Questions on the Heads of Houses

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

So, a couple of questions I wanted to toss out about the Heads of Houses.

First, Snape, the Head of Slytherin, seems to be much younger (31 when we and Harry meet him) than the other Heads of House.  But, at (by?) that time he seems to have the support of his students (as well as supporting/defending them).  In particular, in second year we see Draco Malfoy sucking up to him by suggesting his father (who is on the Board of Governors) would support Snape's possible candidacy to be Headmaster.  

On the other hand, someone (Jodel?  Whitehound?  Swythyv? Oneandthetruth?  I'm not remembering at this time) suggested that Snape might have been installed as Head of Slytherin to weaken the house (given his dependence on Dumbledore).  (And that the loss of the Slug Club funnelling fresh talent into the Ministry did fatally weaken it to the point Voldemort found it possible to topple it with one blow.)

So.

Do we have canon how much Snape's house supported him?

Do we have canon when he was actually installed as Head?  I always assumed he replaced Slughorn as Head of Slytherin and Potions Master simultaneously in 1981, but that's an assumption.  So my assumption Snape was to credit for that long string of Slytherin House Cup victories might not be correct.

And... the Board of Governors has something to say about the headmastership.  What about House Heads?  Was Snape, whatever year he was installed as Head of Slytherin House, installed with their approval, against their will, or what?

Comments

Thankless

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Interesting comments, all! I do wonder, though, whether we might be missing a point. How much is the position of headmaster of Hogwarts purely ceremonial? Just because in our world a school head has an actual function doesn't meant the Hogwarts head does.

Not to start a hare, but is there canon for what Dumbles actually DOES, day to day?

Re: Thankless

[maidofkent.livejournal.com]

We know from CoS that the Governors can override the Head on occasion, but that would be the same in a Muggle school, where the Head has considerable day to day power.

Dumbles seems to be the one in charge of hiring - he interviews Tom and Sybill, brings in Remus when he wishes to (acto Pottermore), replaces Sybill with Firenze, and it is only when he can't find a DADA hire that the Ministry sends in Umbridge.

We know that Lucius Malfoy thinks that Dumbledore is the worst thing to have happened to Hogwarts, which implys a great deal of power for DD, but of course Lucius might know or suspect more than most about DD's extra-curricular activities at the school.

I suppose the best answer to the question of whether the Head Master has actual rather than ceremonial power is that both Albus and Tom want the position

Re: Thankless

[oryx_leucoryx]

Not only does the headmaster hire the teachers, he can single-handedly eliminate a subject (or so it seems) - Dumbles claims to have intended to eliminate Divination. (And may have been the reason no Alchemy class opened in decades).

And obviously, the headmaster controls the protections of Hogwarts.

Re: Thankless

[oryx_leucoryx]

It seems Lucius' complaints were about Dumbles' policies regarding Muggle-born students, but we know nothing (or very little) about policies of previous headmasters.

Re: Thankless

[sunnyskywalker]

Oh, now that is an interesting question. After all, the school originally had four heads, working in concert, and no headmaster over them. Maybe originally the House Heads appointed a Headmaster just to mediate between them! The position wasn't Head Master, it was Master of the Heads. Slightly different. The Board of Governors probably came later, or grew out of some lesser, pre-existing liason with the government. And possibly the Headmaster gained power over the centuries.

Okay. Dumbledore says he could have eliminated Divination, as Oryx points out. But Divination is an elective (as is Alchemy). Could the Headmaster eliminate Transfiguration or Potions or another core subject? Somehow I suspect not. (Well, maybe Astronomy, after a couple more decades of its importance in ceremonial magic being downplayed to the point where most wizards think it's pointless.)

He also controls the protections of Hogwarts, again as Oryx notes. He can lift the anti-Apparition enchantments at will, do whatever he did when he and Harry flew across the walls, and possibly influence the "don't hurt the students" spells from his office, if such exist. These are notable powers, but they are also what you would expect for a position designed to keep the four Heads from fighting each other for supremacy. The Hufflepuff Head can't get mad at the Ravenclaw Head and remove the anti-Apparition enchantments in Ravenclaw Tower so the 'puffs can invade and trash their common room, or whatever. And for that matter, we don't know whether the four Heads in concert might not have the same powers over the Hogwarts protections. That would be an important check against a power-hungry Head, one might think.

The Keeper of the Keys also has the power to admit people to Hogwarts, as I think you hashed out a few years back. Another check on the Headmaster.

