A Headmaster other than Albus

[oryx_leucoryx]

So 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?

Comments

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Love this, excellent scenario for speculation!

I would be surprised if how a teacher was hired was important if he had established a good teaching record. If the New Head comes in soon after 1981, he's probably trying to decide whether to keep the underqualified 'political' appointee(s!) or replace them, well before 1991.

What would Severus do in this scenario? IIRC Dumbledore swears him to service the second time by saying that Voldemort will come back, and that HP will need protection then, but not that Harry would be important to stopping VM later.

With DD out of the picture, is Severus the only person who believes VM is coming back? I don't think DD suggested that to Minerva in the scene we saw. Anyone else in the Order? The Ministry certainly wasn't interested in canon ... maybe some of the DEs could be convinced?

One possibility I like is that in 1991, Quirrell turns up changed from his sabbatical. New Head decides that the poor man is too traumatised from his Dark Creature experiences to teach this term and he is sent off for a rest cure somewhere. Hopefully Severus sees enough by then to become suspicious. I like to think he goes to his 'old friend' Lucius Malfoy, who's not at all keen on the idea of the Dark Lord returning, and arranges an unfortunate accident ...

Meanwhile, Harry Potter is found and brought to school by the usual authorities, as per the_bitter_word and marionros's excellent posts below. It makes total sense to me that the WW would not allow magic using kids to stay in the Muggle world, for fear of exposure.(Alternatively SS might check up on him now that DD isn't around - 'help me keep him safe' devolving to 'you keep him safe'.) I doubt that anyone does know about the 'blood protection' so the Dursleys are probably obliviated and Harry fostered somewhere else.

Under the New Head, the Philosopher's Stone probably never goes near Hogwarts. (What did DD tell Nicholas Flamel in canon?)

But then, perhaps Quirrell helps Voldemort possess someone with a better chance of getting into Gringotts instead?

Voldemort might get the Stone and be reincarnated earlier, without Harry's special blood. OTOH, without DD around, more of the adults would probably act competantly (Minerva, the Order) and HP would be better adjusted and more willing to accept help.

How would anyone find out about the Horcruxes though?

So many possibilities! I'd love to read some fanfics on this topic ...

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, in Terri's fic Severus suspects Albus had some Machiavellian plan regarding Harry when he realizes how *unsafe* Harry had been with the Dursleys. Putting this together with Albus' conviction that Voldemort will return, he wonders if Albus knows anything about specific means Voldemort may have used to protect himself to death. In Terri's scenario Severus gets hold of the Black family copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art (with the help of Phineas Nigellus Black's portrait and the unknowing assistance of Draco), but the alternative is that Severus and New Head realize the significance of Albus' collection of Horcrux books, or that with the information New Head gets from Severus s/he forces the truth out of Albus' portrait.

If New Head and Severus come to trust each other they can be a stronger anti-Tom team than Albus and his 'secrecy and lies' policies, despite being less magically powerful.

I think they should be able to find and destroy at least some of the Horcruxes before Harry arrives at Hogwarts, and they'd know the expected number of them too.

As I understand it, Quirrell in canon went abroad in hope of acquiring experience fighting Dark creatures in order to get the DADA job. (I wonder if he was inspired by Lockhart's books?) If New Head understands the job is cursed perhaps s/he seeks a work-around? Perhaps some of the curriculum can become part of Care of Magical Creatures, some can be part of Charms and some can be part of a new class of Magical Philosophy and Ethics (where Umbridge's textbook is part of the curriculum - that's the book that talks about peaceful de-escalation methods and calls wizards on their hypocrisy of calling jinx they like counter-jinxes). In that case even if Quirrell was feeling stagnated as Muggle Studies teacher he might have not felt the need to travel abroad in order to improve his employment prospects.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, 'Unlikely Allies' - absolute gold!
In fact all of Terri's work is awesome, fics ('To do all in my power', anyone? 'The Girl and the Boy'?) and essays.

Totally agree that the New Head could put together a more effective anti-Voldimort team without DD's automatic secrecy, if they wanted to.

But would the New Head be interested in plotting against Voldemort at all, or see that as the Ministry's responsibility?

Maybe they would think that the Ministry would not act (being realistic about the WW) and therefore they would have to take action as a 'concerned citizen' once convinced of the danger?

On DADA, I'm not sure that they would decide that the job was cursed. I suspect that its effect must have been pretty subtle before Harry turned up - teachers leaving for a range of non-fatal reasons - because IIRC Dumbledore, who thought he knew when, why and by whom the curse might have been cast, only 'suspected' that there was one.

[oryx_leucoryx]

New Head will probably not be the leader of the anti-Voldemort effort, but s/he will have a special role as Hogwarts Head as the one with some power to enforce cooperation from Albus' portrait. Also, if Voldemort shows up he may involve Hogwarts in some plot whether New Head wants it or not.

