HOW many classmates?/ Are there an equal number of students in each house?

[dorapye]

No: HPFGUIDX 91412

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, melody leong 
<makaidoggie at y...> wrote:
> Dorapye wrote:
> >" '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? 
> 
> Ffred:
> > I get the impression from the books that once JKR had said 
publicly that
> there are around 1000 students at Hogwarts, all the references to 
numbers
> (not only this one, which I hadn't noticed before, but also the 
Yule Ball,
> the exam scene, etc) are all written with that in mind. <<<
> 
> 
> For Harry's year, there should be 5 boys and 5 girls in his 
house... right? Logically, wouldn't that mean that there are 40 in 
each year, and around 280 students in the school...?
>  
> Melz

dorapye:
And this is exactly what I'm referring to...the above quote from 
OotP *clearly* states that Harry's fifth year DADA class, which 
never in canon has he had to share with students from other houses, 
is made of THIRTY students.  If we assume they are all Gryffindors, 
then the next assumption we have to make is that we have *only* met 
the Gryffindors in Harry's year that he, Ron and Hermione share 
dorms with and that there are approximately 20 other Gryffindors in 
Harry's year group whom we have never been introduced to.

If you take 30 Gryffindors and assume (a big assumption, I agree, as 
there is no canon apart from the Sorting Hat claiming to "quarter" 
the students each year) that all four houses have roughly the same 
complement of students, etc etc...you get a much more respectable 
number of students much closer to JKR's "about a 1000" she is quoted 
as giving. This makes me feel that 30 Gryffindors in Harry's year is 
correct.

However, as Potioncat pointed out (thank you Potioncat!), this then 
creates a problem with the number of teachers...! But I think I 
prefer to deal with that little *blip* in the Potterverse than the 
alternative, which is only 8 Gryffindor students in DADA, History of 
Magic, Transfiguration, Charms....how can the trio have "private" 
chats during Charms (GoF) and muck around during Transfiguration 
(GoF) if they are 3 of only 8 pupils in the class - it would not go 
unnoticed or unheard by teachers or classmates...

As for the 5 boys/5 girls theory that a lot people assume, that then 
creates a "two missing Gryffindor girls" problem as we only have in 
canon Hermione, Lavender and Parvati....

And why should we assume, if the Sorting Hat selects students for 
the different houses based on their personal qualities, that the 
number of boys and girls should be even in each house? 

Or the number of students in each house? Might there be more 
Hufflepuffs? More or less Slytherins?  How rare are Ravenclaws? 
This, of course, has been debated before on this site, so I'll leave 
this one here...

dorapye, realising that she has now written an essay (ineloquently) 
of her own on the numbers of Gryffindors in Harry's year! Apologies 
for the length of these posts..