A Headmaster other than Albus
Jan. 22nd, 2012 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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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?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 03:36 am (UTC)The word "muggle" is outlawed, and students are taught how to understand and appreciate the nonmagical world and its denizens. Students from a nonmagical background have to take a course on magical society (per your suggestion). Students are required to engage in public service such as volunteering at hospitals, food banks, orphanages, old folks homes, etc. NO animals are harmed in teaching any class.
The school is run by a new, young headmistress who doesn't favor any house because she is not a Hogwarts alumna. Qualified teachers are hired to teach every subject. Hagrid and Minerva quit (not because I don't like them, but because I can't see them sticking around if their beloved Dumbledore wasn't there any more), and all the Weasleys leave school except for Percy for the same reason. Snape becomes much more pleasant because he gets treated with dignity and respect for the first time in his life, and his salary is tripled (he's underpaid to begin with, and he gets one salary each for teaching and being a house head). Hermione doesn't become a junior psychopath because she emulates the new headmistress as a role model. With no Ron or Ginny around, I might even be able to work in some HP/HG action. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 06:50 am (UTC)Students are forced to rotate among the houses so they spend one quarter of each school year in every house
I know the house animosity is a huge problem, but I don't think the solution is to make everyone part of every house every year. May as well do away with the house system altogether in that case. Being part of a house is meant to inspire pride and working together to make your house better; if you're swapping from house to house, there's no way to identify with one house in particular. There's also going to be a lot of upheaval with students transferring their belongings and settling into a new dorm room four times a year, not very practical.
Cracky suggestion, but I'm snickering at the idea of renaming houses to incorporate different traits- so maybe...Slytherpuff, Gryffinclaw, Huffledor, Ravenslyth! Hey, at least kids get two major traits instead of just being shoe-horned into one category! You can be loyal and ambitious, brave and smart, hardworking and bold, smart and cunning! Bit more balance, there...
Also, the idea of students being involved in public service is nice, but making it mandatory? I don't know any schools where that's compulsory here, it might be going overboard to enforce that at Hogwarts. If it was voluntary for some sort of credit, that's one thing, but making everyone do it?
Other than that, though, your ideas are fantastic! The Hogwarts Howler is particularly clever.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 07:08 am (UTC)Where I live now community service is a high school graduation requirement.
Regarding Houses - I think the idea of rotating through them is a system where students learn different life strategies in each. I'd say quarterly rotation is too frequent. But I do support remixing the kids on a yearly basis - so kids get opportunities to team with different kids each year and any kid might at some point be in the same House as you so don't make hir into an 'other'. Again, in my daughter's elementary school they did that and I think it worked better than the schools I attended where most kids were in the same groups for 6 years straight. (I wasn't because we moved a lot - I attended 3 different schools during my kindergarten year and then 3 more schools for grades 1-6.)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 07:44 am (UTC)I get where you're coming from with shaking things up on a yearly basis, I guess it's just that I like to identify with the house I'm put in, feel house pride and all, so the idea of being uprooted and transferred to another every year isn't that appealing. Also, I had a hard time making friends, so the idea of going through all that effort to make a friend and then being separated and dumped in a different house is just...ugh. :/
But for a school like Hogwarts where there's such entrenched house prejudices, I guess that might be the only way to deal with it. My school certainly didn't have such deep-seated issues, so it was fine for kids to be all 'yay, Purple house', 'yay, Mango house', etc. but for a school where a quarter of the student population is instantly demonized...yeah, the measures like you're talking is prob the best way to deal.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 08:34 pm (UTC)Plus, the WW is so small that House affiliation isn't about just school; it fundamentally shapes the rest of your life. You can't escape your House even after you leave school, whereas in a larger community that's not really such a problem.
As to rotation: perhaps have rotation for the first four years, maybe, and then let the kids choose which House they feel fits them the best for the final three years?
I like many of the ideas proposed in the original comment, but I have to say I am not a fan of having the halls covered with cameras. Far too easy to turn to totalitarian purposes, and far too reminiscient of the schools here in the US that are basically prisons from 7-3, Monday-Friday. Have hall monitors or staff patrolling, sure, but the kids also need a reasonable sense of privacy, IMHO, and carpeting the place with cameras creeps the fuck out of me.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-27 02:34 am (UTC)As I said to borg_princess above on another subject, I would agree with you if we were talking about a normal school, but we're not. Hogwarts is a place where students regularly attack each other in the halls, and sometimes the classrooms, and get away with it because (choose one or more) (1) nobody saw what was going on; (2) they're not willing to talk; (3) they're too prejudiced to be trusted to tell the truth. (Think Snape vs. MWPP, Draco et all vs. the Trio, etc.) In a situation like that only cameras would provide clear and objective, 24/7 evidence of what really happened so the right people would be caught and punished. (Of course, there's still Polyjuice, but maybe the cameras could be spelled to see through it, or some other way to get around it could be found.) Note I didn't say anything about putting cameras in the common rooms or dorms, so the students would still have plenty of privacy. As for totalitarian purposes, Scumbledore amply illustrates that one can be plenty dictatorial without a single bit of spy equipment in sight.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-27 04:52 am (UTC)Another alternative for the House system is to keep the Sorting, but to have each year projects that required inter-House cooperation. Something the students had to create and had elements where the strategies of each House came to play.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-27 05:11 am (UTC)I like codwiramurs's suggestion of rotation for four years and then "settling" in one House for the final years. Then you get to experience them all, and meet everyone, and feel some connection to each, while also getting to stay in the one you feel fits best. (Or they could drag out the Hat, I suppose, just later than tradition has had it. Dumbledore probably didn't mean it seriously, but I do think maybe they sort too soon.)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-27 02:24 am (UTC)If we were talking about a normal society, I would agree with you, but we're not. One of the major problems with the wizarding world is the complete lack of civic involvement. Except for Lucius Malfoy giving money to St. Mungo's, ostensibly to make himself and his family look good, nobody does anything remotely charitable or civic-minded. There are no charities we hear of, nobody helps the needy, nobody raises money for charity, etc. It's all very narrow, selfish, and parochial. No doubt most of that is Rowling's lack of world building skills, but it still makes for a nasty, selfish society that badly needs to be reminded that other beings exist and have needs, and that you not only can but should help them. You may even come to like it!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 07:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 08:35 pm (UTC)