Thought

[nineveh_uk]

An awful lot of the idiosyncrecies (to put it nicely) of Hogwarts can be put down to the fact that it doesn't have a school secretary. I thought it was a law of nature that a school cannot run without a cardiganed middle-aged woman in the office doing everything to keep the place on an even keel.

I blame Dumbledore. There probably was a secretary, but she resigned because he was impossible to work for and he said that there was no need to replace her. So the heads of house have to do all her work, which takes them a lot longer than it took her, which is why they have no time to check that their pupils haven't vanished/had all their stuff stolen/been lured into looking for werewolves/ been beaten to a pulp. It comes back to haunt him when the lack of that sort of knowledge leaves a gap for people like Malfoy (as a governor) and Umbridge to exploit.

Comments

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

A cardigan, a cat calender, power of the registers, and instant recall of the contents of the lost property box...

A few years ago I wrote An Interview at Hogwarts (http://bookwormsarah.livejournal.com/107750.html) which featured a school secretary called Leselia Frost (although now I read it back it isn't clear what her job is). I always thought there should be a proper secretary. Then again, I thought there should be a wider range of PE lessons (Quidditch available to all, not just the team) and Hermione should have missed her parents just a little when she didn't go home for Christmas.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I rather liked the the total lack of PE lessons at Hogwarts! Though I assume that there are voluntary clubs, but we never hear about them because of Harry's tendency to ignore anything that he's not involved with.

Hermione's apparent swtich-off of family life doesn't make sense though - outside Stockholm syndrome.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

Hermione's apparent swtich-off of family life doesn't make sense though - outside Stockholm syndrome.

The darker side of Hogwarts - maybe a mass anti-homesickness charm? I always felt sorry for Hermione's parents. They effectively lose their daughter aged eleven, and she spends almost every Christmas bar the first either at school or with school friends. Their lives probably didn't change much when their memories were modified and they were sent to the antipodes.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

And with this, as well.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I read as one who bunked off games and PE as much as possible, and went to read in the school library.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I completely agree.