wizarding genetics / # of students at Hogwarts / Slytherin House / 20 to 1

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 180793

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180625>:

<< It's as impossible as (snip) the blond, light-eyed Malfoys giving
birth to a black-eyed, black-haired child who resembles Severus Snape.>>

Maybe not. If Narcissa is a Metamorphmagus, then her fair complexion
and pale hair could come from magic while her genes would have had her
looking like Andromeda and Bellatrix. Then her child could have looked
like a Black, and a Black who let his hair go greasy would resemble
Severus. Severus's nose is bigger and more hooked, but it has never
seemed to me that the Blacks were lacking in the nose department.

Bruce Alan Wilson wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180672>:

<< My opinion is that there are two sets of genes--one that enables
one to sense magical energies, and one that enables one to manipulate
them. If one has both, one is a wizard; if one can sense them, but
cannot manipulate them, one is a Squib. >>

You may be right, but I'm in love with my own idea, which is that
there is one set of genes that (mm) normally gives both the sensing 
of magic and the doing of magic, but still gives the sensing of magic
(plus bonus communication with cats) even when outside reasons prevent
it from giving the doing of magic.

<< Muggleborn Squibs are what we call Psychics, Mediums, etc. >>

I kind of think so, too. On another tentacle, suppose "psychic" 
powers of telepathy, telekinesis and clairvoyance (of future, past, 
or distant present) exist in the Potterverse entirely separate from
Potterverse magic. There are these Muggles who, with only
self-training, can do things none of the wizarding folk can do...

falkeli wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180701>:

<< I find it hard to believe that there were only 40 wizard/witch
deaths during September 1979 - August 1980. Many of the students
in Harry's year do have wizard/witch ancestry - so there doesn't
seem to have been a big muggle-born batch that year. In addition,
this theory predicts that 3 years below Harry (Dennis Creevey's
year) there shouldn't be any muggle-borns, as this would have been
when the babies of the baby boom would be born. >>

I figured, by my own non-mathematical methods, that there must be at
least 1000 Hogwarts age kids to maintain a British wizard population
of about 20,000, which I figure is the smallest that could maintain
all those different businesses and sports teams, even if most of them
are really only paid hobbies for people who have incomes (such as from
inherited money) enough to survive on. Maybe I need to dream about
that some more now that Dumbledore was 115 rather than 150. It might
need to be more than 1000.

But I was gratified when JKR, outside the books, answered the question
of how many students are at Hogwarts as 'about a thousand'. She also
said that Hogwarts was the only wizarding school in Britain. This led
to much debate, in which some listie (I've forgotten who) produced the
unforgettable post:

7 years * 4 Houses * 10 students (per year in each House) = 1000
**** That Arithmancy is sure some powerful magic!

My theory, accepted by no one but me, is that Hogwarts has three or
four campuses. The original campus, from the Founders, is the Castle.
But only the top 40 students each year are sent there (ranked by a
combination of magical power rating, social class, and political
pull). The others are sent to the other campuses. (Colloquially,
Hogwarts at the Castle is 'Hogwarts' and Hogwarts at e.g. Wyvernwood
is 'Wyvernwood', similar to the way the University of California at
Berkeley is 'Cal' and the University of California at Los Angeles is
'UCLA'.) Harry's entering class may have been larger than the standard
140-something (1000/7) but only the other campuses would have been
crowded, because the Castle would still take only the top 40. (If
there was to be a maximum of 10 students per House per year, I would
have made it the top 35 so no House would get too many, but JKR
invented 41 students to be in Harry's year.)

Hogwarts Castle is such a HUGE structure (I assume that the Founders
built it that way to show off) that I have wondered if all three
campuses might be at Hogwarts Castle, just magically invisible and so
on to each other. They might each have their own Great Hall, on
different floors, one atop the other, that look like dusty abandoned
rooms to students of other campuses... 

Magpie wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180720>:

<< There's actually no call on Slytherin whatsoever to change--
they are what they are. So we're left with the question asked here:
why are they suffered to remain? To me it seems like the answer to
that question is found in the psychology of the WW and the author.
It's comforting to somebody to have this house in the form that it
exists, periodically gaining power and then symbolically brought low-
-but never healed or destroyed. >>

I still think that the majority of wizards and witches think that
bloodism and slavery and Dark Magic and murder among people who know
each other and bribery and embezzlement and many other things that us
readers think are very bad things that should be abolished, are
matters of personal taste. But murdering people who don't know you,
confiscating the wands of all the Muggle-borns, and some other
activities go beyond what the majority is willing to put up with. 

So our 'good guys' are temporary heroes for putting an end to a
tyranny of multiple murderers who were really bad for business. But 
if our 'good guys' then suggested abolishing Slytherin House, or
teaching Ethics and Mugglecultural Sensitivity and Non Violent
Conflict Resolution to every kid in Hogwarts every year, the survivors
of the 'bad  guys' (not every bloodist bigot or dark arts dabbler was
found guilty of anything more than keeping his head down during the
crisis) will protest that those Gryffindors, the self-proclaimed Light
Side, are trying to impose their opinions on everyone and not allowing
freedom of thought, and the majority of wizards and witches will agree
with them. 

<< [Salazar] was a founder--we don't know why. Perhaps Gryffindor,
too, was temporary blinded by his gift for magic. >>

When I tried to write fanfic about it, I always assumed that the other
Founders figured if would be safer to have him on the inside of their
project where they could keep an eye on him than to have him roaming
loose unobserved, and that getting him to view the school as his own
project would lead him to help it rather than harm it, for pride reasons.

Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180729>:

<< If they learn to seek purity of soul rather than purity of blood,
they could become the most moral of the houses. >>

Among human beings, it is not unknown for those who consider
themselves the most moral to seek purity by killing everyone who
doesn't agree with their system of morals.

There could have been times when the dictator who took over was a
Gryffindor who massacred Slytherins. Then it might have been some Dark
Wizards with a sense of self-preservation who conquered him and were
viewed as heroes for a while.

Mike wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180778>:

<< Yeah, I remember Lupin's "outnumbered 20:1". And yet only 30 or so
DEs showed up at the Graveyard. >>

And another dozen DEs were alive in Azkaban, and some large number of
DEs had already died in Azkaban. If there were actually hundreds of
DEs sentenced to Azkaban and dying there, that might explain why there
wasn't such a large epidemic of Squibs.