HOW many classmates?

[dorapye]

No: HPFGUIDX 91339

Ok, re-reading Chapter 12 OotP and noticed something that I had not 
registered fully before,when Harry confronts Umbridge during the 
DADA lesson (p221 Uk ed):

" 'It was murder,' said Harry.  He could feel himself shaking. He 
had hardly spoken to anyone about this, least of all THIRTY eagerly 
listening classmates. 'Voldemort killed him and you know it.'"

Woah, there! THIRTY classmates? We have only 8 known Gryffindors in 
Harry's year, and it has been widely assumed that this is the entire 
Gryffindor complement ('cepting two possible extra Gryff girls...).  
So are the Gryffindors sharing their lessons with other houses now? 
Or is this evidence that Gryffindor, and by logic the other houses 
too, has many more students than we have been introduced to? 
The '1000 or so' that JKR has told us of?

Far as I can remember, there is no mention through the rest of OotP 
of the Gryffindors sharing their DADA lesson with other houses, and 
I remember that infamous DADA lesson in PoA with the Boggart!Snape, 
and then Lupin's class was only Gryffindors - my canon " Well done,  
everyone. Let me see...five points to Gryffindor for every person to 
tackle the Boggart, ten for Neville because he did it twice - and 
five each to Harry and Hermione".

Is thirty classmates a flint? Is JKR herself suffering from movie 
contamination (as there is some evidence she is later in OotP!)

Or are we not just missing 2 girls from Gryffindor, but a further 22 
students, boys and girls?

I think its possible that there are other boy and girl dorms for the 
Gryffindors in Harry's year and we have only met the classmates that 
share Harry's and Hermione's dorms.  It would certainly make more 
sense that the Gryffindor classes and year group is larger than just 
8...what do you think?  Has this already been discussed?  Can you 
find canon that Harry is sharing his DADA lesson with other houses?

Or is this just further evidence that Harry's assertion in PS that 
he can "do maths and stuff" was a wild lie and in fact he suffers 
from a curious number blindness, which would explain all the other 
*number* discrepancies elsewhere in the book (the number of students 
attending the Yule Ball, the number watching the Quidditch World 
Cup, the number of DEs in the graveyard, I could go on...).


dorapye