I think once the information becomes available the responsibility to finding the Horcruxes and to solving the Harrycrux problem as well as finding possible interpretations to the prophecy will go to the Department of Mysteries. Severus will want to be involved one way or another and will have his own information to provide.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

That would make sense, if anyone at the Ministry could be persuaded to take the threat seriously. Kingsley Shacklebolt perhaps? Crouch?

Do you suppose the Chamber of Secrets thing would still happen, perhaps to Voldemort's design rather than Lucius' (whatever he thought he was doing?) The diary to Harry perhaps to complete a takeover? Though maybe only if the Philosopher's Stone had failed - Voldemort might not want competition.

[oryx_leucoryx]

We haven't seen much of the Unspeakables, but they should know the theoretical aspects enough that once presented with the shocking evidence (Harrycrux, all the stuff Albus had been hiding about Tom Riddle's career of crime from age 10 to twentysomething) they'd have to be on the case. Plus their reputation took a hit when Rookwood was revealed a spy so they'd want to make amends. (If you want names of Unspeakables from canon we have Broderick Bode and a Mr Croaker.)

Forget about Kingsley, Crouch and others. Some are in the business only as Dumbly's blind supporters and Crouch has one skeleton too many in his closet (and before that he was a war profiteer - gaining reputation for turning Wizarding Britain into a police state).

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Once that evidence was found, yes. How could it be? As in Terri's fic, someone wondering why DD would deliberately allow mistreatment of the Chosen One, perhaps. Maybe if the New Head took over late enough for DD to have started assembling memories about Riddle, for them to wonder about. Wasn't DD the only person who knew that Riddle was the Dark Lord?

You are right about discounting the familiar names. I was thinking that only a DD supporter or an anti-DE fanatic (or a DE!) would credit VM's return to life in time to do anything about it. I had forgotten that the WW believes the Dark Lord is gone, not dead. So anything that looked enough like his old activity could bring the Ministry onto the case - but not looking for Horcruxes.

Unless perhaps they had a reason to check Harry out magically (suspicion about DD, or targeted by VM?) and worked out about the Harrycrux.

On the New Head, if DD just dropped dead, wouldn't McGonnegall by the logical choice? To get someone from outside might take a scandal, and just what that was would influence the subsequent plot.

[oryx_leucoryx]

There is precedent in canon for an instance where a Headmistress was appointed from outside - Dilys Derwent, St Mungo's healer. I'm not so sure Minerva wants to be school Head. She fills in for Dumbles out of loyalty but I'm not sure she wants the job long term.

No, the scandal will start *after* New Head starts digging around (and asking the portrait some pointed questions).

[oryx_leucoryx]

Maybe if the New Head took over late enough for DD to have started assembling memories about Riddle, for them to wonder about. Wasn't DD the only person who knew that Riddle was the Dark Lord?

Dumbles had all the memories except for Horace's a long time ago. Of the 7 memories he showed Harry two were definitely his own, the conversation with Burke probably too (we don't see who Burke was talking to). We don't know when the conversation took place but the two occasions we see that store only Borgin is there. Is Caractacus still alive? In any case, 2 of the memories are from long dead persons - Morfin was arrested in the 1940s, how many decades did he last in Azkaban? And Hokey was an old and disgraced house-elf way back in the 1940s or 1950s when Hepzibah Smith died. No, Albus must have obtained those two memories decades before showing them to Harry. (My hypothesis is he obtained them shortly after Hepzibah's death.) Albus knew Tom had been collecting interesting ancient wizarding artifacts for a long time. But he had no idea what for until he realized Harry and the diary weren't the only Horcruxes.

As for who else knew Voldemort was Tom - Horace realized at some point. The Ministry didn't know, and that includes the Aurors, even Albus' friend Moody. Voldemort was wanted by the Ministry since before the first war, but only for crimes committed under his assumed identity, not for the deaths of the Riddles or Madam Smith. The oldest DEs - the ones from Tom's own generation, who used the name Voldemort while still at school - knew, but they didn't tell the younger ones.

[oryx_leucoryx]

On DADA, I'm not sure that they would decide that the job was cursed. I suspect that its effect must have been pretty subtle before Harry turned up - teachers leaving for a range of non-fatal reasons - because IIRC Dumbledore, who thought he knew when, why and by whom the curse might have been cast, only 'suspected' that there was one.

I'm sure Severus knew. Albus would have explained to him they need to have this fiction going on where there is a paper trail of Severus applying for the job each year and being refused - that way he is following Voldemort's orders and keeping his job and relative health at the same time. I'm sure Albus more than just 'suspected'. He went through much trouble to ensure Severus was *not* the DADA teacher until he was ready to target Severus for his ultimate destruction.

And others figured it out fast enough: After Quirrell's death only Lockhart wanted the job. That's really fast thinking for wizards, unless many potential DADA teachers had their own suspicions for a while.