Number of Students at Hogwarts

[marephraim]

No: HPFGUIDX 69061

sibelwrote:

> > I don't remember reading it, but I know that JKR once said in an 
> interview there's about a thousand students at Hogwarts.  Plus it 
is 
> possible that there is just 5 beds in Harry's room, but more rooms 
> containing 5th years.
> > 
> > 
> 
> In PA in the chapter 'The Quidditch Final' it says "Behind the 
> Slytherin goalposts, however, two hundred people were wearing 
green."
> So there is some evidence in the books that there is 200 students 
in 
> each house besides what JKR has stated in interviews.
> Sibel

I've seen a lot of speculation about this (isn't it also discussed 
in the FAQs?) and people seem drawn between two extreems in 
attempting to settle the issue. On the one hand, they look to JKR's 
comments about their being approximately 1000 students at Hogwarts; 
and on the other hand, they argue from the smaller number of 
students mentioned by name.

>From the beginning ISTM we're forgetting that in any school there 
are usually dozens and hundreds of students that a given student may 
know on sight but with whom he/she may not associate or even know 
their names. For example, Harry knows Cho from Quidditch and in GoF 
and OoP it is often noted that she 'travels around' in a 'pack' with 
other girls. These other girls are not mentioned by name and Harry 
may not know their names. Until GoF I don't believe we had any 
reference to Padma Patil, and certainly until GoF we had litle or no 
reference to Luna Lovegood. 

It never struck me as odd that there would be more people at 
Hogwarts than Harry's perspective gives us direct reference. Even in 
Gryffindor, I just can't imagine a passage where HRH enter the 
common room to find a loud and messy celebration with George and 
Fred, Lee, Angelina, Alicia, Katie, Colin and Denis, Ginny, Parvati 
and Lavender, Shemus, Dean, Neville, Jack, Bob, Willie, John, Paul, 
George and Ring, Mick, Brian, Keith, Bill and Charlie, Jimmy, 
Robert, Luis, Steven, Leo, Gregory, Nicholas, Mary, Betty, Jennifer, 
Margaret, Angella, Helen, Debbie, Ella, Billie, Brittany, etc., 
etc., etc., all mentioned by name.

What we have in HP is the world from Harry's limited perspective. 
Thus, we find reference to people significant in his life as seen 
from his POV. The fifth years of Gryffindor who are mentioned are 
the ones with whom Harry associates. Similarly, the Professors 
mentioned are those that stick out in Harry's mind (any major 
references to Professor Sinistra beyond her appearance at table?). 

The only reference I recall that would cast any doubt on this view 
is one, I believe in GoF (don't have the book in front of me -- and 
by the bye, from where does one get the books in a digital format 
without typing it all out?) in which at the start of term Harry goes 
to the dormitory and finds that the room he and his mates had 
occupied the previous year is not marked as for them this year. 
However, what this doesn't tell us is whether there are other rooms 
so marked or even whether the door actually opens to another hallway 
with suites of rooms on either side (and perhaps a bath at the end). 
Colleges sometimes have dorms set up with this same arrangement, 
four or five students to a room or suit of rooms, four rooms/suits 
clustered about a common bath.

Finally, consider the number of (oblique)references to students in 
the hallways between classes. These references always make me think 
of hundreds of students, not dozens.

My question would be: If Snape is /the/ potion master of the school, 
and no other is mentioned, how does he teach students of all seven 
years, given the inevitability that there would have to be more than 
one class with say the fifth years (more than one group of 
Gryffindors)?

M.E.