[HPforGrownups] Re: Random ideas

[Melissa McCarthy]

No: HPFGUIDX 51760

Tom Wall said:
> > -----
> > Q: How many students attend Hogwarts, and how many
> >    students per year per house?
> > A: There are about a thousand students at Hogwarts.
> > -----
>
> > So, about 35 students per year per house.

Trond Michelsen said:
> Well, that's what she said in an interview, she's also shown her
> notebook with what she claims is "the students in Harry's year". It's an
> alphabetical list of 41 names that begins with "Abbott, Hannah", and
> ends with "Zabini, Blaise". I'm inclined to believe that this list is
> complete.
[snip]
> Now, it's quite possible that the list is complete, and that there are
> about a thousand students at Hogwarts. But that would mean that there
> are extremely few students in Harry's year. Who knows, maybe Voldemort
> was killing newborns on random to get to baby Harry.

I'm also inclined to believe that the list is complete.  It's possible that
there are very few students in Harry's year even if Voldemort wasn't killing
random newborns (which is certainly a possibility).  When you're analyzing
trends in birth rates, you can't just look at one year; generally you take
chunks of five or ten years and compare those to other five- or ten-year
chunks.  Is that making any sense?  I once did a study of a French town for
a university thesis, and I found that the birth rate varied dramatically
year by year (one year there were, IIRC, five babies born in a town of
roughly 3500 inhabitants, the next year there were thirty or so), but the
overall birth rate held steady when I looked at how many babies were born in
every five-year chunk.  Minor statistical anomalies like how many babies
were born in a given year don't necessarily mean much when you look at the
bigger picture.  That could be what happened here; it was simply a year of
anomalously low births in the WW.

The year Harry was born was probably the year Voldemort was at the height of
his power.  Is there canon for that? I forget.  I would suggest that
wizarding families might have deliberately avoided conceiving during that
year so as to avoid bringing a child into a world that looked very much as
though it would be controlled by such an evil being.

Just my two Sickles (adjusting from Canadian Muggle currency),
Melissa