Chapter Text
March 1986:
“I know that you all want to get ready to go home,” McGonagall said at the last staff meeting before the Easter holidays, “however, there is one more major issue that we need to discuss. Since we seem to finally have a lasting peace in this country, our population numbers are returning to normal. This means that we are going to see an influx of new students. This is nothing new, although for many of you it is. In years past Hogwarts has had heads for each subject, as well as additional professors acting under them. When I, myself, began teaching here in 1956 Albus Dumbledore was my Department Head. All of you will be promoted to Department Head, unless you would prefer otherwise, in which case speak with me and we will work something out. I will speak with each of you individually in order to ascertain how many professors your department will need, at a later date. In the meantime I would like you to think carefully on how to proceed moving forward. If you have not headed a department before, please speak to someone who has. I will do my best to make myself available to answer all of your questions, however I anticipate that I will be quite busy in the upcoming months.”
After the meeting let out, Harry and I headed back to my office to chat.
“You know,” Harry said, after putting a privacy charm in place, “I think that this is our first teaching problem that Dad doesn’t have any experience with.”
“So how are you going to run your department?”
“I haven’t thought of that, yet. I suppose I’ll find people who specialise in different areas of defence, and have them teach different years. You?”
“I want at least one person to take the students who struggle, someone with loads of patience and who can explain the subject in a more simplified way. I also want someone with more of a Sev-like grasp of the subject, someone who can actually push the students in order to allow them to reach their maximum potential. I was also considering having someone who does better with lectures and theories and another who specialises in brewing. The thing is, that I am not certain if I want to continue on as department head once I get the department up and running.”
“But, you are detail oriented, you know exactly how things should be done, your ideas are great. Why would you not want to head your department?”
“Because,” I took a long, deep breath, “I have to manage my conditions. Having Autism and ADHD is not easy. I have good days and bad. If I suffer from a burn-out as a Department Head, then everybody will suffer. I will get the department up and running, but once that is done,” I shook my head, “I will be stepping down to exclusively teach.”
“I haven’t seen you get that bad.”
“Yes, you have, especially when we were children in this lifetime. I used to yell and scream, all those times I would pull my hair, hard, that humming sound that I would make, those days I would barely eat, barely do anything really. The only reason that I am not like that all the time anymore is because Sev has been brewing me potions ever since we arrived at Hogwarts. The only reason that I was not nearly as bad before Hogwarts was because Sev was always coaching me. I am great with Potions, and I love teaching, but I always keep an emergency lecture on hand for each year, and I have Sev ‘surprise’ guest lecture when I have really bad days. I try to do most of my preplanning when I am having a good day, yet I have to balance that out with not overdoing it and burning myself out. But if I do not preplan and prepare on a good day, then I have too much work to do on a bad day. And just like you, Sev helped me out a lot in the beginning, going over lesson plans, letting me know what to expect, what will likely go wrong, what does and does not work…”
“I didn’t realise that you still had it so bad,” Harry said. “You always seem so… normal. Err, no offence.”
“None taken. I do want my department to be set up a specific way, and to run how I like it. I am always full of ideas as you mentioned. I just doubt that I can handle the workload. I will talk to Sev, of course, and see what he thinks.”
That weekend, Sev and I came up with a plan. For the first year I would be the Potions Department Head, and I would have an assistant to help me manage the department. After that I would select which new professor I thought was best qualified to act as the Department Head, while I acted as Deputy Department Head. If, however, I felt that I could manage, then I would choose the new professor to be my deputy.
In the end, I ended up being the Potions Department Head. My analytical brain made it easy for me to see what was going right and wrong, and how to fix it. My Deputy Department Head handled the interpersonal issues, as well as helping me to execute my ideas. Having more professors meant that I was less overworked with my regular duties, and therefore had more time to manage the department.
September 1991:
Shortly after the sorting ceremony, as everyone was eating, Harry and I were talking under a privacy charm.
“So do you even recognise your year?” I asked.
The class of 1998 was double the size as before, even with a few students having never been born, such as Crabbe and Goyle. Although most of the students were sorted the same, there were three noticeable differences. As predicted, Ronald Weasley was sorted into Slytherin, Neville Longbottom was a Hufflepuff, and Hermione Granger was placed in Ravenclaw.
“I’m glad that there are so many new faces, it’ll make it feel different, better even. This way I am not teaching my former friends, I am teaching a group of people I have never even heard of.”
“Just remember what McGonagall said about calling on different students each time, and not rewarding students for speaking without being called on.”
I had had a private conversation with McGonagall about Hermione Granger. In the books, she almost always would raise her hand and then blurt out the answer without being called on, or if the professor said another student’s name before finishing the question she would raise her hand and stand up if seated, or jump up and down if standing. Even Harry said in the narration that it was ‘very off-putting’ trying to answer the question because of her. Also, next to nobody even bothered with trying to answer a question. Why would they, if they never got the chance to answer? McGonagall agreed to remind the professors that such behaviour was not allowed.
“I take it that you spoke to her about Hermione before the meeting?”
“Yah,” I admitted sheepishly.
“Why not come to me?”
