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I wrote 600 words of "Secrets" tonight, but only 300 of them actually count. This is because they are both the beginning of scene... wait, what scene am I on, anyway? *checks file* Scene 7, apparently. Good to know.
Anyway, I worked out a class schedule for Ginny years ago, which relies on the assumptions that A) Hogwarts only has one teacher for each subject, B) classes are one-house unless they are Doubles, in which case they are two-house, and C) the professors do not use Time-Turners all day long. This necessitated a couple other assumptions, such as NEWT-level classes being four-house (I did the scheduling between GoF and OotP, so for all I knew, this was valid -- actually, I cannot recall off the top of my head whether canon contradicted me on that later on) and Hogwarts using a rotating two-week block schedule and lots of homework rather than students having a lesson in every subject every day.
The upshot of this is that the week after the mess in the Chamber is a Week Two schedule in my world, which means Ginny ought to have Defense at 8am on Wednesday (I have successfully navigated through Monday and Tuesday... though I still need to fix the end of the Hagrid scene, which is scene 6). But Lockhart is unavailable.
"No problem!" I thought. "Obviously Dumbledore will do most of the substitute teaching himself, and have other professors (mostly ones who teach electives) fill in as needed, basing their lessons off reading Lockhart's books and summarizing the useful bits, or simple exercises cribbed from previous Defense teachers' old lesson plans." I was just getting into the swing of this when it occurred to me that perhaps I should check canon to make sure there was not a 'real' Defense teacher for the final month of term.
And I found that there was no Defense class for the final month of term.
...
As an occasional teacher myself (homeschool and Sunday school), I find that abhorrent. There are times I really hate being constrained by Rowling's more juvenile wish-fulfillment story elements.
But the point of "Secrets" is to be utterly faithful to canon (except when that is literally impossible, because canon is, y'know, wrong -- like having school on Valentine's Day, which was a Sunday that year), so I stuck my little Dumbledore scenelet in my alt. scenes file and wrote a new scene opening instead. This means my 'Ginny continues to ease back into school' scene will now occur with Professor McGonagall (Transfiguration, 9am) instead. That's okay. It's mostly filler to get to the confrontation with Daphne anyway, which is the real point of scene 7.
Anyway, I worked out a class schedule for Ginny years ago, which relies on the assumptions that A) Hogwarts only has one teacher for each subject, B) classes are one-house unless they are Doubles, in which case they are two-house, and C) the professors do not use Time-Turners all day long. This necessitated a couple other assumptions, such as NEWT-level classes being four-house (I did the scheduling between GoF and OotP, so for all I knew, this was valid -- actually, I cannot recall off the top of my head whether canon contradicted me on that later on) and Hogwarts using a rotating two-week block schedule and lots of homework rather than students having a lesson in every subject every day.
The upshot of this is that the week after the mess in the Chamber is a Week Two schedule in my world, which means Ginny ought to have Defense at 8am on Wednesday (I have successfully navigated through Monday and Tuesday... though I still need to fix the end of the Hagrid scene, which is scene 6). But Lockhart is unavailable.
"No problem!" I thought. "Obviously Dumbledore will do most of the substitute teaching himself, and have other professors (mostly ones who teach electives) fill in as needed, basing their lessons off reading Lockhart's books and summarizing the useful bits, or simple exercises cribbed from previous Defense teachers' old lesson plans." I was just getting into the swing of this when it occurred to me that perhaps I should check canon to make sure there was not a 'real' Defense teacher for the final month of term.
And I found that there was no Defense class for the final month of term.
...
As an occasional teacher myself (homeschool and Sunday school), I find that abhorrent. There are times I really hate being constrained by Rowling's more juvenile wish-fulfillment story elements.
But the point of "Secrets" is to be utterly faithful to canon (except when that is literally impossible, because canon is, y'know, wrong -- like having school on Valentine's Day, which was a Sunday that year), so I stuck my little Dumbledore scenelet in my alt. scenes file and wrote a new scene opening instead. This means my 'Ginny continues to ease back into school' scene will now occur with Professor McGonagall (Transfiguration, 9am) instead. That's okay. It's mostly filler to get to the confrontation with Daphne anyway, which is the real point of scene 7.
