About Hogwarts Professors

When reading the original books, people might rarely have considered the number of professors at Hogwarts. After all, from beginning to end, only the protagonist was shown attending classes, so those few professors seemed more than enough.

But considering that there were seven years and four Houses, with two Houses sharing each class, that meant there were fourteen classes in total. Even excluding the advanced sixth- and seventh-year classes, where all four Houses attended together, there were still twelve classes.

Taking Herbology as an example, with three Herbology classes per week, Professor Sprout would have had to teach thirty-six classes a week. And Hogwarts classes were long, two hours each. That was obviously impossible.

Of course, through the collective efforts of many fans, this bug had already received several possible solutions. I chose the one I considered most reasonable, added some of my own thoughts, and that became the setting for this book.

The setting was as follows:

Each required subject at Hogwarts had several professors—I personally thought three to five professors was more reasonable. Among the several professors for each subject, there should have been a teaching group leader, equivalent to a department head in our terms. It was perfectly reasonable for each Head of House to serve as the department head for the subject they taught. In addition, outstanding students who had just graduated could remain at the school as teaching assistants, helping professors share the pressure of teaching.

This also explained certain details in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. As everyone knew, before Professor McGonagall became the Transformation professor, Dumbledore had held that position. Yet in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Dumbledore was the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. As for McGonagall appearing in the films, just ignore her—or treat her as an outstanding graduate who remained at the school as a teaching assistant and happened to share Professor McGonagall's name, because Minerva McGonagall was only born in 1935, ten years later than this book's protagonist...

The story of Fantastic Beasts took place around 1926. At the time, Dumbledore was around forty-five years old and presumably had not yet become a Head of House. He was merely a member of the "teaching group," under Professor Galatea Merrythought's management. At some point after 1926, perhaps because the previous Gryffindor Head retired, or because Dumbledore's reputation had grown too great, he obtained the position of Head of House. And a Head of House deserved a department head's position.

At that time, Professor Merrythought had not yet retired, so the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts department head could not be considered. Therefore, it was only natural for him to switch to teaching Transformation, another subject he was equally skilled in.

This setting could also be reflected in other ways. After Harry Potter and the others graduated in 1997, Neville remained at Hogwarts as a Herbology professor. But Professor Sprout was still nowhere near retirement age, so Neville was more likely to have first stayed as a teaching assistant before being promoted into the teaching group.

After all, Professor Sprout had to teach students while tending to so many greenhouses. She certainly could not have managed it all alone, so she must have had quite a few helpers.

As for the Defense Against the Dark Arts class cursed by Voldemort, where every professor met a bad end... It was hard to imagine how to patch that bug. But from my own perspective, perhaps after the curse on the subject was discovered, the number of Defense Against the Dark Arts classes was reduced. Young wizards only had one class a week, so a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor would have taught twelve classes a week, which could barely have been managed...

Note: This chapter was highly subjective and could be viewed merely as a bit of imaginative speculation for reference. Readers with differing opinions were welcome to discuss them in the comments; the author would patiently listen to all suggestions. (Salute!)

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