I just looked at the arrival of the Beaxbatons and Durmstrang delegations, and it's interesting. Hagrid is "with other charges"; the kids think with the skrewts, but for all we know he's lurking out of sight with his pink umbrella doing... something. Dumbledore is standing in the back row, and the kids probably wouldn't know if he'd lifted any enchantments or not. He does specifically tell Maxime "Welcome to Hogwarts." Karkaroff seems to have been there before. And who knows whether there's a magical difference between "being allowed onto the grounds/castle by the Headmaster" and "being admitted to Hogwarts by the Keeper of the Keys"?

Hiring, okay. That was probably done by the four Heads in committee originally. Once they got a Headmaster, maybe that person initially hired for electives, with the Heads' approval, and there was just... mission creep over the years, plus influence from Muggle culture. Maybe Phineas was so unpopular because he claimed more powers for the Headmaster, which have never been given back. Dippet probably kept to the status quo. But Dumbledore has claimed even more. We might look at him as not doing much, but maybe he's the headmaster with the most executive power in Hogwarts history.

What DOES he do most of the day, though? Are those little silver instruments Dumbledore's, or the Headmaster's? What do most of them do?

McGonagall seems to make the schedules and other admin work, so whatever Dumbledore does, it probably isn't that. Maybe he really is managing the money.

Re: Thankless

[sunnyskywalker]

You know, I think I haven't been giving Jo enough credit here. Her explanations often don't make sense, but she's very good at observing and depicting complex dynamics. And I bet either her school when she attended or the English program she taught in suffered from most or all of these problems:

-Unclear chain of command/authority assignment
-Poor communication in absence of anyone assigned to facilitate much of anything
-Understaffing, leading to many staff doubling up (and having no time to figure out larger policy issues even if they think they do have the authority)
-Loss of institutional knowledge due to staff retirements + poor documentation
-Little to no training for new staff due to all of the above

Hogwarts might be in an awkward transitional period where the House Heads have lost some of their historical authority and the headmaster and Board of Governors have gained some, but no one's exactly sure where the boundaries fall anymore. So who's responsible for what? Who knows? Which means you get a combination of (1) sometimes people just do stuff without knowing whether they have authority or not, because someone has to do something, and (2) a lot of other stuff doesn't get done.

We can tell the teachers have very heavy course loads, and many are doubled up: McGonagall as the only Transfiguration teacher and House Head and Deputy Headmistress; Hagrid as grounds/gameskeeper and CoMC teacher; Snape as the only Potions teacher and House Head (and spy, not that that's an official school duty). We also know that once upon a time, Dumbledore and McGonagall both taught Transfiguration at the same time. Maybe the same was true of most or all of the required classes. Junior teacher for the lower years, senior teacher for OWL year and above (leaving time to be House Head too). The progressive staff reduction could be down to a combination of funding and uncertain authority (or battles over it between the headmaster and Board).

We know they've lost several long-term teachers and never got fully trained replacements. DADA, obviously (Merrythought > 30 or so one-year wonders). Kettleburn > Hagrid. Slughorn > a very young Snape. We don't know the conditions under which Flitwick and Sprout started teaching. That sort of loss doesn't just affect classes, but all sorts of other procedures no one ever thought to write down before, because everyone knows how and we've all been here together for decades, until someone leaves and we're all scrambling. Maybe all the House Heads used to run networking clubs, and by the 1970s, Slughorn had taken over for all the Houses because the other Heads didn't know how or didn't have the time anymore. Didn't the club in Tom Riddle's day seem like more of an all-Slytherin gathering?

Hogwarts looks exactly like it's been going through this kind of crisis for at least the past couple of decades. Who hasn't seen (or worked in) a similar environment?

Re: Thankless

[oryx_leucoryx]

.... And who was in charge all those decades?

What I'm wondering about is whether there is any evidence that Hogwarts was better run before Albus took over. Maybe Lucius knew what he was talking about when he said Albus was the worst thing that happened to the school in a long while.

Re: Thankless

[sunnyskywalker]

The only points I can think of are (a) at least there was one teacher helping some students network, and (b) at one point, Transfiguration had two teachers, which core subjects clearly need. Which isn't a whole lot, but then, I think it's entirely possible that Dumbledore inherited these problems and didn't do anything (or at least nothing that worked), so things just kept getting worse.

Wait, we know they also once started a drama club, and one headmaster tried to expel Peeves. Both of these efforts failed horribly, but they show that staff in the past were willing to try things more often than current staff. Oh, and they must have installed plumbing at some point pre-1945, which is a significant infrastructure improvement (and must have been a big project to coordinate).

Re: Thankless

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Great job of describing the downward spiral Hogwarts has been.