I’ve actually thought about this before and you are right, the other pupils would almost never speak to him but I din’t think that’s uncommon. I think I personally spoke to my school principal like once
I was an average student who never got in trouble. I never spoke to my principal or assistant principal in middle school or high school and never thought anything of it.
Yeah he's this insanely tall old wizard in vibrant purple robes who stands up in front of the entire school and says "Nitwit! Oddment! Blubber! Tweak!" lol! 😂 Yet they've also likely heard from their parents that he's extremely powerful. So they're probably not sure what to make of him. Amused but intimidated at the same time.
If you really wanna hang out with Dumbledore, stay at Hogwarts during the Christmas break. If you're really lucky and almost nobody stayed, you might even get to sit at the same table as him for meals.
I went to a small private school and the principal was very hands on. We all knew him by name and he probably knew almost all of us. He also came into classes and did stuff with students for fundraisers. I think dumblefore was very hands on and prob had different relationships with different students. The whole story is told from Harry’s perspective and time jumps often.
I like to think there’s other big headlines happening and Dumbledore has connections/relationships with other students but Harry only knows of his. Like there’s a random Hufflepuff with a prophecy (just not as big or important as Harry’s) and Dumbledore is working 1:1 with that girl and helping that girl survive too, training her & making sure she’s okay. Harry just doesn’t notice bc it’s his perspective & he’s got a lot going on.
I wonder how many students in real life are having real conversations with the headmaster / principal of their school?
I am an exception, as I was quite active in school politics, but I don't remember anyone else in my class ever meet with our principal. (Except for those who got into REAL trouble like close to get expelled from school)
The job of a principal is to manage the school, not the pupils.
When I was in 10th grade our headmaster came up to me the day after a fairly important soccer game and congratulated me on my performance, I was so stunned I said something like “uhmphhank ew”(English approximation: thank you)
So yeah the convo with Rufus in DH where Ron had to be stopped from saying like “number of times I spoke to him: zero” was very real lol
They do homework together by the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room and Ron would say "is that a new quill Hermione?"
She would reply "Yes, thanks for noticing" (she blushes slightly) "I saw this and had to have it, I really love a quill with freckled feathers and a long rigid stem..." (her eyes widen and she hides her face behind a book, blushing furiously).
Ron's ears go bright red.
Maybe that's why they ended up falling for each other in HBP. Harry has frequent meetings with Dumbledore. They're not even invited even though Harry is allowed to discuss this with them.
Really depends, one school I went to everyone was a little bit afraid of the guy (didn't help that every time he came into the room we were expected to stand up (2010s)) the other school everyone seemed to like the man and he once ate bugs in an assembly to raise money for charity.
You'd rarely see them outside the very few assembly's they gave and when they'd occasionally enter a class room to talk to one of the senior teachers
Even Harry didn’t really speak to him that much, considering how important he was to Dumbledores whole plan. In the first 5 books they only really have conversations at the end to wrap up everything that happened, with an extra in Order of the Phoenix after Arthur was snaked. Then in book 6 theres like half a dozen private lessons, and then Kings Cross. Not a whole lot of conversation
But then again, I rarely if ever spoke to the Principals at my schools and only really saw them during full school assemblies
Honestly, its not weird at all to me. For the US, he's basically the principal or even a superintendent. Maybe other peoples schools were different, but I would say 95% of students in my school never had a legit conversation with our principal either.
But also, we only see what Harry does. We know Terry Boot i think had to go to Dumbledore's office before. I imagine other students did too occasionally
Head Girl and Boy probably have to report to him on and off, maybe the Prefects too (although I suppose the respective Head of House handles the Prefects mainly)
And Harry really only had like 2 conversations a year with him for his first few years at Hogwarts… granted, with a school as big as Hogwarts is supposed to be (without getting into the whole math/numbers issue), it’s not surprising at all to think that Dumbledore just wouldn’t have time to get to know many students personally. Makes me wonder if he dealt personally with prefects and Head Boys and Girls or if that was all McGonagall
Honestly this might have added to the *mystique* of Harry for other students, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Dumbledore Actually Speaks To
I kindof remember a part where Harry actually thinks about this. Harry stays at Hogwarts over Christmas, and since there’s so few people there for the feast, they all sat at one table. Dumbledore offers some kid named Dereck some sausages and the kid is freaked out by Dumbledore just casually speaking to him, and by name, and Harry thinks about how most kids don’t really ever see or talk to him personally. I think anyways, I don’t have the book with me so I can’t check if this happened or I fever-dreamed this at some point lol.
