Hogwarts Castle (was Re: Hogwarts population - I have proof!)

[Neil Ward]

No: HPFGUIDX 12497

Penny said:

<< What if the castle (built by the founders during a completely different
age) is too large for the current wizarding population?  I guess what I
mean is: couldn't the wizarding population level have shrunk in the 1000
years since the school was founded? >>

I think the answer to your last point is 'yes'.   However, re Hogwarts, my
view is that the castle has the ability to change its size, shape and
room-arrangement according to need:

"There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping
ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday;
...<snip> ... and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls
just pretending. It
was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to
move around a lot...." (PS)

Perhaps areas that aren't used or that house smaller numbers of people are
contracted to a smaller size, sealed off (like the Chamber of Secrets) or
made 'invisible'.  It makes the Marauder's Map seem even more incredible, of
course, but is perhaps the reason for needing a map in the first place.  It
could also be that Filch, having no magical ability, needs Mrs Norris to
direct him around the castle, which would, otherwise, confuse him; in other
words, from a magical perspective, Filch is 'blind' and Mrs Norris is his
guide-cat.

We've talked before about the way Diagon Alley, for example, can co-exist
with the Muggle world, and there is a Muggle Hogwarts - a fixed, 'ruined'
castle - and a magical Hogwarts, which is, perhaps, sentient (like a
computer, with some functional hardware and some variable 'memory'
locations, and the ability to create virtual environments).  I'd suggest
that some of the rooms are part of the Muggle structure and some, like
Dumbledore's office or the room where the Mirror of Erised was stored, are
in a parallel, magical plane, which appears when required.

Now the only question is, where does the Castle keep its brain?.  If we
can't see where it keeps it, we're in trouble.

Neil

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