Hogwarts letters, wizarding shopping, and Money issues (was: Money issues

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 59071

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, rayheuer3 at a... wrote:
> manawydan at n... writes:
> 
> > One thought that has crossed my mind is what happens when the 
> > Muggle parents of a potential Hogwarts student are truly on the 
> > breadline and unable even to get their child to Kings Cross 
> > station, leave alone buy all the books, robes, accessories, and
> > so on? (I'm thinking not even of someone like Colin's dad, who is 
> > working though on a low wage, but let's say a single parent on 
> > Income Support) My (entirely non-canonical) suggestion is that
> > the parent just doesn't get a letter.

I not only can't see Dumbledore going along with that, but I don't 
see how it could be arranged. According to JKR, the Quill writes the 
name of each magical child born in Britain in a book when it is born 
and once a year McGonagall consults the books and addresses Hogwarts 
letters to each of this year's crop. Nothing about the Quill being 
able to look into the future to see the child's financial situation 
at age 11 (Tom Marvolo Riddle's was pretty awful at that time) and 
nothing about McGonagall checking the child's financial sitation.

JKR's statement about the Quill needs some further co-ordination ... 
how could Neville's Gran have been concerned whether or not he was 
magical enough to go to Hogwarts if his name had been in the Book 
since birth? That requires supposing another rule, that no one can 
check the Book except (Dumbledore and) McGonagall (and maybe that 
even they cannot peek ahead in it). 

What about a magic child who was born overseas while its British 
Muggle parents were on holiday or working overseas for just a few 
years? That child was not born in Britain, but is British, living in 
Britain when Hogwarts-aged, and needs to go to Hogwarts. How did the 
Quill know to write down its name despite being overseas at the time? 
Maybe it observes all British adults in their travels over the world 
as well as all adults located in Britain during their presence.

What about a magic child who was born overseas but later emigrated to 
Britain (with its immigrant parents OR by adoption)? The Quill would 
have to watch the whole world AND foretell which child would be 
emigrating.

Therefore, I would much prefer if the Quill detected the children 
when they were Hogwarts age.  Then there would have been no book for 
Neville's Gran to check in advance. But Hagrid's statement that Harry 
had been down for Hogwarts since he was born would have to be still 
another Hagrid exageration.

I like the idea that the Quill identifies the detected children by 
addressing the letters that McGonagall was going to give to the owls 
to deliver, because that would cut out an intermediary -- quills are 
MEANT to write. Otoh, my multi-campus theory has place for an 
intermediary -- after the Quill lists the children in order of 
their magical power, so that the top 280 can go to Hogwarts Castle 
and the others can go to the other campus(es), someone adjusts the 
sequence so that the children of old wizarding families or families 
with wizarding political pull get raised to the top 280 and others 
get lower to make room for them.

> 
> I suspect that was one of the questions, if not THE question, over
> which the founders of Hogwarts broke up.  Salazar Slytherin, who 
> didn't want muggle-borns trained *at all* would certainly have 
> suggested the "no letter" policy.  But I suspect that the others 
> thought that the most important thing is to give young wizards and 
> witches the training they need to prosper, whether they can afford 
> to pay or not.

In some ways it would have been less expensive for the Muggle-born 
students in the Founders' time. In those days, the Muggle means of 
transportation to school would have been WALKING (for days, weeks, 
or months), not going to London to catch a train to Scotland.

In my imagination, in the early days of Hogwarts, the Founders went 
out individually finding the students they wanted and bringing them 
to Hogwarts. In my mind, I see an adult with a walking staff leading 
a group of teens on a walking journey -- perhaps the origin of the 
"Pied Piper"? -- but I suppose magic transportation (Portkeys, flying 
carpets, hippogryffs) might have been more efficient.

I wonder if the wizarding folk had a shopping district (Diagon Alley 
or a precursor) in those days. They might have retained some urban 
life, including shopping districts, from Roman times, even tho' 
Muggles didn't. If not, they would have had to get their school 
supplies AT school, perhaps purchased from wizarding wandering 
peddlers... 

Muggle students at that time would have gotten their (few and 
precious) books by handcopying books belonging to their teachers. I 
don't know if the wizarding folk had invented magical means of mass 
producing books yet (as Muggles did later with the printing press). 
If not, had they invented magical means of reproducing books one at 
a time? Such as enchanting an existing book so that it splits (like 
cellular mitosis) into two identical clones, or so it gives birth to 
an identical baby book? Or enchanting a quill so that it writes the 
copy of the existing book while the human does something else more 
enjoyable and less causative of writers' cramp?   

> I'm reasonably certain that "tuition assistance" is available at 
> Hogwarts, even to the point of waiving the fees entirely,

IIRC we don't KNOW whether there is any tuition and fees at Hogwarts. 
I like to think that there is no tuition or fees, with all the 
school's expenses paid either by income from its ancient endowment or 
by magic. Vernon's pout that he wouldn't pay to have Harry taught 
magic was either rooted in total ignorance or referred to buying 
textbooks rather than to paying tuition. 

> and providing books, uniforms, etc.

Actually, I happen to agree with you. I imagine that some adult at 
Hogwarts (maybe Madam Pomfrey) oversees a stash of used and badly 
worn books and robes (and maybe cauldrons and broomsticks) to be 
given to children who can't afford their own. The embarrassment of 
having such worn-out things would discourage use of this charity. 
But I don't know how relying on used things discarded by previous 
students would cope with Lockhart (or anyone else)'s sudden addition 
of books to the curriculum. Giving the charity as cash or store 
credit would help solve those two problems. Someone even suggested on 
list that Mrs Weasley saves the receipts for all those school books 
and turns them in for reimbursement -- I don't know if that would 
hurt her Weasley pride too much; it doesn't explain why Ginny got an 
worn old used Transfiguration textbook (CoS).