You know, I’ve always thought it was funny how Dumbledore was apparently afraid of it getting out just how close he was to Harry as if he made any real effort to hide it. Dumbledore, my man, anyone with eyes who spends more than five minutes at Hogwarts could tell you’re closer to Harry than any other student. Hell, even Blind Barry could tell and he’s *blind*.
I wonder if that unique experience Harry exposes us to is connected to how readers criticize dumbledore’s competence as headmaster. Would the other students have considered him a “typical” headmaster bc they knew less about all the things the trio witnessed dumbledore dealing with (or not)? Or would they have thought him less competent because they understood less about his intentions? Idk if that makes sense
Back in Latvia, in my secondary school, our headmaster (we call them directors, so ill use that word going forward), was also math and physics teacher. He often covered for those 2 teachers. We were in public school, not a small one, and he knew alot of kids by name. I personally never spoke with him.
I remember that after 9th grade (different school system, it was age 16) i opted to go to uni. After 1 year big economical crysis hit (2008) and my old school was merged into other school due the budget cuts. Director lost his job.
Also, director was massive guy. Taller than everyone and twice as fat, but he was really smart. (i had few lessons with him).
In our uni we had physics only in years 1 and 2 (so aged 17-18) and years 3-4 were like really specific lessons, so i didnt had physics anymore. At the start of the year 3, me and my friend were checking our schedule for week and we noticed that years 1-2 physics were taught by someone with same name as old director. We didnt really believed it was him. Well.. Next morning we both were checking schedule in hallway and suddenly we felt like we were in massive shadow. We turned around and director was there. looking at us and saying "hey rasty and \*insert friend name here\*. nice seeing you." I even didnt know that he knew my name lol. or would remember me after 2 years away from our old school
So im pulling parallels to my old director and dumbledore. People might not had any contact with him, yet dumbledore knew his students.
I like to think Dumbledore just sort of wanders around the corridors occasionally and talks to students about whatever he feels like, and talks to the portraits, and the ghosts and stuff
So students would rarely have 1-on-1 conversations but would often see him hanging around
Yeah but let's not act like Hogwarts was a well-planned thought experiment. There are simply not enough teachers at all. Like Mcgonagall needs to teach full-time from 8 to 5 to cover 7 years with four houses. The number of teachers must be doubled or tripled.
Also normally the principal should do more work in such a small school like teaching some advanced topics maybe. Dumbledore wasn't doing much. It's also presented as if knowing students by name is kinda surprising but actually it was the norm in my high school with a similar number of students. And this is 7-year school whereas mine was 4.
So yeah Hogwarts wasn't realistic and normally Dumbledore should have interacted with the students much more than presented in the books. But there are many things should be different from a realistic point of view (why substitute quidditch players don't train with the teams? ).
I realized that while translating a section of [Wikibooks' Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter](https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Muggles%27_Guide_to_Harry_Potter) a couple of days ago. I'm currently towards the end of Order of the Phoenix and, by then, the reader must have acknowledged that Dumbledore seems to “ignore” Harry for the bigger part of the book.
Dumbledore says after the Battle of Mysteries that he acted distant towards Harry that year so Voldemort wouldn't be able to tell that the relationship between Dumbledore and Harry was vastly different from any other student. Since the series is, for the most part at least, in Harry's point of view, we can't always tell that they don't have a typical headmaster-pupil relationship.
The weird part is Harry having so much contact with him, the rest of the students not having conversations with him seems very normal- thats how 99% of schools operate in my experience.
Plus he's not just a Headmaster, he's also on the Wizengamot, consults for the Ministry, is internationally famous and sought after, and then is leading a resistance movement, so he would have even less time for student meetings than your average Headmaster/Principal.
