Hogwarts Student Population

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 45425

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Pen Robinson <pen at p...> wrote:
> 
> On Monday, October 14, 2002, at 07:57 , Jackie wrote:
> 
Jackie originally wrote:
> 
> > ...edited... but can you prove that there are only 5 boys in
> > Harry's *dorm*?  ...edited...  We only know the 5 boys in Harry's 
> > room, but there could be other rooms attached to that hall.
> > ... here in America, in colleges, a Dorm is a building as well
> > as a room.  
> >

> Pen replied: 
> I'm pretty sure it is stated outright that Harry sees five
> four-poster beds when he goes into the dorm for the first time.
> 
> I'm afraid that 'dorm' and 'dormitory' in this country mean a 
> room, not a building  .  At university, students might live in a 
> Hall of Residence, but they wouldn't live in a dorm.
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> Pen

Pen, I guess it's safe to assume you are from Britain.

Clearly, there are other dorm *rooms* in this dormitory. Percy has his
own dorm room. Fred, George, and Lee Jordan have a separate room.
Colin Creevey and the others in his year have their own rooms. So
there is no question that there are other Dorm rooms in the Griffindor
Hall/Tower dormitory. 

The question then becomes are there other rooms for Harry year?
Considering that the story is told from Harry's limited perspective
and that some details have to be left out to keep the books from
reaching encyclopedia length. I don't think we can say there are not.
True, we can't say with absolute certainly that there are either.

Again, there is nothing that flatly states that Harry's dorm room is
the only dorm room for his year, or that state that those five boys
are the only boys from his year, but I'm inclined to think there are
more, but it's simply not practical to name every single player in the
story. We know there are more boys in Colin Creevey's year but have
any of them been names? Occassionally, you will hear about Colin and
his friends, but those friends are never identified. Unless I've
forgotten a lot of details, the story seems to imply that Colin is the
only boy in his year. But that doesn't seem logical.

Some people will point to the 20 brooms, 20 cauldrons, and 20 ear
muffs to confirm the number of students, but, as I've stated before, I
find that number very suspect. Things seem to be '20' a little to
often. I think this is a general number that JKR latches on to as
being not too big, not too small, just right when describing a group
of 'things'. There are 20 cauldrons in the potions lab, but each
student has their own cauldron as well. And what happens with classes
that are larger than 20? Personally, I can't take the use of the
number '20' as representing an exact value. But that's just me.

So while I lean in the direction of another dorm room for Harry's
year, I have to acknowledge that it's not clearly stated as so. By the
same token, it's not clearly stated as not being so.

We are left with our opinions on the matter.

bboy_mn