Number of students - new information

[Steve Vander Ark]

No: HPFGUIDX 27536

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Blaise" <blaise_writer at h...> wrote:
> The Leaky Cauldron has a link to the front pages of 'Premier' 
> magazine.  One of these is a collection of Hogwarts facts and 
> figures.  It says that there are 400 students.  Other figures are: 
> 
> The Hogwarts Library closes at 8pm.
> There are 278 days in a school year.
> 142 staircases in Hogwarts.
> Dragons outlawed in 1709.

Almost all of the information on that list is canon, in other words 
it was revealed either in the books or by JKR in an interview before 
now. The exceptions are the number of school days and the number of 
students. There is no way to know if either of these facts comes from 
JKR. I personally think that the number of 400 looks about right, 
both visually on screen and logically. But we can't really consider 
this is "official."

As for the number of days, we know that they start on 1 September and 
end in the third week of Juune (or pretty close to that...depends on 
the book, really). So how many days would that be? Are they counting 
weekends and holidays in that number? How many days do they take at 
Christmas and Easter? I'd have to really dig into a calendar to see 
if this number works, and I don't have time to do it.

Steve Vander Ark
canon fanatic  (boom)