Muggle-born Students

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 23163

Kbeanie13 wrote:

> Muggles have a way of communicating with wizards. 
> When they send letters through Muggle Post, it goes 
> from the Muggle Post Offices to the Wizard Post 
> Offices, where it would be sent by owl.  How else 
> would the Dursley's have sent Harry birthday presents?

fyregirl replied:

> bviously there has to be a way, but I think the 
> Dursleys showing up at a muggle post office with
> a package (well, how big could it be if it 
> contains a single, solitary tissue) addressed to:
> Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry
> Somewhere in Britain
> U.K.
> would be a little odd to the Post Master (or 
> whatever his title may be in the UK).

I agree with Kbeanie13. I believe that Muggles who are in the know send
all their wizarding mail to a Suite Number in the building next door to
the Leaky Cauldron (the one that was a record store in CoS). In inside
the envelope or package addressed to that Suite Number is 1) the real
envelope or package, addressed to "Harry Potter c/o Hogwarts School" or
maybe just "Sirius Black, on the lam", and 2) some Muggle cash money,
enough that it will pay for the Owl Post when converted to wizarding
money. I believe that this mail forwarding business is owned by Tom at
the Leaky Cauldron and makes its profit from an annual contract with
MoM, but it could be owned by someone else and could make its profit by
charging the Muggles more than the Owl Post really costs.

Then once a day, the owner or an employee of the mail forwarding
business would go into the record store building to pick up all the mail
that had arrived (or use ACCIO! to Summon it!), open all the outer
envelopes and check the enclosed money, take all the money to Gringotts
to convert at one time, then take the inner envelopes to the Owl Post
office on Diagon Alley (same trip to Diagon Alley as going to Gringotts)
and mail them. 

fyregirl also wrote:

> I say:  There has got to be different forms of
> the letters, depending on the background of the
> prospective student.  Hermione's (and other muggle-
> borns, i.e. the Creevey's) letter explained about 
> Hogwarts, the secret wizarding world, and of course,
> how to get into Daigon Alley and where Platform 9 
> and 3/4 is and how to get onto it. (snip)
> Harry, on the other hand, being born of magic parents,
> is supposed to know these things.  They didn't count on 
> the fact that the Dursley's were narrow-minded gits 
> that didn't tell him about his parents and his true nature.

I completely agree with Michelle about this, except that I feel that
Dumbledore knew perfectly well that the Dursleys had kept everything
secret from Harry and that they wouldn't let Harry receive his letter
and that Hagrid would have to be sent to rescue Harry, and made his
arrangements before the normal letter had even been sent to Harry.
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pepperwood, thunderbird down, seven inches
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R ighteous
A ttractive
V ictorious
E ager
N atural
C lassy
L egendary
A mazing
W ise
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