[HPforGrownups] RE: Trevor and Re: Book 5 and (list of students of) JRK interview on BBC

[Muridae]

No: HPFGUIDX 32322

catlady_de_los_angeles wrote:

>> Secondly, it does pretty much settle the question about how many
>> kids are in Harry's year. (snip) So, call it 40 kids with 10 in
>> each house (snip) It would certainly seem to confirm all the
>> evidence seen in the books, wherever actual headcounts are found.
>
>If only She hadn't said so firmly that Hogwarts is the only wizarding
>school in Britain! The contradiction between 250-300 students at
>Hogwarts but 1000-some kids that age are needed to keep up the
>population, would be easily resolved if there were three other,
>lesser, wizarding schools the same size as Hogwarts, or one the same
>size (in Ireland) and one twice as large (somewhere in Britain).

The only thought I have about that one is that maybe Hogwarts is the 
only school for wizards that *teaches* them how to use magic as the 
primary focus of the curriculum. There may be other schools run for and 
by wizards that teach the more mundane and Muggle like subjects, where 
the teaching of magic is only part of the syllabus, and mostly about 
learning control and achieving proficiency in the type of spells they'll 
need in everyday life. Whereas Hogwarts is the equivalent of going to 
Stage School... where you immerse yourself in the subject that is 
intended to be your career for the rest of your life. Which would give 
the necessary prestige factor in being selected. If there really isn't 
any alternative schooling, it wouldn't be such a big deal for anyone 
other than the Muggle-born.

Attempting to shoot myself down in flames before anyone else does... do 
we know whether Filch went to Hogwarts? Or Gilderoy Lockhart, who 
strikes me as reasonably Squiblike as well, apart from his proficiency 
with Memory Charms? If they didn't, then that might indeed suggest that 
only the most able children go to Hogwarts.

The simplest explanation however is also the boring one: that while JKR 
may have figured out many little details of her wizarding world, she 
didn't necessarily trouble herself overmuch about doing the maths for 
population statistics. :-(

>> Davis, Tracey (Slytherin)
>
>Boy or girl?

Girl.

>> McDougal, Isabel (Ravenclaw)
>
>But book 1 chapter 7 says: "MacDougal, Morag" before Malfoy. If
>McDougal, MacDougal, Malfoy, and Moon are the four Ms (McDougal on
>the first page, three on the second page), then surely McDougal
>should be AFTER MacDougal and Malfoy in alphabetical order.

The first part of Isabel's surname is obscured, because the corner of 
the page is curling up. It could be MacDougal; it could equally well be 
McDougal. But standard convention over here (in telephone directories at 
least) is to order all the Mac names (Mac, Mc or M') as if they were 
spelled M-A-C, whatever their actual spelling may be. Using that 
convention, Isabel would indeed come before Morag.

But the more likely explanation, since Neville is described as having to 
give the hat back to Morag when he take it with him after being sorted, 
is that there was a name change from Isabel to Morag after that list was 
written. JKR seems to have been undecided about what to call the kid 
anyway; you can see a name crossed out with Isabel written in above it.

>> but the list ends with  at least three "S" surnames, a "T"
>> (Turpin), a "W" (Ron), and a "Z" (Zabini).
>
>Could the last of those S's be a T for "Thomas, Dean"?

Whoops. Transcription error. My apologies!

Make that two definite S names, one possible late-insertion S, then two 
T's (Thomas and Turpin), Weasley, Zabini.

I'll see if I can do some screen grabs at some point and upload them to 
the group's files area.

-- 
Muridae