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

[jennyrad.livejournal.com]

There's an assumption of competence and comparative youth on the part of Hooch, isn't there? Come to think of it, I find to my dismay that I can name an alarmingly large number of apparently-competent Hogwarts staff - Madame Pomfrey, whoever teaches Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and Astronomy, Professor Sprout, the Grubbly-Plank woman, the librarian ... And quite possibly Charity Burbage.

Incompetence in hiring that possibly preceded McGonagall and Flitwick: Professor Binns.