[HPforGrownups] Re: How do Muggle-born students find Diagon Alley?

[Alexander]

No: HPFGUIDX 34237

  Greetings!

--- Rachel wrote: ------------------------------------------

> How do Muggle-born students (first years) know how to find
> Diagon Alley to get their hogwarts supplies? Do they
> perhaps recieve something extra with their letter to
> explain about the Leaky Cauldron?? I haven't found any
> clues to this in canon - has anyone else found any
> information on this?

--- And Marianne responded: --------------------------------

k> I think that Hogwarts has to do something, whether they
k> send extra explanatory information or actually send
k> someone to visit the Muggle parents. Otherwise, I'd think
k> that most parents would assume that the letter their
k> child received from Hogwarts was some sort of elaborate
k> joke.

  I was addressing the issue in one of my earlier letters.
IMHO additional explanation is not enough to persuade the
parents that it's not a joke. There should be some kind of
introductory service, with a wizard or witch visiting the
family personally, to explain everything, and probably to
show the entrance to Diagon Alley.

  I got the impression that the Leaky Cauldron is not
invisible, but rather "unnoticeable", i.e. if you don't know
it's here you won't see it, but if you know, then even if
you are a muggle you can enter the pub and then Diagon Alley
as well.

  What really bothers me is the question: what if parents
object? Yep, I would expect some Dursley-analogs to show up
from time to time, not letting their kid to go to Hogwarts
to study all that magical stuff (especially if the child is
in some extra-orthodox religious family... oh dear! :) So is
it the child who decides and does Hogwarts provide some
"force-service" to oversome parents resistance? Or not?

k> It would be nice to get more input from the Grangers on
k> what they make of all this magic stuff. What do they say
k> to their Muggle friends about the school their daughter
k> attends? Sure, they can pass it off as a Scottish
k> boarding school, but they'd always have to be on their
k> toes to prevent mention of sickles or cauldrons or owl
k> post.

  I don't think they are that much used to sickles, or
cauldrons. Owl post is, of course, more risky subject, but
one can play he made a mistake there.
  I hope we hear from older Grangers in later books. Their
PoV on the events would be perhaps the most interesting one
among all others'... :)

k> Marianne

Sincerely yours,
Alexander Lomski,
(Gryffindor/Slytherin crossbreed),
who is already running out of quotations... :(

    - If  you  want  a recipe for an outright victory - it's
    simple.  Just  cross  the  boundaries  of imaginable. In
    other  words,  if  your  enemy  is  undefeatable in this
    Universe, create another to fight him.
        Sergey Pereslegin, "God's Armour".