#hogwarts professors

Let’s look at his basic teaching load. And I mean "basic" in the most merciful sense possible. Suppose each year group has about 40 students, divided them into two combined-house classes of 20 students each to ensure no one accidentally melts their cauldron (or their neighbour's face). For years one through five, that’s 40 classes a week. For the N.E.W.T. levels (years six and seven), he famously only accepts "Outstanding" students, which arguably lightens the load to about 4 classes a week.

Here’s the real hell-ish calculation:

Years 1-5 (The Core Grind): With 5 year groups and 4 classes each (to accommodate the 20-student limit), that is 20 classes a week.

Years 6-7 (N.E.W.T. Level): Assuming only the top-tier students remain (those who actually listen and won't cause a catastrophe), let’s be generous and say this filters down to just 2 classes per year group. That adds another 4 classes a week.

The Total Load: This brings us to a staggering 24 classes per week.

Since Potions is almost exclusively taught in double periods to allow for actual brewing, those 24 classes translate into 48 hours of active classroom instruction every single week. In a standard five-day work week, that averages out to 9.6 hours of teaching per day. This isn't just an unhealthy schedule.

Okay, one might argue that 9.6 hours of teaching a day is "manageable" if you have the stamina of a mountain troll, but there are the silent killers of any academic's sanity: grading, lesson planning, and preparation.

Let’s be realistic about the paperwork. With 40 students per year across all seven years, Severus is responsible for roughly 280 students. If he assigns a standard two-foot essay, and we know he loves his lengthy scrolls. Even a brisk 15-minute read per essay results in 4,200 minutes of grading. That is a staggering 70 hours of marking if every year group submits an assignment in the same week.

Then, of course, there is the matter of lesson planning and prep. Even with a modest estimate of 2 hours per day to prepare rare ingredients and refine his lectures, that’s another 10 hours a week. And let’s be honest—2 hours to prep for seven different year groups? That’s practically wishful thinking.

When combining the 48 hours of teaching with 70 hours of grading and 10 hours of prep, the situation is already dire. But we haven't even touched upon his responsibilities as Head of Slytherin House. Beyond the formal one or two-hour house meeting each week, there is the relentless burden of pastoral care and administration. He is the one who has to manage house rivalries, handle disciplinary crises, and deal with the inevitable paperwork that comes with being a guardian to eighty-plus ambitious students. Even if we budget a conservative 10 hours a week for these duties, we are staring down the barrel of a 138-hour work week.

The Grand Total of Labour Abuse at its Finest:

Teaching Hours: 48 hours (9.6 hrs/day)

Grading (280 students): 70 hours

Lesson Planning & Prep: 10 hours

Head of House (Meeting + Pastoral + Admin): 10 hours

Total Work Hours: 138 hours per week!

There are only 168 hours in a week, people! This leaves him with a grand total of about 4 hours a day to eat, barely exist, and—heaven forbid—attempt to close his eyes. It’s no wonder Severus looks like he’s fueled entirely by spite and a lethal concoction of black coffee spiked with every brand of energy drink known to man. (Perhaps, this also explains why he’s constantly power-walking with his robes billowing behind him. It’s clearly a desperate attempt to shave seconds off his commute just to reclaim a sliver of time for his impossible to-do list.)

The madness doesn't even end there. He could still find the energy to hand out detentions so liberally. It’s no wonder he offloads most of them to Argus Filch; if he oversaw them all himself—say, a modest three sessions a week at two hours each, that’s another 6 hours added to his already catastrophic schedule.

And then, there’s the nightly patrol. For a man with no time to sleep, he is suspiciously diligent about roaming the corridors at 2 AM.

If that doesn't look disastrous enough, my previous calculation spread the workload across the entire 168-hour week (7 days). However, the math gets even grimmer when you consider the distribution. If Hogwarts follows a standard Monday-to-Friday schedule, the reality is far more terrifying.

His 48 hours of teaching, prep, and house duties are crammed into just five days, resulting in "The Teaching Inferno" a 15-hour workday before he even dares to touch a single essay. And don’t forget that these classes aren't exactly a walk in the park. He constantly has to deal with clumsy students like Neville Longbottom, who are essentially walking safety hazards. Assuming that there are at least 1.5 "accident-prone" students per year, Severus must spend half his energy on pure, unadulterated anxiety, preventing the dungeons from exploding. And should a cauldron actually melt? He either has to clean up the hazardous mess himself or more likely pass the nightmare onto Filch, the only man at Hogwarts whose labour rights are as non-existent as his own.

As for the weekend? Any hope of rest is a delusion. Saturday and Sunday are strictly reserved for "The Grading Purgatory," where he must somehow condense 70 hours of marking into a 48-hour window. It’s a mathematical impossibility. At this point, Severus isn’t just sleep-deprived; he’s a biological anomaly. Whether he’s a wizarding superhuman or simply the living dead like a glorified zombie sustained by nothing but sheer stubbornness and magical spite remains to be seen.

And just when you think the cauldron is full, let’s talk about the 'On-demand' requests. Whether Severus is brewing complex antidotes or tirelessly breaking curses that students have managed to inflict upon themselves, that’s another 10 hours a week of pure, high-stakes labour.

Then there are the Staff Meetings. Imagine the sheer agony of sitting through two weekly sessions of administrative nonsense, listening to eccentric proposals while Albus offers you a Lemon Drop for the fifth time. If each meeting lasts two hours, that’s 4 hours of his life he will never get back.

When we add this to the tally, we are looking at a 152-hour work week. Out of 168 hours total, Severus Snape has a grand total of 16 hours a week or roughly 2 hours a day to be a human being. He is already a biological miracle at this point. (while his physical state is probably more precarious than Voldemort’s when he was hitching a ride on the back of Quirrell’s head.)

Actually, I suspect that Severus is secretly using a Time-turner just to survive the week. It is the only logical explanation. Without folding time itself, there is simply no way a mortal could maintain such a catastrophic schedule without dropping dead before Tuesday.

And the most terrifying part? This calculation reflects his life before Harry Potter even stepped foot into Hogwarts. Once the Golden Trio arrived, bringing along their knack for near-death experiences and midnight rule-breaking, one can only imagine how many Time-turners Severus would have needed just to keep the world and himself from falling apart.

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