Family Traveling in HP

[gracerene]

You guys! It's been so long since I've done a proper post with thinky thoughts and/or questions about HP and fandom and it's kind of sucked. Mostly I just haven't had the time or energy, even though I have a few thoughts bouncing around. But this morning, I was TOTALLY inspired, so here I am! With thoughts and questions!! All for you

Comments

[narlth]

How about horse(or other animal) drawn carriages? Like the threstral carriages that take some of the students to school?

[gracerene]

I'd imagine that would be pretty conspicuous for traveling generally-speaking, given Muggle populations. Probably expensive, too.

Other than the Beauxbaton's carriage and the ones at the school, I don't think any animal-drawn carriages are mentioned, which makes me think they're probably not very common. :D

[narlth]

They may have been able to get away with it in the countryside, 20 years ago. You see them occasionally even today.

But they are expensive, true.

[josephinestone]

The Amish do this all the time in our areas and no one thinks anything of it. I can understand in the cities this being odd, but isn't most of England not cities?

[kerrilee75]

I think of the modes of travel you've come up with, Floo is the best bet. I'm thinking you must be able to Floo with someone, carrying them or possibly holding hands if it were a big enough fireplace. Also, I'm thinking about injury situations where you need to get someone to St Mungo's. I can't quote HP as well as most, but I'm thinking of situations where injured students were transferred to St Mungo's. How'd they get there.

[kerrilee75]

Good lord I said "thinking" a lot in that answer. I'm on my lunch break and can't edit my response from my stupid phone. But thanks for the little nugget to ponder while I eat. ;)

[gracerene]

Floo does seem the most reasonable but A. That only solves the problem if where you're going has a Floo and B. I think at a certain point this would no longer be tenable, once the child gets to a certain size. And I think by the time that happens, I'd still be concerned about the child Flooing on their own due to the importance of pronunciation, though I'm sure that's drilled into wizarding children from a young age.

[bonsaibetz]

You forgot flying carpets. I think there is a bit in canon where "family sized flying carpets" are mentioned in the books? Some reason that visual in my head has always stuck there, so I think that's canon. Now I'll have to check HP-lexicon to be sure.

[gracerene]

Yes, I purposefully excluded flying carpets as I believe it was mentioned that they were popular in other countries, but not in England, which is where I was mostly thinking of. You're right that they might work well in this instance for countries where they're popular, but I'm not sure about families in England.

[kerrilee75]

Does the person standing in the Floo have to be the one to say the name and toss the powder? Like could a mother toss the powder and say the location while the kid steps in? What if a person has a lisp or stutter? Also, do you have to be magical to Floo? Could Squib children Floo?

[gracerene]

LOL! So many Floo questions!!

[firethesound]

Flying on a broom with a loose baby/toddler sound super dangerous, but I've seen baby seats on bicycles. Maybe there's something like that with lots of built-in crash charms? Though that'd only be practical for short distances, I think. And probably in the country where there's relatively little chance of being seen by Muggles.

This is a really good question and now I want to know the answer! If I recall correctly, the only time in canon we ever see anyone traveling with a baby, it's when Hagrid took Harry to the Dursleys. And enchanted motorbikes are definitely not the norm.

[gracerene]

Yes, I've seen those as well and wondered about broom add-ons. But given a broom's size and weight, it seems like adding something so bulky could throw off the balance? Though I guess bikes are fairly slim as well.

Yeah! Other than baby!Harry, there really isn't mention of many other babies in canon. We have Teddy for a half a second, but that's pretty much it, and no mention of traveling...