[HPforGrownups] My Theory on the Number of Hogwarts students

[Hollydaze]

No: HPFGUIDX 31525

"rachelrenee1" Wrote:
<SNIP>
> 1) Think back to your high school. There are a lot of groups of 
> kids right? In thinking of mine there were 1) the rank and file 
> hardworkers who got little attention in and of themselves. This was
> most of the student body. I would call them Hufflepuffs. 2) There 
> were the gifted and talented kids in honors classes. A smaller 
> group than the first, but still, a pretty big number. I would call > these the Ravenclaws. 3) The kids everyone steered clear of. We 
> called them the stoners. You know, the ones who fight, skip class, > etc. The "bad" kids. Not as big a group as 1 or 2. I would point 
> these out as the Slyterins. 4) Those kids who were the ones 
> everyone wanted to be. In my school it was the student council. 
> They were popular, but I swear they knew almost everyone's name 
> (there were over 1000 kids at my high school) and they went out of > their way to say hi and be nice to the whole school. Good kids that > all the students liked (maybe not the stoners) and all the teachers > enjoyed having in their classes. I would call these "above and 
> beyond" students the Griffindors.
> 
> My point is that, just because the Griffindor class that Harry is 
> in is quite small, doesn't mean that they all are. I imagine that 
> Hufflepuff is probably a big house. A lot of kids who are basically > hard workers, but not really outstanding in any huge way. So I 
> think that the distribution of students in houses is not necessarly > proportional.

Much as I really like this idea nad wish to believe it, there is one thign that bugs me about it. You say that Hufflepuff would be the largest house and yet we know form the herbology (and teh DADA lessons) lessons that there are only 10 Hufflepuffs in Harry's class:
  a.. We have 10 Gryffindors (2 missing people as proved by Lupins Boggart lesson)
  b.. And we have the "20 pairs of earmuffs" (presmuably 10 for Gryffindor only leaving 10 for Hufflepuff).
I suppose you could argue that if Hufflepuff was so big then they would have lessons at different times for different groups of Hufflepuffs, but fi that were the case would it not make sense to group 2 groups of Hufflepuffs together for the lessons? Rather than one of Hufflepuff and one form another house?

> I think that the number of students each year varies, as it 
> does in a real life school. JKR said in one of the Scholastic 
> interviews there is a magic quill that detects the birth of a 
> magical child and writes it in a book at Hogwarts and McGonagall 
> checks it 
> every year and sends notices out to those turning 11. 

It varies yes but it doesn't vary so much that there would be (10 x 4 =) 40 people in Harry's year and (1000-40 = 960. 960 /6 =) 160 in every other year (the only way it could still total 1000) numbers are only aprox but that is still a VERY big gap, even taking LV and his rein of terror as depleeting numbers in Harry's year, surely he would have done the same to the other years as well? Why would it suddenly change in one year? It could be steady decline I suppose with their being a VERY high numbe rof pupils in Percy's year (going by book 1-3) which slowly decreases until you get to the "40" in Harry's year but it seems unlikely that it would dip that much.

HOLLYDAZE!!!




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