OOP: Why OWLs aren't FLINTs!

[Alon van Dam]

No: HPFGUIDX 65640

Dear all,

This is just a short post to give a possible explanation to the 
alleged FLINT concerning the OWLs 

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about: Quite a 
number of us noticed while reading OOP that Hermione is 'only' taking 
10 classes, and that Percy and Bill got 12 OWLs each. Poster Marie 
Granger wrote an excellent post about it on the 23rd or 24th. We were 
wondering whether it's JK's numerics or whether something else is up. 
I have a /possible/ explanation, which I came to when rereading the 
first 1/3rd of the book earlier:

When McGonnagall is explaining about the OWLs early in the book, she 
states that they will have to take two OWL-tests per subject: One 
theoretical and one practical. I'll look up the exact quote later, 
but it /might/ mean that they can get two OWLs per subject, in which 
case 12 OWLs is something which I'm sure Hermione surpassed: But I'm 
pretty sure that Hermione should get the highest amount of OWLs in 
ten years or so. She'd deserve it.

On the downside of this theory: What does it mean that Fred and 
George only got 3 OWLs? If you can get one OWL per subject, that's 
really bad, if you can get two, it's beyond horrid. 

Thoughts?

Just my two knuts,
Alon