That's like having an eight-year-old from Pop Warner football play against an NFL pro team.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 10:34 am (UTC)That's like having an eight-year-old from Pop Warner football play against an NFL pro team.
B-but but but what if the eight-year-old from Pop Warner has the Elder Wand? Huh?
*ducks*
:-)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 01:26 am (UTC)You're welcome. I understand. There are so many mistakes and problems, no one person can possibly keep up with them all. That's why we need this comm.
B-but but but what if the eight-year-old from Pop Warner has the Elder Wand? Huh?
The last time I checked, wands of any kind aren't used in football. ;-) Besides, Harry didn't have that weapon either, remember?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 06:35 am (UTC)I'm sure in all the years they spent duelling each other, someone else would've disarmed Draco and won mastery over his wand, so for us to believe Harry physically disarming him in DH had any relevance...goddamn this plot.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 06:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-27 04:52 am (UTC)