Scholastic chat/ what did we learn from this?

[Kelley]

No: HPFGUIDX 3742

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer 
<pennylin at s...> wrote:
> Hmm . . . I interpreted her response of "well-spotted" as being a
> confirmation that they are the same person.  (Mrs. Figg and 
Arabella Figg)

Agree.
 
> Since she included "(naturally)" after her response, I took it to 
mean> that it's more likely than not that the other Marauders are also
> Gryffindors.

Also thinking this may be so, plus that Lily is *not* related to Vold.
 
> > Did she confirm that Vold _is_ the last descendent of Slyth, or 
just> > confirm that it was supposed to be descendent, and not 
ancestor?
> 
> See my post earlier.  I'm not sure but what she didn't just muddy 
the> issue a fair bit.  Seemed to me she was saying "Yeah, it was
> deliberately supposed to be ancestor."  But, then, I'm not at all 
sure I> understand her response.

I thought she meant to save the editions that had 'ancestor', because 
they might be worth something someday, but that 'descendent' is the 
correct term.  Doesn't sound like there was any confirmation that 
Vold is the only person related to Slyth running around.
 
> The 1000 students seemed off-the-cuff & not well-thought out to 
me.  How> do you explain that Harry has such a small class if there 
are really> 1000 students there?  That would be 150 students per 
year, which works> out to be roughly 35 per House per year.  Why 
would there only be 8> Gryffindors that year if there should be 
closer to 35?  Makes *no* sense> to me.

Well, my image of 800 is from the Quid game when 3/4 of the crowd are 
rooting for Gryff, and 200 are for Slyth.  Before this statement, I 
didn't have a very clear picture of the number of students, just that 
there were *hundreds* in a vague way.  200 students per house would 
give about 25-35 per year (boys and girls) which 'sounds' right to 
me.  Through school, my classes were always about this size, so that 
was my reflex assumption.  This doesn't account for some of the small 
class sizes, or why there are only five boys in Harry's dorm each 
year; maybe there are a couple other dorm rooms for the other boys in 
the same year.  She has not clearly explained it.  
 
> I couldn't decide if she was also confirming that James was in
> Gryffindor since the Question asked about what position he played 
for> the Gryffindor Quidditch team.  She confirmed the position but 
not the> House.
> 
> Penny

I missed the part about being on the Gryff team, this is a very good 
point.

Kelley