It certainly had felt like ages - due in no small part, he thought, to the interminable chain of Weasleys he'd been subjected to. "I have no doubt you'd benefit immensely," he said. And be a royal pain in the neck, as your kind are wont to be. "Unfortunately, I find I have my hands full with shepherding around all the first-years who miss their mothers. Perhaps if you stopped coddling them, they'd be a little less intolerable by the time they hit seventeen. But if you're looking for advice," he continued, smiling slightly in return, "I'd stop trying to make them like you. It smells of desperation."
He couldn't imagine anything less rewarding than seeking approbation from a bunch of dim-witted adolescents - but then, some people became teachers voluntarily, and he doubted if he would ever understand them, either.