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

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 152703

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).

houyhnhnm:

Tom Riddle came to see Dumbledore (as headmaster) ten years after the
death of Hepzibah Smith. "Ten years separates Hokey's memory and this
one." (HBP 20)  Riddle went to work at Borgin and Burkes right after
leaving school.  It is not known how long he stayed with them, but
clearly not 20 to 25 years as he would have to have done if DD became
headmaster from 1965-1970.

I think you are mistaken about McGonagall.  My copy of OotP says
"Thirty-nine years this December." That would make her date of hire
sometime in December of 1956. That date would fit with the evidence
from HBP and it would make sense that Armando Dippet died at this
time, Dumbledore succeeded to the headmastership, and his position as
transfiguration teacher had to be filled.

This doesn't exactly square with Lupin's statement in PoA that "It
seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts ... But
then Dumbledore became headmaster...."  According to the timline
above, Lupin wouldn't even have been born, much less bitten, at the
time Dumbledore became headmaster.

Maybe Lupin's statement is a Flint.  Maybe, because he was a small
child at the time and it is a painful memory for him besides, he just
got it partly wrong.

Carol:

> 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 
> 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 

houyhnhnm:

Mrs. Weasley doesn't say anything to indicate that Hagrid was not
there, only that there was another groundskeeper.  Hagrid was around
13, wasn't he, when he was expelled?  He would have to have spent some
years in training.  Then perhaps he spent many years as Ogg's
assistant before Ogg retired.  The same with Pringle.  I'm sure
Dumbledore would have outlawed the whips and chains when he became
headmaster, but that doesn't mean that Pringle left at that time.  DD
doesn't ever seem to sack people.  And if Pringle kept, Kreacher-like,
a secret stash of torture instruments, he could have passed them on to
Filch (for whom, I concede, there is not really much evidence of being
Tobias Snape.  Alas!)  Filch's knowledge of the good old days does not
bother me as much as it seems to bother you, perhaps because I have
had plenty of jobs where records were kept and old, disused equipment
was left lying around in lumber rooms for years.