Hogwarts: A tight schedule

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 43419

The recent discussion of how Hogwart works, when I steped up to suggest 
a fellow listmember's (Catlady) theory of multiple campuses, somehow 
lead me to a math problem, in a way to poke holes ont one of the 
theories. That got me to thinking, since I once before suggested that 
Snape's life as a teacher must be a hell. The post, which I'm going to 
paraphrase here, was never actually challenged. It's quite old, so I'm 
giving it another try to see if someone can come up with a plausible 
theory on how it works.

The problem is this: some of the teachers have got schedules that, 
although (remotely) possible, would stress them into suicide in a few 
months. The most obvious ones are Snape and the DADA teacher. I'm from 
the sciences view, so I'm going to express this with numbers. If you 
need clarification, please do tell me so.

Snape: has to teach potions to all years, and he gets two double groups 
out of every year. He teaches 4 hours/week. 

DADA: Teaches all the years too, and has 4 groups per year. He teaches 
2 hours/week.

They are really one and the same. The total number of groups in the 
school is 4 groups/year * 7 years = 28. Thus, Snape teaches 14 groups 
(since he doubles), 4 hours/week to a total of 56 hours. The DADA also 
teaches 56 hours/week (28 * 2). Most listees will probably know that 
the number of hours a week is 40, and recently, sindicates ask for 35, 
but that's not the worst of it.

Snape and the DADA are basically on the same schedule, so I'll 
concentrate on Snape: 56 hours/week means (in a five day week, since 
canon points towards saturdays and sundays free) 11.2 hours/day (that 
is, 11 hours a day and an extra one one day). That day, Snape teaches 
from 8 o'clock in the morning until -at least- 9 o'clock in the 
afternoon, with only one hour to eat. Needless to say, Harry has never 
had class so late, except to gaze at the stars, which takes place at 
midnight. It STILL gets worse (as if an 11 hour/day schedule wasn't 
madness already), when you throw in PoA.

During PoA, Snape actually takes up the DADA teacher's (Lupin's) 
classes: all 56 hours of it. This means he actually has, during that 
week, to teach 112 hours. In five days, there are 120 hours. Yes, 
that's right. That week, Snape sleeps 8 hours (1.6 hours/night), 
doesn't eat (unless he eats in class), and his students get DADA 
classes during the night (and I mean at 3 o'clock in the morning). He 
looks angry, all right. I would do too, after THAT.

So, now I should offer some solutions. The first and most obvious one, 
is that he uses Time-Turners to attend his own classes, and that during 
that week in four that Lupin feels under the weather, Snape's 
Time-turner must be steaming (I mean, he'd have to use it two or three 
times every two hours to attend everything, and I'd say that he'd have 
to use it to get some sleep and food, too). Unfortunately, canon desn't 
point that way, even if time turners ARE introduced in PoA. Students 
are bound to notice that he gives them potions at the same time he 
teaches DADA to another group. And we know from Hermione's experience 
with the Time-turner that it's increadibly stressing.

Another posibility is that there are actually clases on Saturday (I was 
going to suggest half-day, but doesn't wash). Supposing he takes 8 
hours for sleeping/eating/personal health care/etc, that would give 
Snape 96 hours (16*6) each week, which means Snape would "just" have to 
find overtime to teach an extra 16 hours each week, which could be done 
by teaching 3 extra hours each day from his personal time, save 
Saturday when he would (only!) have to teach 2 extra hours (taken out 
of nightime, of course). In total, he would be teaching 18.67 hours a 
day, which means sleeping 5.33 hours a day (and probably most of the 
Sunday). Which is still absolute hell, even if it's just one week out 
of four.

Also, the DADA classes could have been taught to the students while 
Lupin is off sick by any number of the teachers, and Harry was just 
(un)lucky enough to get stuck with Snape. This means another two hours 
to his schedule, for a grand total of 58 hours during that week. This 
comes out to mean less than 12 hours a day, and is not very different 
from what he had before. Unfortunately, the same problem as before 
exists: AFAWK, classes end at about 5 in the afternoon, not at 9 
o'clock, which would be necessary to teach all those hours (since we 
know the students stop to eat, although I supose we cannot discount 
eating in turn -but still, that would only give him an extra hour, and 
he'd have to eat in class, although that wouldn't be a problem. Snape 
should be an excellent cook, and the cauldron is there already...).

Another possibility is that classes last less than an hour (right now, 
I'm working with 55 minute classes with 5 minutes between clases so you 
can get from one to another). Working with Snape's normal (that is, 
non-intensive) week schedule, where he teaches 28 double clases in a 40 
hour week, he could make it fit if classes + break lasted 42,86 
minutes. That is, 40 minutes per class plus a brisky run of nerly three 
minutes to get from divination in the tallest tower to transfiguration. 
No wonder Harry tends to be late to class.

There is one last possibility: Potion classes get less hours as years 
go on, meaning that 5, 6 and 7 years get only one double class per 
week. with this suposition (which, I think, will get shotdown very 
quickly in future books, if we ver get to read them), Snape only has to 
teach (4*2*4) + (3*2*2) = 44 hours/week. Which is just 9 hours/day 
except Fridays, when he gets a normal working schedule. Small wonder he 
always seems angry, whichever way you look at it.

That's it. I've given you all the pieces I've been able to found. If 
you see a piece of the border, and decide to take a shot at putting it 
all toghether, be my guest. If you want to throw another piece in, feel 
free. I have the gut feeling that the answer is just staring at me up 
there, by mix-and-match, but I'm just too tired to look for it.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf, who would like to know why people so frecuently mispell his 
name: bboy_mn, unless you want to be called ggirl_op in his posts from 
now own, would you please remember that it's GREY Wolf, *NOT* "Gery" 
Wolf?