Pet Rat / Wizarding Procreation / The Other Schools

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 35794

Kitty Felini wrote:

> I think that Pettigrew probably crept off to Diagon Alley after
> the big blow up and allowed himself to be found and then sold as a 
> pet rat. (snip) he would be sold cheap. Sounds like a good 
> candidate to be a Weasley pet to me!

Doesn't anyone remember the famous phrase "He followed me home. Can I 
keep him?" To me, it seems ridiculous that people as poor as the 
Weasleys would pay money to buy a pet, when I've never paid money to 
get any of my cats (well, except for a 'donation' to an animal 
shelter that trapped me by displaying adoptable, I mean adorable,  
kittens in bank lobbies). I suppose 'Scabbers' turned up at the 
Burrow, at Arthur's office at the Ministry, at Percy's primary school 
(he was Percy's rat before he was Ron's), someplace, and looked cute 
so that a soft Weasley heart took him home.

Laura wrote:

> Why, if wizarding folk live longer (and therefore take a
> correspondingly longer time to hit menopause), are there less 
> wizards than Muggles inhabiting the world?? Combined with the fact 
> that they are better adapted to survival and keeping themselves 
> healthy, etc. -- *and* considering many of them still uphold 
> medieval values (I.e. make lots and lots of kiddies..lookit the 
> Weasleys), one would think the world ought to be over run with
> them.

As Jake Storm said, the Weasleys are the only wizarding folk we've 
seen with lots and lots of kids. Most seem to have small families 
(Cedric, for example, seems to be an only child). I imagine that 
wizarding folk have assimilated a tradition of having few children 
because THEY've had effective contraception (by magic) so much longer 
than Muggles have had. 

Gautam wrote:

> Dumbledore will need to involve the heads of the other wizarding 
> schools to "teach" the Dark guys a lesson...

On one hand, JKR foreshadowed the involvement of the other wizarding 
schools by having Dumbledore announce, at the end of GoF, that 
everyone who was there was welcome to return. On another hand, it 
seems to be me that most readers expect Karkaroff to be dead fairly 
soon, and thus not to return to Hogwarts (?maybe as a ghost?) and the 
new head of Durmstrang to be someone to whom that invitation was not 
given.