Houses (was:Re: Thestral Boy)

[bibphile]

No: HPFGUIDX 74889

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sleepingblyx" 
<sleepingblyx at y...> wrote:
> I think there is a way they can keep them "in the ballpark" of 
> evened out. You do have to be accepted into Hogwarts...obviously 
> there is the witch or wizard sitting at home that for some reason 
> never makes it to Hogwarts, or is chosen for another school. 
> 

Oh, I believe that they are usually fairly close, but not exactly.  
I figure it's pretty common for one house to have 10 new students 
while another has 9 or 11.

> By restricting the number of students they accept every year, and 
by basing this acceptance on thier magic ability, family, and 
> personalities, they could get a fairly rough estimate of who will 
be going where, and make the number of children accepted divisable 
by  four. This way there wouldn't be one house with barely a Q. 
team, and another house with 1,000 kids in it. 
> 

I just don't think they do that.  I think they accept all qualified 
children.  By qualified I mean magical and fully human.  Half-giants 
and werewolves probably wouldn't get in under some Headmasters.  (I 
think the Longbottom family was worrying needlessly.)  Helga flat-
out said she'd teach them all.

Besides, family isn't a fool-proof way to determine houses.  The hat 
strongly considered putting Harry in Slytherin even though Lily (and 
presumably James) was in Gryffindore.  Also, what about muggle-
borns?  They have no way of knowing wheere those kids will go.  If 
they tried to guess off personality, they'd probably think Hermione 
would go to Ravenclaw.

I see absolutely no reason to assume all the houses are *exactly* 
the same size.

bibphile