Things That Should Have Happened in Canon
This piece comes from the suggestion of Narutofan8762 in a review of chapter 28 to address the idea of McGonagall holding too many positions at Hogwarts. In this piece, I keep that history but have McGonagall set a new policy once she becomes Headmistress. Some staff members holding too many positions was definitely an issue.
As Minerva McGonagall set to embark upon her first full year as Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry following the Second Wizarding War, she felt that there was one thing that needed to NOT happen at Hogwarts going forward. The thing was any member of staff holding more than one position at once.
On Saturday, August 1st, 1998, the following article appeared in the Daily Prophet:
HOGWARTS STAFF MEMBERS NOW LIMITED TO ONE POSITION AT A TIME ONLY:
Late Friday afternoon, Hogwarts Headmistress Minerva McGonagall confirmed to Daily Prophet reporters that she was implementing a policy restricting Hogwarts staff to one position at a time ahead of the Fall 1998 semester.
"In recent years, I pushed myself to exhaustion holding three positions, " explained McGonagall, "I was Deputy Headmistress, Transfiguration Teacher, and Head of Gryffindor House for many years, and I definitely had too much on my plate holding three positions. The only one of my positions I really did a good job at was Transfiguration Teacher. Effective immediately, any staff member at Hogwarts shall only be permitted to hold ONE position on staff at any given time. Going forward, the Heads of House shall not be teachers and the Deputy Head of Hogwarts shall not be a Head of House. It is my hope that in the Postwar Era, limiting Hogwarts staff members to one position at a time will allow staff members to better focus on the jobs they have to do and have more energy to do them. It should be noted that staff members can hold different positions throughout their careers and lives at Hogwarts, just not at the same time. In some cases, I may offer a staff member a promotion or request that he or she change jobs if I feel that it will benefit Hogwarts but henceforth the number of positions that any staff member may hold at any given nanosecond will be equal to one. "
Minerva McGonagall herself was often viewed as useless as a Head of House and with some merit, as she seemed to let her lions swing in the breeze.
"McGonagall was inflexible and failed Gryffindors as a Head of House, " was the view taken by longtime Gryffindor Harry Potter, "She would never listen to our concerns when we approached her, and her attitude seemed to be somewhere between "deal with it" and get on with it."
Other recent Gryffindor graduates backed Mr. Potter's claims.
"McGonagall never had time for us and didn't like to listen," said Harry Potter's classmate Parvati Patil.
"McGonagall never did anything to stop the Slytherins from bullying us, " stated Gryffindor Quidditch veteran Alicia Spinnet.
As McGonagall states that the only role she succeeded in was Transfiguration teacher, perhaps she agrees with these assessments
Regardless of whether McGonagall's failures as a Head of House were because her heart wasn't in the job, because she had too much on her plate, or for some other reason, it cannot be denied that her new policy as Headmistress of Hogwarts to limit staff members to one position at a time is the right decision.
"If you try to do too many things at once, you'll do far worse at all of them while driving yourself mad, " was the view taken by Hermione, a Gryffindor who plans to return to Hogwarts to complete her magical education after missing last school year."
Meanwhile, the separating of the positions was also welcome news to many.
"Having your Head of House be a teacher is a conflict of interest, " opined Ravenclaw student Luna Lovegood, "There can be and often was inherit bias from teachers who were Heads of House in favor of their own students over all others. Severus Snape was especially bad about this."
"It always bothered me that a Head of House was our Deputy Headmistress for so long," acknowledged recent Hufflepuff graduate Ernie Macmillan, "It's an obvious conflict of interest and there's no way anyone has time to do both jobs successfully. Being a teacher is demanding enough with all the classes to teach and all the papers to grade. Even a rank and file teacher shouldn't have other responsibilities outside of being a teacher."
Postings for jobs on Hogwarts staff that are now available and need to be filled will appear in the Daily Prophet in the days to come as Hogwarts staff will be growing a bit thanks to this new requirement.
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