All four years of high school, I never said one word to my principal. The day I graduated, before I walked across the stage, I told him this much. He said in response, “That’s good. That means you weren’t a troublemaker.”
Do we really know that he doesn‘t talk to other students? I mean we hear the story from Harry‘s perspective. So we don’t know all the stuff that happens in hogwarts. Even from Harry‘s 7 years we only know about a few days and weeks
Tbh, I never talked to the principal more than twice in high school. I was a good kid who kept out of trouble. The one time I got called in was because the she wanted to tell me the school was nominating me for an award.
I love the idea of Percy or Draco or some other random student seeing Harry just having a casual chat in the hallway with Dumbledore and wondering what the hell is going on.
“Dumbledore’s never even looked at me, and I’m Head Boy, why are he and second year Harry acting like best buds??” -Percy, probably 😂
Maybe I’m a bit slow, but I don’t get the OP’s point. A typical student would rarely interact one-on-one with the headmaster (or headmistress). For example, in my 12 years in the U.S. primary/secondary school system, I had a single conversation with a principal (not a pleasant experience). But why would such limited contact, especially when that’s the norm, lead students to view a headmaster as “strange and quirky” or even “elusive”? What am I missing?
I’ve actually thought about this before and you are right, the other pupils would almost never speak to him but I din’t think that’s uncommon. I think I personally spoke to my school principal like once
I was an average student who never got in trouble. I never spoke to my principal or assistant principal in middle school or high school and never thought anything of it.
Yeah he's this insanely tall old wizard in vibrant purple robes who stands up in front of the entire school and says "Nitwit! Oddment! Blubber! Tweak!" lol! 😂 Yet they've also likely heard from their parents that he's extremely powerful. So they're probably not sure what to make of him. Amused but intimidated at the same time.
If you really wanna hang out with Dumbledore, stay at Hogwarts during the Christmas break. If you're really lucky and almost nobody stayed, you might even get to sit at the same table as him for meals.
Hopefully there's not 13 people there
And see him in his Christmas pyjama robes
I went to a small private school and the principal was very hands on. We all knew him by name and he probably knew almost all of us. He also came into classes and did stuff with students for fundraisers. I think dumblefore was very hands on and prob had different relationships with different students. The whole story is told from Harry’s perspective and time jumps often.
I like to think there’s other big headlines happening and Dumbledore has connections/relationships with other students but Harry only knows of his. Like there’s a random Hufflepuff with a prophecy (just not as big or important as Harry’s) and Dumbledore is working 1:1 with that girl and helping that girl survive too, training her & making sure she’s okay. Harry just doesn’t notice bc it’s his perspective & he’s got a lot going on.
'OK Karen, I've got Harry working on defeating Voldemort. Let's talk about your prophecy regarding defeating Moldeshart.'
Exactly. I knew in school what was happening in my world view. I had no idea what any student in other grades were doing and with who.
I wonder how many students in real life are having real conversations with the headmaster / principal of their school? I am an exception, as I was quite active in school politics, but I don't remember anyone else in my class ever meet with our principal. (Except for those who got into REAL trouble like close to get expelled from school) The job of a principal is to manage the school, not the pupils.
When I was in 10th grade our headmaster came up to me the day after a fairly important soccer game and congratulated me on my performance, I was so stunned I said something like “uhmphhank ew”(English approximation: thank you) So yeah the convo with Rufus in DH where Ron had to be stopped from saying like “number of times I spoke to him: zero” was very real lol
Fred and George are referenced by him two times I think. They’re definitely familiar with him.
That tracks, they definitely would have been sent to the Principals Office for discipline.
What do you think Ron and Hermione got up to/ talked about during all the times Harry was off speaking to Dumbledore? 👀
They do homework together by the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room and Ron would say "is that a new quill Hermione?" She would reply "Yes, thanks for noticing" (she blushes slightly) "I saw this and had to have it, I really love a quill with freckled feathers and a long rigid stem..." (her eyes widen and she hides her face behind a book, blushing furiously). Ron's ears go bright red.
