OotP: Return of the Numbers Problem

[psychic_serpent]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Blaise" <blaise_writer at h...> 
wrote:
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> Even though it's not a huge spoiler really... I've been doing some 
> counting (and incidentally wondering whether LOON would take me 
on) 
> and I noticed something. According to Lupin, back during 
Voldemort's 
> first shot at world domination, the Order was outnumbered by Death 
> Eaters 20 to 1. Now there must have been at least 20 members of 
the 
> Order then, judging by the names and ages of the current members 
and 
> the photo Moody shows Harry. So that means at least 400 Death 
Eaters, 
> perhaps fewer allowing Lupin some leeway for exaggeration - maybe 
> they were really only outnumbered 10 to 1. So my question is, 
where 
> have they all gone? Only about 20 are mentioned in the books, 
there 
> weren't anywhere near 400 at the gathering at the end of GoF, and 
> Voldemort only mentions six missing. Presumably some are in 
Azkaban 
> too, and some killed by Voldemort, like Regulus Black. But still, 
I 
> can't believe there can be some 350 missing. Is this part of the 
> eternal number-of-wizards problem? A Flint? Or does JKR have 
> something up her sleeve? 
> 
> Blaise

It might be her numbers problem again (I still have yet to see 
anything in the books that supports her assertion that there are 
about 1000 students at Hogwarts, or even half that many) but this 
one would probably not be too hard to get out of, compared to many 
of the number issues in the books (such as Nick not having eaten in 
about 400 years when he'd been dead for about 500).  Since we know 
that many people who did things on the side of the Death Eaters were 
actually under Imperius, that could account for the 20 to 1 ratio, 
and also account for why they wouldn't be considered true Death 
Eaters now that Voldemort is back.  OTOH, it's been suggested before 
that those who were summoned to the graveyard in GoF were only the 
members of the "inner circle" and that many other minions did not 
get the Dark Mark that would have summoned them.  Whether either one 
of those is the answer or not (or both), it'll probably be a bit 
less bothersome than explaining how Snape is supposed to teach 
Potions to 1000 students a week (minus those who don't qualify for 
NEWT-level classes) without using a Time-Turner and five different 
dungeons. <g>

--Barb