When did DD become headmaster? (Was: Pince/Filch)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 152681

houyhnhnm:
> 
> Filch was not there when Molly and Arthur Weasley were in school,
but the old punishments were.  "Your father and I had been for a
nightime stroll," she said. "He got caught by Apollyon Pringle--he was
the caretaker in those days--you father's still got the marks." (GoF31)
> 
> This must have been before Dumbledore's time as headmaster.  It
seems reasonable that DD was the one who abolished the old punishments.


Carol responds:
I think we can determine the approximate date that Dumbledore became
headmaster based on two things: Lupin's enrollment in Hogwarts as a
first year, which would be in 1971 if I remember correctly, and
(possibly) McGonagall's tenure as Transfiguration teacher, which would
have begun when DD stopped teaching Transfiguration to become
headmaster. That would be "thirty years ago this December" as of OoP,
or December 1965 (which suggests a sudden replacement, as if someone
had just died). But we also need to consider the dates for the
Weasleys if Apollyon Pringle predates DD's tenure as headmaster.

The problem here (for me) is the Weasley chronology. In GoF, Mrs.
Weasley talks not only about Pringle, the former caretaker, but about
Ogg, the gamekeeper before Hagrid. It used to be assumed that Hagrid
was made gamekeeper, or maybe the gamekeeper's assistant, right after
he was expelled from Hogwarts at the end of his third year (June
1945), but he evidently wasn't in that position yet when Arthur
Weasley and Molly Prewett were in school. That would have made them
older than Hagrid. But now we're told (HBP) that they got married
right out of school when Voldemort first came to power, which would be
around 1970 and would make them about the same age as Lucius Malfoy
(which explains the rivalry between Lucius and Arthur in CoS--the
Draco and Ron of their day.) The only way I can reconcile those
apparently conflicting indicators of the Weasleys' age is to assume
that Hagrid didn't become gamekeeper until after Dumbledore became
headmaster. (If that's the case, we have a big gap for Hagrid, like
the one with Lupin, during which he wasn't at Hogwarts and we don't
know what he was doing. In Hagrid's case, the gap is about twenty-six
years if he was hired in 1971.)

At any rate, if we go for 1970 as the year the Weasleys got married
(the Lexicon give Bill Weasley's birthdate as 1971), they would have
been in school from 1963 to 1970, so both Ogg and Pringle would have
held their positions until at least that date. Let's say that
Dumbledore became headmaster at Dippett's death in 1970 or 1971, soon
after the Weasleys left Hogwarts. We know that DD was there to admit
eleven-year-old Remus Lupin in that year. Did Ogg and Pringle
conveniently retire (or die) that same year? Did Dumbledore ease them
out and substitute protected people of his own choice, the half-giant
Hagrid and the Squib Filch, at the same time outlawing the old
punishments (including whipping, manacles, and possibly
Transfiguration)? How did Filch know about them, then, since he can't
have attended Hogwarts? Surely the manacles on the walls would not be
sufficient in themselves to indicate that the punishments had been
*recently* abandoned. (Filch speaks with real longing of the "old
days." How did he know? Was he Pringle's assistant?) Or, if Dumbledore
became headmaster in 1965 when McGonagall became the Transfiguration
teacher, why did he wait so long to get rid of Ogg and Pringle
(especially Pringle, who seems like a real sadist) and substitute his
own people? and why, if Filch had ever used whips and manacles on
students, would DD hire him? Another of his famous second chances?

And, assuming 1971 rather than 1965 for Dumbledore's appointment as
headmaster because of the Weasleys and Apollyon Pringle, what about
those six years when McGonagall was teaching Transfiguration but
Dippett was still headmaster and Ogg and Pringle were gamekeeper and
caretaker, respectively? Where was Dumbledore? Do we have a six-year
gap for him, at exactly the time that the future Mr. and Mrs. Weasley
and young Lucius Malfoy were in school?

I absolutely agree that it was Dumbledore who abolished the old
punishments (and IMO started using Hogwarts as a refuge for people he
was trying to protect at about the same time). But when did that
happen, why protect Filch, and how did Filch gain his familiarity with
the "old ways" as practiced by Apollyon Pringle?

Carol, noting that the *Charlie* Weasley chronology problem is
unsolvable unless Gryffindor lost the cup every season that their
second-best Seeker every played but wondering if this one can be
worked out a little more logically