British School System

[psychic_serpent]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Terry James" 
<terryljames at h...> wrote:
> I've never really understood this assumption.  I always assumed 
> that, for instance, there are several first-year Gryffindor 
> Herbology classes, not just the one that we happen to see with 
> Harry. 

What would give you this impression?  There's absolutely no 
indication that there are Gryffindor students in Harry's year that 
we don't know about.  I know that some people think there are two 
girls that are never discussed or named, but I think they are not 
discussed or named because they DON'T EXIST.  The entire basis of 
this assumption is the number of transformations that the boggart 
goes through during Lupin's DADA class, but that hardly seems like 
proof given that the sequence during which the boggart turns, 
successively, into a rat, rattlesnake and single bloody eyeball is 
followed by this:

"It's confused!" shouted Lupin.  "We're getting there!"

It seems obvious that the number of transformations exceeding the 
number of students in the class (eight) is due to the boggart's 
confusion; it is trying to compensate, to transform into whatever it 
thinks will most frighten the nearest person, but there are too 
many, and it's rather flailing about.  

> This seems to be what happens at Hogwarts--one group stays 
> together all the time (except for the optional courses), but there 
> is more than one group involved, and we just don't see the others.
> 
> Is there something in canon which contradicts this?
 
Yes, the consistent mention of THE Gryffindor first, second, third 
and fourth (and now fifth) year dormitory (it's the ONLY ONE), which 
is always described as having five beds.  I think that JKR was quite 
careful all along to introduce all of Harry's classmates to us (in 
Gryffindor, anyway) and there's absolutely no proof in canon that it 
ISN'T like this.  To take this at anything other than face value is 
to be reading things into the text which aren't there, IMO.  Plus, 
when JKR needed to introduce new students for the DA in OotP, she 
didn't introduce new Gryffindor students in Harry's year, did she?  
She gave us new Ravenclaws chiefly (they were very lacking before).  
We still don't know all of the names of Pansy's 'gang of Slytherin 
girls,' but there's no reason to believe that there are unnamed 
Gryffindors who've been in the same year with Harry all this time, 
living in other dormitories and taking classes at other times.  The 
text simply does not support this assertion.

--Barb

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