Ginny and Colin and student numbers

[Steve Vander Ark]

No: HPFGUIDX 9616

Hi --

> > Someone wrote: "I think Ron made a comment about how it will be 
if 
> Ginny
> > ever met Colin Creevy. 

> > Steve replied: "No, he made no such comment. 


> > In CoS (chapter 6) Ron says: "You'd better hope Creevey doesn't 
meet 
> Ginny,
> > they'll be starting a Harry Potter fan club."

You are right. I read the original comment completely differently and 
jumped to a conclusion. Sorry :)

I can see how that might suggest that they hadn't met and therefore 
the student population is quite large. I think there's much stronger, 
more concrete evidence that the student population is smaller.

BTW, I thought of something a little while ago. JKR tells us these 
stories from Harry's point of view, and in that voice she frequently 
uses exaggeration as if it's fact. For example, when Hagrid sobers up 
enough to realize that Harry came down to his hut at night to see him 
when Black was supposedly out to kill him, he shouts at them. The 
books says that they jumped a foot into the air. Now we all know and 
assume that they didn't REALLY jump a foot off the ground. In fact, 
no one really even leaves the ground at all when they do that jump in 
surprise thing. But JKR writes it that way be cause Harry feels it 
like that. There are quite a few other examples of this in the books.

Now that seems to me to support the theory that many of the "big 
numbers" mentioned--the two hundred Slytherin supporters, the 
hundreds of Christmas turkeys, the seating for 1200 people at the 
Yule Ball-- are all just coming from Harry's subjective point of 
view. In each of these cases Harry would have reason to see a larger 
number than there were and JKR writes it that way.

Steve Vander Ark
The Harry Potter Lexicon
which doesn't have a Colin Creevey page...yet
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon