Modest Proposeal/Scale of things

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 43377

This is another wrinkle on the Scale of Things discussion, which seems to be 
trying to create a virtual headcount of the number of wizards in Britan. 

Actually there are a couple of small things on the subject which I thought 
I'd mention.

First; in tying the probably number of adults in a community to the number of 
school-aged children (a good idea, btw) no one has mentioned that the ratio 
needs to be adjusted to allow for wizard's extended lifespans. There is a 
strong probability that this has resulted in there being anything up to twice 
as many adults to children as has been established in mundane world studies. 
Some factors to consider are;

1. Dumbledore at the age of 150 is regarded as old, but not yet frail from 
age. If Dumbeldore is a (physically) representitive example we might 
postulate that wizard lifespansd are roughly twice that of Muggles. (There is 
almost certainly an older discussion on wizarding lifespans somewhere in the 
archives. But it was before my time and I am only active through the Digest, 
so I will apologize for repeating anyone else's arguments without 
attributiuon.)

2. That the children presently attending Hogwarts do NOT appear to be 
maturing at a slower rate than their Muggle ccounerparts suggests that unless 
wizard's extended lifespans are due to a natural slowing of the aging process 
upon maturity this extention of lifespan may be artificial, dependent upon 
certain routine physical maintenance spells developed over the past 300-400 
years. (There was, after all, no deffinite established tradition of sorcerers 
living significantly longer than common mortals before the WW went into 
seclusion at the end of the 17th century, although Muggle folklore has since 
granted them that possibility through lumping wizards with other fanciful 
beings.)

3. There is no more reason to believe that wizards' lifecycles progress in 
the same steady pace of Muggles' unmodified physical processes than that they 
don't. We do not know how life-extending spells affect the physical 
capacities of wizards who use them. We particularly do not know what the 
trade-offs are, or how they would affect reproductive health. Would a witch 
and wizard of, say, the age of 62 typically decide to settle down and start a 
family? What little we see of the parents of Harry's schoolmates in the WW 
all appear to be of a coresponding physical age range as the parents of 
Harry's Muggle schoolmates'. Is this due to life extending spells/potions, or 
does one only start taking such steps after one has finished with the getting 
and bearing of children. (A supportive observation of this might be found in 
the fact that for various reasons, Black, Lupin, Pettigrew and Snape, all in 
their mid-30s, all evidently look every day of their ages, and more.)

I modestly propose that; Yes, wizards live approximately twice as long as 
Muggles, but that they do not remain young significantly longer. They remain 
OLD significantly longer. Which means that the juvenile and "breeding" 
population of the WW might be only half of the total numbers. I would say 
less than half, but it has been made clear that dealing with magic on an 
everyday basis has a fairly high attrition rate and death by misadventure is 
probably high enough to thin the ranks.

That is my first poiint. The second point relates to the rate of incidence of 
Muggle-born children adding to the population of the WW from outside it. 
Rowling's notes seem to have indicated that Muggle-borns account for roughly 
a quarter of Hogwarts students. This comes to (taking the 1000 student 
statement as a base) around 147-8 students in each year with approximately 
20-21 Muggle-borns. Note: Harry noticed that there were a lot of Muggle-borns 
at Hogwarts after Ron's "most wizards are halfblooods anyway" speech.

20-21 magical births in Britian and Ireland each year is not a great many. 
But I can think of another "impossible" genetic glitch that still observably, 
takes place, and am wondering whether anyone has the numbers to cross check 
and compare it. Which is; the rate that blue-eyed parents produce dark-eyed 
children. Because it happens. Even though it IS supposedly impossible. And it 
happens often enough that no one goes looking for the milkman, too. Just 
about everyone knows of at least one incidence.

A third point which occured to me after starting to write this post is that 
we have a couple of hints from canon and from Rowling that Hogwarts' has a 
secondary function of training not merely the next crop of witches and 
wizards, but of *specifically* training Muggle-born magical children to BE 
witches and wizards. Which would account for the high percentage of 
Muggle-borns among its student body. The question now becomes what induces 
the "predjudiced pureblood" crowd to send their children there as well. Is it 
considered an acceptable trade-off to expose their children to these 
mongerels while allowing them to meet and "network" their aquaintance with 
the children of other wizarding families for their future benefit? Is it the 
excellece of Hogwarts' academic standing? Because it stands to reason that 
there must be other methods of training and qualifying as a wizard apart from 
attendence at a Ministry-overseen boarding school. I am sure that there are 
procedures in existance which allow for home schooling and taking the 
standardized OWLS and NEWTS privately.

For that matter, I suspect that some of the social maladaptiveness of quite a 
few of the Slytherins (and probably some others) is accounted for by their 
having been tutored privatly at home for their elementary instruction, and 
that they never saw so many other children in their life until the day they 
stepped onto Platform 9 3/4.

-JOdel