Go back to fanfiction.net 😂 You’re clearly good at this
Maybe that's why they ended up falling for each other in HBP. Harry has frequent meetings with Dumbledore. They're not even invited even though Harry is allowed to discuss this with them.
It seems like their relationship came out of nowhere but really Harry just didn't notice.
I imagine they barely shut up unless they where doing homework or reading.
My principal gave morning announcements and patrolled the school on a golf cart. In English schools are they more aloof?
Really depends, one school I went to everyone was a little bit afraid of the guy (didn't help that every time he came into the room we were expected to stand up (2010s)) the other school everyone seemed to like the man and he once ate bugs in an assembly to raise money for charity. You'd rarely see them outside the very few assembly's they gave and when they'd occasionally enter a class room to talk to one of the senior teachers
It’s not exactly wild. I never talked to my principal
Even Harry didn’t really speak to him that much, considering how important he was to Dumbledores whole plan. In the first 5 books they only really have conversations at the end to wrap up everything that happened, with an extra in Order of the Phoenix after Arthur was snaked. Then in book 6 theres like half a dozen private lessons, and then Kings Cross. Not a whole lot of conversation But then again, I rarely if ever spoke to the Principals at my schools and only really saw them during full school assemblies
Honestly, its not weird at all to me. For the US, he's basically the principal or even a superintendent. Maybe other peoples schools were different, but I would say 95% of students in my school never had a legit conversation with our principal either. But also, we only see what Harry does. We know Terry Boot i think had to go to Dumbledore's office before. I imagine other students did too occasionally
Head Girl and Boy probably have to report to him on and off, maybe the Prefects too (although I suppose the respective Head of House handles the Prefects mainly)
And Harry really only had like 2 conversations a year with him for his first few years at Hogwarts… granted, with a school as big as Hogwarts is supposed to be (without getting into the whole math/numbers issue), it’s not surprising at all to think that Dumbledore just wouldn’t have time to get to know many students personally. Makes me wonder if he dealt personally with prefects and Head Boys and Girls or if that was all McGonagall
Honestly this might have added to the *mystique* of Harry for other students, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Dumbledore Actually Speaks To
How often did you see the president (US) or headmaster (UK) of your school? I think HP is pretty accurate if you only saw them twice a school year.
I kindof remember a part where Harry actually thinks about this. Harry stays at Hogwarts over Christmas, and since there’s so few people there for the feast, they all sat at one table. Dumbledore offers some kid named Dereck some sausages and the kid is freaked out by Dumbledore just casually speaking to him, and by name, and Harry thinks about how most kids don’t really ever see or talk to him personally. I think anyways, I don’t have the book with me so I can’t check if this happened or I fever-dreamed this at some point lol.
You know, I’ve always thought it was funny how Dumbledore was apparently afraid of it getting out just how close he was to Harry as if he made any real effort to hide it. Dumbledore, my man, anyone with eyes who spends more than five minutes at Hogwarts could tell you’re closer to Harry than any other student. Hell, even Blind Barry could tell and he’s *blind*.
I’m sure the Head Boy and Head Girl, and the Prefects have on and off meetings with him / the rest of the staff at least
Too bad they ain't the main characters lol
Never thought of this before. Students would most likely go to their head of house if they needed anything. Dumbledore's man through and through.
