Chapter 62: Being Too Excellent Can Get You Eliminated Too

A person's energy is limited — and that's true even for wizards.

Ever since the Weasley twins arrived at Hogwarts, Professor McGonagall had been thinking about finding a suitable student to work as her assistant.

Her workload had always been enormous: preparing lessons, grading assignments, adjusting timetables for seven years of students, managing the endless slip-ups from Gryffindor House, coordinating with the Ministry of Magic, auditing and approving procurement of all school supplies, reviewing professors' various requests, conducting job surveys for graduating students, coordinating with other schools and reviewing exchange applications…

All these tasks — plus the inevitable emergencies — were more than enough for a full-time position on their own, even before factoring in her teaching duties. And the arrival of the Weasley twins made "emergencies" the new normal.

But finding a truly suitable assistant was no easy feat. As Hogwarts' Deputy Headmistress, if she openly recruited an assistant when Dumbledore himself didn't have one, it would practically look like an accusation that the Headmaster wasn't doing his job. And the assistant's status would be awkward to define, too…

Students were the best option — they learned fast, they were cheap, and once they'd worked as her assistant they were unlikely to develop conflicts with other professors, which meant no one would resent it.

But finding the right student was tricky. Even professors picking teaching assistants had to consider character and knowledge. If McGonagall was going to have a student helping in her office, the bar had to be even higher.

Character, temperament, ability — all of them needed to align. Background was also an issue: choosing an outspoken pure-blood supremacist would risk the impression that Hogwarts favored blood status — absolutely unacceptable.

So even after deciding to look for someone, McGonagall had mostly relied on Gryffindor prefects to help with parts of her paperwork — but their assistance was very limited.

Fifth-year students could become prefects — but fifth year was also when they took their crucial OWLs. And seventh-years? They had their NEWTs and work placements to prepare for — so by the time sixth-years were finally useful, she'd have to let them go again anyway.

Which meant first-years were actually ideal. Even with half a year of observation, they'd have plenty of "useful years" left. No risk of training them up only to lose them.

In this year's intake, McGonagall had spotted two promising candidates right away. Both had top-tier logic and writing skills during her initial review. But the student she'd originally favored more — Miss Granger — was eliminated once she showed just how brilliant she was.

She was simply too good — which sounded absurd, but it was true. Having a student who could make huge leaps in the library every day waste hours on clerical tasks was just too extravagant.

Andrew, however, was different. McGonagall had asked around with other professors and found that his performance in other classes was so-so — an occasional flash of brilliance, but overall barely scraping "good." So it wouldn't be a waste.

And since his best subject and favorite was Transfiguration, McGonagall was confident she could help him make up for any time lost — she didn't like to boast, but she knew perfectly well that her pointers plus regular practice would help him more than endless library sessions.

Also, a student who was shameless enough to come to her with questions right after the first lesson? Perfect material for an assistant. His background was no issue either, so the only thing left was to keep observing him.

Originally, McGonagall had planned to discuss this with Andrew after the Christmas break — but then that mirror arrived. When she confirmed he wouldn't get lost in illusions, she finally made up her mind to let Andrew work part-time in her office while at school.

"Me?"

Andrew was dumbfounded.

"Yes. Assistant work in the office. You'll come by every day after classes and spend one class period's time organizing paperwork. For now, you'll be responsible for sorting first- to third-year assignments by level for my review. The school will give you a small stipend — two Galleons a week."

Assignments were really checks on students' progress — but having someone pre-sort them made the work far easier: pulling out plagiarized work, obvious errors, and standout pieces, then organizing them by quality.

Even for an assistant, you couldn't jump straight into critical work. Pre-sorting was a perfect warm-up — it familiarized you with the process and showed your attitude. And this was one of the key reasons Andrew had been chosen — McGonagall had personally tested his grasp of Transfiguration theory.

"Of course — if I can help, Professor."

Andrew agreed without hesitation. He'd gladly do it even without pay — because this was a perfectly legitimate reason to be in Professor McGonagall's office every day.

This wasn't some empty promise either — McGonagall actually taught real substance.

"Good," McGonagall said, taking out a file, her tone losing its earlier warmth. "You must take this seriously. I'll check your work regularly. Also, before you start, you'll sign a confidentiality agreement."

She pushed the file over as she spoke. Andrew picked it up and read through it carefully.

It wasn't complicated — just a few lines, not even very formal — but every line began with a clause binding him by magical contract: what he was absolutely forbidden to do.

In short, he couldn't reveal anything he saw in McGonagall's office without her explicit permission. The penalty for breaking the contract was expulsion from Hogwarts, a formal notice within the wizarding world, and possible further consequences.

'That's how it should be…'

Andrew, satisfied with the terms, signed his name very seriously — it only made sense that the Deputy Headmistress's office should have this level of protection.

"You can start tomorrow," McGonagall said, her tone gentle again. "One more thing — you'll need to leave any student societies you're in. The school doesn't want any misunderstandings with the Ministry."

Completely reasonable — it would look suspicious if the school's assistant was seen as spying on student groups or trying to curry favor with the Ministry.

That was also one reason why he'd been observed for so long — only after they were sure he wasn't mingling with students who might be Ministry hopefuls, and that he really just liked hiding in the library, did McGonagall decide he was only there for something to do, not to climb some political ladder.

'Honestly, Professor, even if you hadn't said so, I was going to quit anyway. Who knew the so-called "safest" group would be full of so many weirdos…'

Andrew grumbled inwardly, then bid McGonagall goodbye and headed off.

T/N: For twenty chapters ahead on all my fics become a P@tron at P@treon.com/LordHipposApostle