Muggleparents and Diagon Alley

[catherine at cator-manor.demon.co.uk]

No: HPFGUIDX 15539

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., jennifer.k at l... wrote:
> 
> Some thought I have been pondering on during a slightly unfun day 
at 
> school. 
> 
>  Has there never been one single muggleparent (either married to a 
> wizard/witch or just belonging to a mugglefamily given a magical 
> child) who when the letter from Hogwarts arriwed when the kid was 
> eleven, tried to expose the wizarding world - yelling out about it 
to 
> the entire world? Either just to get noticed/famous, or beacuse of 
> the reason Hagrid mentioned in book 1: "Everybody would like to 
have 
> magical sollutions to their problems" (something like it). I do not 
> doubt there is people who´d do it in a second, if they had anything 
> to gain from it. 
>  What are the teachers/the headmaster at Hogwarts to do with these? 
> Would they know, in some way, which parents are to be trusted, 
before 
> sending out the letter, or is this just a blind shot? Them sending 
> letters out to all magical children, hoping for all the parents to 
be 
> just and earnest?
>  If they in some way knows who are not to be trusted, what then? 
> These children aren´t allowed at Hogwarts? Or would Hogwarts throw 
a 
> memory spell over the parents, and then having the children lie all 
> years about where they goes to school?
> 
>  (My thoughts are a bit hard to get a grip of, perhaps, expressed 
in 
> a language only used at English-classes in school...but bear with 
> me. :)
> 
>  Diagon-Alley then. 
>  Where is this place really... "placed"? I know it is said its in 
> London, behind The Leaking Cauldron at Charing Cross Road. But 
isn´t 
> London like covered with houses? It is stated that muggles cannot 
see 
> Hogwarts, but only a sign which sais Danger, and a harmless ruin. 
And 
> that make sense to me, since no muggle lives at this very spot. But 
> The Leaking Cauldron is mentioned the same way, the muggles can´t 
see 
> it (or, they don´t appear to) and I guess the same thing goes for 
> Diagon Alley. So what is there in the muggleworld instead of Diagon 
> Alley? Shouldn´t there be a street or something, with people living 
> on it? This could´t just be a charm thrown over an "empty" area, 
> having the muggles to see something thats really not there. This 
> should mean that Diagon Alley is placed in some kind of another 
> universe (or something).
> 
> (in short - how could Madame Malkin have a store at the exact spot 
as 
> The "Mrs Smith´s" London-rowhouse?)
> 
> Maybe I´m not getting something very important about the wizarding 
> world - like that everything about it is set in a parallel world. 
but 
> I allways though they lived in the same world as ours?
> 
> (Or is this just supposed to be...magic? :)
> 
> /Jennifer

A native Londoner speaking here.  Charing Cross Road is a street 
which connects Trafalgar Square to Cambridge Circus (where so many 
tourists go to see Les Miserables).  It intersects Leicester Square 
and Covent Garden, and is basically full of small shops, most of 
which are antiquarian/feminist/art bookshops etc. etc., other shops, 
chinese restaurants (it passes the side of China Town) and bars/pubs 
and theatres.  It would be very easy, therefore, for Muggles to allow 
there eyes to pass over a small, nondescript, murky looking pub, 
which is, after all designed not to be noticed.  

I think that JKR may have chosen this road of London, because it is 
so diverse, culturally, it is also close to Soho and China Town, so 
anything out of the ordinary is treated as the norm.  However, I get 
your point about the empty space - either side of the street is 
theatres, shops, restaurants and office space, so you are right about 
the lack of empty space to fill.  I have a theory.  Remember in CoS 
when they all drive off to Kings Cross in Arthur Weaseley's flying 
car?  And how spacious it is inside, so a normal Ford can hold 8 
people comfortably and all their luggage?  I think the same 
manipulation of space is going on in the non-Muggle areas.  Rather 
like a TARDIS.  (Did you get Dr Who in the USA?  If not I can explain 
the reference.)

Catherine