Snape's cover/wizarding 'justice'/ how many students at Hogwarts?

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 69821

Random wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/69794 :

<< Imagine: Draco owls home to Lucius, "Oh, and today i was a bit 
surprised when Snape seemed to actually care about that mudblood 
Granger." >>

I really doubt Draco would have thought that Snape seemed to care 
about Granger if Snape had merely looked coldly at her and said 
"Hospital wing, Granger" in a dismissive voice. Like Shaun says, 
that's his *job*.

At 08:17 07/12/2003, T.M. Sommers wrote:
> I think a competent prosecutor might be able to persuade a jury
> that Malfoy had murderous intent. At the very least he was
> guilty of assault with a magical weapon. That should be enough
> for at least a couple of years in chokey.

Little Alex replied in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/69798 :
<< I think you might have been assuming that the UK wizarding legal 
system works the same way the US Muggle legal system works or, at the 
very least, the way that the UK Muggle legal system works -- which we 
already know as untrue. 

We're talking about a legal system that Fudge manipulated into almost 
sending Harry into Azkaban or St. Mungos because the poor boy was 
defending his own life. We're talking about a legal system that sent 
an innocent (well, not innocent, but at least not guilty of the crime 
accused) man into Azkaban for ten years. >>

Giving examples would violate the list rule against talking Muggle 
politics, but there are many well-known examples of these kinds of 
miscarriages of justice in both US and UK.

Jasmine wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/69804 :

<< JKR has stated that approximately 1000 are in the school. (snip 
account of what we SEE in canon) Now this seems to be a phenomenally 
lower than what JKR is suggesting, it is less than a quarter of her 
stated figure. Now yes, we can account for staff, but surely this 
wouldn't take the figure above 300 at an absolute maximum! So...does 
this mean when put on the spot an asked the question this was one 
thing that JKR had not actually worked out, the number of students 
that is, and 1000 is a lovely easy number just to spout off but could 
actually be extremely inaccurate? or was Harry just born in a year 
where very few witches and wizards were born? >>

As Steve bboy_mn often point off, HPfGU has learned that there is NO 
consistent answer to the number of students at Hogwarts. I believe 
there is a long essay about it in Fantastic Posts and Where to Find 
Them, but the server seems to be down jsut now.

I personally came up with the estimate that there must be 1000 
wizards and witches of Hogwarts age in UK in order to maintain a 
wizarding population around 20,000 in UK, which I believe to be the 
minimum number needed to maintain a wizarding economy as large as we 
have seen, even with the assistance of magic. Since JKR has stated in 
interviews that Hogwarts is the only wizarding school in Britain, all 
1000 of those kids must be at Hogwarts. But not only does the 
portrayal of Hogwarts Castle in the books depict a student population 
around 280 (average of five boys and five girls per year per House), 
the students speak as if there were other wizarding schools (such as 
Neville saying his family had been afraid that he wasn't magical 
enough to go to Hogwarts). 

I came up with a gimmick to co-ordinate all these facts, my theory 
that "Hogwarts" is a multiple campus school, like the University of 
California. The original campus, Hogwarts School at Hogwarts Castle, 
is the most prestigeous and is just called "Hogwarts" like UC 
Berkeley's nickname is Cal. Two or three other campuses hold the 
rest of the students; they are named Hogwarts School at Wherever, 
and called by the name of of their location, like if there were a 
Hogwarts School at Puddlemere, it would be called Puddlemere.

But I personally DON'T believe that Harry's class is smaller than 
usual. Here comes my usual rant on Inheritance of Magic:

I agree with those who say that the wizarding world had a 'birth 
dearth' during the Voldemort Reign of Terror (which I like to call 
The Bad Years), but not that that caused Hogwarts to have fewer 
students born in those years. In fact, the classes born in those 
years might have been LARGER than usual. This is because of a theory 
of inheritance of magic which I came up with in a thread on that 
subject. 

In my theory, the inheritance of magic is partly genetic and partly 
magical. I suggest that in general, there are a whole bunch of pairs 
of recessive genes that usually combine to make a person magical. How 
many of these pairs a person is double-recessive for, and which ones, 
would influence or control how strong their magic power is, and what 
forms of magic they are most talented at. 

But I also suggest that there is also a Magic that keeps the total 
number of wizarding people constant. When a wizard or witch dies, 
their magic goes to the next suitable child born in their area. 
Suitability would be a combination of the genes and of being 
surrounded by magic at the time. (A fetus in a witch's womb is the 
most possible surrounded by magic! So the child of a witch and a 
Muggle is almost as likely to be magic as the child of a witch and a 
wizard) The longer the magic goes searching for a suitable host, the 
geographically wider an area it searches, and also it becomes less 
picky about suitabilty, such as choosing Muggle-born children who 
at least have SOME of the right genes, even tho' there is no magic 
around them at all. 

This theory also explains Squibs, as children of a wizard and a witch 
who were born at a moment when more wizarding babies were being born 
than wizarding folk were dying. THEREFORE, if two Squibs marry, their 
children would have the right genes, and if the Squib couple lived 
(unhappily and in poverty) in the wizarding world, their children 
would have been somewhat surrounded by magic, and therefore children 
of Squibs who remain in the wizarding world are likely to be 
non-Squib. Squibs who move to the Muggle world, make a life there and 
marry a Muggle, would probably have children who were Muggles, but 
with the genes to be very attractive to magic looking for a 
Muggle-born person to reside in.

This theory also implies that there would be more Muggle-borns than 
usual during The Bad Years. That would be an ironic result of 
Voldemort's attempt to eliminate Muggle-borns! But, as you said, more 
wizarding folk than usual were dying during The Bad Years, because of 
all the murders, and fewer were being born than usual, because of 
parents reluctant to bring children into such a dreadful world. Thus, 
quite a number of witches and wizards died with no wizarding child 
being born at their death-time, so their magic went looking for a 
Muggle-born host. Thus, more 'Mudbloods'. That could explain why 
wizarding folk from Bill Weasley's age on down are more familiar with 
Muggle things than their parents are, and take it for granted to wear 
Muggle-style clothes: they learned it from their classmates.

A further implication is that a post-Harry Potter Day wizarding baby 
boom may have resulted in an epidemic of Squibs. (I understand Ron's 
statement that Squibs are 'very rare' to mean an average of one a 
generation, so if there were three in the Post-Harry generation, to 
me that would qualify as an 'epidemic'!)