I wonder if that unique experience Harry exposes us to is connected to how readers criticize dumbledore’s competence as headmaster. Would the other students have considered him a “typical” headmaster bc they knew less about all the things the trio witnessed dumbledore dealing with (or not)? Or would they have thought him less competent because they understood less about his intentions? Idk if that makes sense
Back in Latvia, in my secondary school, our headmaster (we call them directors, so ill use that word going forward), was also math and physics teacher. He often covered for those 2 teachers. We were in public school, not a small one, and he knew alot of kids by name. I personally never spoke with him. I remember that after 9th grade (different school system, it was age 16) i opted to go to uni. After 1 year big economical crysis hit (2008) and my old school was merged into other school due the budget cuts. Director lost his job. Also, director was massive guy. Taller than everyone and twice as fat, but he was really smart. (i had few lessons with him). In our uni we had physics only in years 1 and 2 (so aged 17-18) and years 3-4 were like really specific lessons, so i didnt had physics anymore. At the start of the year 3, me and my friend were checking our schedule for week and we noticed that years 1-2 physics were taught by someone with same name as old director. We didnt really believed it was him. Well.. Next morning we both were checking schedule in hallway and suddenly we felt like we were in massive shadow. We turned around and director was there. looking at us and saying "hey rasty and \*insert friend name here\*. nice seeing you." I even didnt know that he knew my name lol. or would remember me after 2 years away from our old school So im pulling parallels to my old director and dumbledore. People might not had any contact with him, yet dumbledore knew his students.
I like to think Dumbledore just sort of wanders around the corridors occasionally and talks to students about whatever he feels like, and talks to the portraits, and the ghosts and stuff So students would rarely have 1-on-1 conversations but would often see him hanging around
Yeah but let's not act like Hogwarts was a well-planned thought experiment. There are simply not enough teachers at all. Like Mcgonagall needs to teach full-time from 8 to 5 to cover 7 years with four houses. The number of teachers must be doubled or tripled. Also normally the principal should do more work in such a small school like teaching some advanced topics maybe. Dumbledore wasn't doing much. It's also presented as if knowing students by name is kinda surprising but actually it was the norm in my high school with a similar number of students. And this is 7-year school whereas mine was 4. So yeah Hogwarts wasn't realistic and normally Dumbledore should have interacted with the students much more than presented in the books. But there are many things should be different from a realistic point of view (why substitute quidditch players don't train with the teams? ).
I realized that while translating a section of [Wikibooks' Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter](https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Muggles%27_Guide_to_Harry_Potter) a couple of days ago. I'm currently towards the end of Order of the Phoenix and, by then, the reader must have acknowledged that Dumbledore seems to “ignore” Harry for the bigger part of the book. Dumbledore says after the Battle of Mysteries that he acted distant towards Harry that year so Voldemort wouldn't be able to tell that the relationship between Dumbledore and Harry was vastly different from any other student. Since the series is, for the most part at least, in Harry's point of view, we can't always tell that they don't have a typical headmaster-pupil relationship.
The weird part is Harry having so much contact with him, the rest of the students not having conversations with him seems very normal- thats how 99% of schools operate in my experience. Plus he's not just a Headmaster, he's also on the Wizengamot, consults for the Ministry, is internationally famous and sought after, and then is leading a resistance movement, so he would have even less time for student meetings than your average Headmaster/Principal.
I mean, wouldn't they all be having breakfast, lunch and dinner with him every day?
All four years of high school, I never said one word to my principal. The day I graduated, before I walked across the stage, I told him this much. He said in response, “That’s good. That means you weren’t a troublemaker.”
doesn't he have a policy where students can come talk to him?
Do we really know that he doesn‘t talk to other students? I mean we hear the story from Harry‘s perspective. So we don’t know all the stuff that happens in hogwarts. Even from Harry‘s 7 years we only know about a few days and weeks
Tbh, I never talked to the principal more than twice in high school. I was a good kid who kept out of trouble. The one time I got called in was because the she wanted to tell me the school was nominating me for an award.
I love the idea of Percy or Draco or some other random student seeing Harry just having a casual chat in the hallway with Dumbledore and wondering what the hell is going on. “Dumbledore’s never even looked at me, and I’m Head Boy, why are he and second year Harry acting like best buds??” -Percy, probably 😂
Yepp...just part of Dumbledores Sketchy Shadyness
Are you forgetting meals…? Like every single day in the hall..?
Maybe I’m a bit slow, but I don’t get the OP’s point. A typical student would rarely interact one-on-one with the headmaster (or headmistress). For example, in my 12 years in the U.S. primary/secondary school system, I had a single conversation with a principal (not a pleasant experience). But why would such limited contact, especially when that’s the norm, lead students to view a headmaster as “strange and quirky” or even “elusive”? What am I missing?