How many students go to Hogwarts?

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C6102
From: catlady_de_los_angeles
Subject: Re: How many students go to Hogwarts?
Reply To: [Yahoo! #6097] Re: How many students go to Hogwarts?
Date: 8/7/00 8:12 pm  (ET)

> Considering how much trouble Harry had, how do the 'sports' - the
wizards from all-Muggle families, like Hermione, find Platform 9-3/4? And
how do they get into Diagon Alley to fetch their school supplies? Do
their letters include more detailed instructions than Harry's did? Or
are the met by a mentor?

That's another topic that will need a long FAQ. I think they get a much
more detailed letter than Harry did -- it tells how to get to Platform
9 3/4, and how to find the Leaky Cauldron, and where on Diagon Alley to
change their Muggle money to wizard money, and which shops to buy their
stuff in. The first time, they tell the barman at the Leaky Cauldron that
they're new students for Hogwarts and he leads them out back and taps
the bricks with his wand -- on future visits, they have their own wands.

I think the letter was instituted by Dumbledore as part of his program
of outreach to the Muggle-born and don't know how Muggle-born students
got their school stuff before Dumbledore.

I think that either Harry didn't get that letter because he isn't
Muggle-born (which would be the kind of stupid bureaucratic error that
one hates to think could happen on Dumbledore's watch, and Dumbledore
rectified by sending Hagrid to fetch Harry). Or Harry had to be fetched by
Hagrid for Harry's own safety so why bother with the letter. Or possibly
the information as in the letter that Dumbledore left with the Dursleys...