“Because you were not one of her professors who supported her bad behaviour. Besides, I spent enough time badmouthing your friends from the first timeline, Dumbledore, Lupin, Weasley, Hagrid, your father, and definitely your godfather, and even your relationship with Ginny too. I just did not want to seem like I hate everyone you liked.”
“You liked Neville, Luna, Hermione, and loads more. I don’t hate you for not liking the ones who were up to no good. Besides, even I don’t like most of those people anymore.”
Hagrid had reacted very poorly to Dumbledore leaving the school. Given his reaction, especially when combined with my recommendation, backed by Sev and a reluctant Harry, Hagrid was encouraged to find a job elsewhere in a field more befitting his skills and interests. It turns out, Hagrid had spent several decades badmouthing the other houses, and allowing violence against students, not just the years included in the books. When combined with his future actions; threatening Draco Malfoy with a punishment forbidden by McGonagall herself; not to ignore attacking Dudley Dursley, without know that he was a bully, for something his father said, that did not justify violence even against the father; introducing dangerous creatures to underprepared, untested students, not to mention creatures that he, himself, did not know how to take care of; keeping a pet acromantula unsupervised as a student; keeping a pet fire breathing dragon in a wooden hut; defending the illegal dragon when it bit a student he was allowing near it; attacking Karkaroff to the point where he was gasping for breath all because he spat near Dumbledore in defence of his attacked student; so on and so forth, it was decided that he did not belong in a school. Luckily for him, his name had been cleared before the war ended, allowing him to get a job at a dragon sanctuary.
It was a few days before Harry and I were talking again, even though Hagrid never even gave him the time of day, let alone became friends with him, in this timeline. Sev and Lily explained to me that it was not me he was angry at, just the fact that another of his friends was not whom he thought he was. He had liked the way that Hagrid stood up to his bullies; until I mentioned that an adult attacking people, and allowing others to attack people, especially children, was wrong. For example, Draco Malfoy called Ron Weasley poor in a horrid way, which caused Weasley to attack him. Hagrid saw all of this and defended the attack on Draco. As a child, he liked having an adult on his side when bullied; yet as an adult, he now realised that allowing a student to physically, and even magically with the following year’s mudblood incident, attack another student, even when the other student started the verbal argument, was wrong. Draco deserved to be punished, just not attacked; yet Hagrid treated Draco the same way Filch treated everyone.
“At least with the increased number of students from last time, there will be more than one bedroom per gender per year. You can always separate Draco and Ron into two different rooms.”
Harry opened his mouth to speak, but did not get the chance because at that moment a roll flew from David’s hand and missed Nate hitting Harry on the side of his head.
“We’ll talk more later,” he said to me before dropping the spell and turning to face his sons.
Unfortunately for him, Violet had taken Al to use the toilet, leaving him to escort his misbehaving boys from the room alone. Luckily, he made it back before the speech.
Each year I taught the first years Potions classes. This allowed me to get a better understanding of each student and what skill level they possessed. This, in turn, allowed me to best know where to place each student. This year’s first years were just as bad as I feared.
After taking attendance, I began with my introductory speech, which I modeled after Sev’s speech.
“Now, you are here to learn the subtle science and exact art that is potion making. I doubt that many of you will appreciate the beauty of a softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. This class will differ greatly from your other classes, as there is little wand-waving here. Any goofing off will result in you being banned from all brewing lessons, considering that these lessons will make up most of your mark in this class, you will fail. This is your only warning. Potions is the most dangerous class that you will take here at Hogwarts, and I will not tolerate any funny business.” I said that last line as sternly as possible.
“Now, who can tell me the ingredients found in the Cure for Boils?”
As predicted, Granger shot her hand into the air first. Also as predicted, she answered the question before I called on her, in typical Granger fashion.
Interrupting her mid-sentence, I asked, “You are?” Since I was usually bad with names in the first few days, I felt the need to ask her name.
“Hermione Granger, ma’am.”
“Two points from Ravenclaw Ms. Granger for speaking without being called on.”
“But, I was getting the answer right.”
“As I said, you answered the question without me calling on you. Next time you do so I will give you detention. Now would somebody who did not speak out of turn like to answer my question.”
Unfortunately, this caused a few of the students to snicker.
The student that I called on, a Mr. Matthews, got the answer correct.
When I asked my next question, Hermione did not blurt out the answer, however she also did not put her hand down after I called on Draco.
“One moment Mr. Malfoy, Ms. Granger, I have already called on another student. That means that your hand goes down until the next time I ask a question, unless you have a medical emergency that needs attending to?” This time I used my even sterner voice, once that Sev helped me perfect. This voice worried my older students who knew that I was no longer their fun professor, and instead was the strictest professor they had.
She put her hand down.
Thankfully, when I asked my final question she behaved. I was secretly grateful that she remained seated the entire time, unlike in the other timeline where she stood from her seat on the third question, simply because she was never called on.
Then we moved onto the brewing stage. I did my best to keep an eye on Neville Longbottom, however I had an entire class to monitor as well. In the end, he melted his first cauldron, although the damage was minimal to the other students.
During lunch time, Filius informed me that Fred and George had earned themselves another detention. All in all, it was a very long Wednesday.