Snape/Karkaroff / How Many Students? / Weasley Clock

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 46445

Pip!Squeak wrote:

<< I'm not sure I could have told someone like Karkaroff, who tried 
to turn Snape in just to get *himself* out of jail: 'Flee, I will 
make your excuses'.[GoF UK hardback, Ch.23 p.370]. >>

I suspect that was a *complicated* situation, in which Karkaroff was 
one of the people who had been caught because of being turned in by 
Snape when he turned to the Light Side. Snape would have been beating 
himself up too hard with his ongoing guilt about betraying his 
friends to death (Wilkes, Rozier) and Azkaban (Avery, the Lestranges, 
Karkaroff) to blame one of them for doing the same to him. I suspect 
that Karkaroff wouldn't have been so forgiving about having been 
turned in, when it wasn't even done for self-preservation, so I 
imagine that Karkaroff didn't know that it was Snape who ratted.

Snape and Karkaroff had at some time had a close enough relationship 
that they call each other by first name. I don't know what the 
relationship was, except that Karkaroff is too old to have been one 
of Snape's school-boy clique. In GoF, does Snape still like Karkaroff 
but try to hide or resist it, or does Snape now dislike Karkaroff but 
try to be polite about it? 

"hadeurige" asked:

<< How many students at Hogwarts? >>

Polter Flying Ford Anglia Geist replied:

<< I'm popping up in semi-Mod role to remind everyone that there is 
a VFAQ in the files section, indicating some of the questions, 
including this one, that have come up very frequently on list: 
http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/vfaq >>

Neil, that server is still down. Fortunately, I found the latest 
archived post where the Mods posted the VFAQ file and followed the 
click to Hogwarts FAQ: 
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon/faq/hogwarts.html 

(all my trip straight to the Lexicon had found was: 
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon/hogwarts_howmany.html
 which says the same as Steve posted on list)

I know that there MUST be 1000 students (like JKR said) to maintain 
the wizarding population AND I know that everything we are shown in 
the books (except 800 spectators at the Gryffie/Slythie Quidditch 
final) correlates with ~280 students rather than with 1000 students. 
One solution would be if 280 are at Hogwarts and the others are at 
two or three additional schools, but JKR said that Hogwarts is the 
only wizarding school in Britain. 

I am very proud of my suggested solution: that are three or four 
CAMPUSSES in the HOGWARTS SYSTEM, with Hogwarts Castle being the 
original campus and colloquially called "Hogwarts", while other 
campuses have names like "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 
at Woodcroft" colloquially called "Woodcroft". Thus, the Hogwarts 
System would be the only SCHOOL, with Dumbledore as Headmaster and 
1000 students, but the book depiction of the Hogwarts Castle campus 
with ~280 students can still be true. (Each campus would be managed 
by its own Deputy Headmaster/mistress.)

That would also explain how Neville's family could know he was magic 
but still worry whether he was magic *enough* to get into the main 
campus at Hogwarts Castle.

Jazmyn wrote:

<< Rowling cannot possibly list EVERY student in the school >>

She DID list every student in Harry's year and showed it to the TV 
camera and you can see screen-captures if you go to HPfGU's photo 
section http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/lst and 
click on the album titled Harry Potter and Me. 

Listie Muridae posted the screen-captures and HOLLYDAZE posted a 
transcription in post #32380.

Besides the list of students, a picture captioned "dursleys" shows 
Dumbledore, Hagrid, and McGonagall leaving baby Harry on the Dursley 
doorstep and that McGonagall looks a lot younger than Dame Maggie 
Smith, and a picture captioned "weasleys" shows Percy in what a 
Hogwarts uniform looked like before the movie changed it, and the 
other kids out of uniform. 

Melody TBAYed (at the Moon?):

<< "I don't know. I was happily walking when I think the tree 
attacked me." >>

Was it a Whomping Willow? Is there a theory named WHOMPING WILLOW?

<< "'Home,' 'School,' and 'work' were there, but there was also 
'traveling,' 'lost,' 'hospital,' 'prison,' and, in the position 
where the number twelve would be on a normal clock, 'mortal peril.'" 
>>

<< What if all the Weasleys are at home, and thus all the grandfather 
clock hands are in the Home position, and Voldemort comes knocking at 
the door. They would all be in Mortal Peril *and* at Home. Hmm, what 
would the clock do? >>

I think in that case, it would jump to Mortal Peril, but there are 
more cases that I've been wondering about for ... can it really have 
been years?

1) Bill Weasley presumably has some flat or house where he lives in 
Egypt. But "going home for Christmas" or "when I lived at home" means 
the Burrow. Surely the clock points to Home when he is at the Burrow, 
so where does it point when he's at his own home in Egypt?

2) When Charlie and the other dragon wranglers brought the dragon to 
Hogwarts for the First Task, that was part of his job. Did the clock 
point to Work or Travelling? 

3) When the Twins are filling orders for Weasley's Wizard Wheeze in 
their dorm room at Hogwarts, does the clock point to Work or School?

4) One day when I was at work in my usual office building, I went to 
a meeting on the 15th floor, which has elevators for 1 to 15 and for 
15 to 25. I somehow got into the wrong elevator. If I had a hand on 
the Weasley clock, would it have said Work or Lost?

5) I am ashamed to admit that I once got off a train in the Wrong 
City and it was the last train of the night and I eventually had 
to spend a ton of money to take a taxi the rest of the way ... 
Travelling or Lost?

6) Did the clock point to Travelling for the people who were at the 
Quidditch World Cup?

Canon only lists 8 of the presumably 12 situations. What are the 
others? I nominate Shopping, Partying, Friend's Home, and Library for 
the others. Partying rather than Pub so that it could include going 
to sports events, concerts, restaurants.