School Size/Class Size was Re: Scary Teachers - Good Teachers

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 153012

Neri wrote:
> <snip> My strong impression during all the books is that there are
much more than 280 [students]. Just one example out of many: Harry
doesn't know *both* seventh-years Gryffindors Belby and McLaggan when
Slughorn introduces them in HBP, and they must have been in Gryffindor
house through the five years of Harry being there. I flatly refuse to
believe he doesn't know them after five years if there are only 10
Gryffs in his year and about another 10 in the year above him. <snip>

Carol:
Marcus Belby is in Ravenclaw, as Blaise Zabini informs Draco in "the
Slug Club" (HBP Am. ed. 150). But I agree that even unobservant Harry
should know who Cormac McLaggen is after five years of sharing a
common room with him: McLaggen is not exactly inconspicuous in either
his size or his behavior. (However, he's primarily a plot device whose
existence is irrelevant to Harry before HBP, so maybe JKR is to blame
for Harry's obliviousness here.)

You're right that we have no reason to assume that other classes are
the same size as Harry's, but the in-text evidence already cited
(brooms, cauldrons, earmuffs, etc.) supports a class size of 40 for
Harry's year. And it's Harry's class that matters if we're determining
 what percentage of students kids received O's on their Potions OWLs.

Carol, who also finds it difficult to believe that Harry doesn't know
Theodore Nott's name after more than four years of Potions and two
years of CoMC with him and can only imagine that Theo never speaks up
in either class!