Re: math. 36 hours is close to a full time job in our terms, but teaching hours are usually not full clock hours. If we subtract what US schools call 'passing time' - the time taken by students moving between classes - that's probably only 30 hours of being in class with the students. And not counting prep time as real paid hours is a known problem in some educational systems.
And see why she petitioned the Ministry for Hermione’s time-turner? The girl would have broken the schedule otherwise!)Yes, I proposed something along those lines. If there are only one or two students who take more than 2-3 electives it is easier to give them Time Turners than to make the schedule work out
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The all-Gryffindor class sounds very odd to me, unless there was some schedule weirdness that year that made it easier to cram the other three Houses together for Transfiguration and have Gryffindor by itself. I don't know what that might have been, but it's possible. Or maybe they arranged things that way specifically so McGonagall could give Gryffindors only days off homework before games. Which could allow for Umbridge teaching Slytherins separately for DADA, as you say.
The thing is, I can't remember that there were ever any joint classes or students from other houses mentioned in any subjects other than Potions, Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures (at least not until after OWLS). I definitely always got the impression that those were the only shared classes until I started thinking about it and realised that there'd have to be at least thrice as many teachers to make that work anywhere in the space-time-continuum...
The whole setup is weird. Are the students from the other House(s) just really, really quiet in Charms? Do they not exist if Harry isn't looking at them? Though we can't blame Harry alone. How is it even possible for Ron not to know who Michael Corner is in fifth year? I was a pretty oblivious student in a year-cohort of 39 in high school, and I cannot fathom this. I at least knew everyone's name!
Doing the math has at least helped me narrow down what possibilities I can believe. I mean, even a Hogwarts of 300-ish students requires some suspension of disbelief, because it seems unlikely that they would never run into an irreconcilable schedule conflict, but I can handwave that much. But I just can't believe in a larger student body without a really, really good explanation--and I can't find one. I've been going around in circles for a while, wondering whether I was unfairly dismissing the idea of a larger student body and Harry's year being unusually, extremely small... but nope. I just can't buy it.
In this case I agree- the civil war would be high time for the purebloods to procreate. But there is the other side of the problem- Voldie war I was not a simple war; it was a civil war. More so, it was an ideological civil war. And when it comes to ideology sometimes, even family kills each other (as I think Sirius says in OotP). We know Harry is the last member of the official family. We know that Neville is last member of his family who is both member of the main branch and in the reproductive age. Heck, even Draco is the only member of the Malfoy family (by muggle standards) in the reproductive age group
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Oh, I don't think there's anything odd about Justin's parents sending him to Hogwarts instead of Eton. Wizards can control minds. And they don't want a kid accidentally doing magic in front of witnesses at one of the most prestigious schools in the country. Even if they don't break out the big magical mind-control guns, I think they could be very persuasive if Justin's parents had any hesitation.
But also, as Oryx says, Justin is in Harry's year. So if anything, he's an example of how there wasn't manipulation to lower the number of Muggle-borns that year. On the contrary, they probably made a strong effort to make sure he attended.
I don't know that Hermione's parents are anywhere near rich enough to afford a school on par with Eton (it couldn't be Eton regardless because Eton is boys only), and while I'm not fully versed in British class politics, I don't think dentists generally expect their children to go to such a prestigious school. They probably don't have generations of tradition of the family always going to whichever fancy
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Looking at 'Muggle' statistics, live births in the UK in 1947 were 1,000,000. Between 1947 and 1955, numbers fluctuated at around the 750,000 mark, and then rose from 1956 onwards, peaking in 1964 at 1,000,000. Numbers then declined again, and from 1974-1987 remained under 750,000. If we expect the number of Muggleborns to be a reasonably constant percentage of Muggle births, then there would be fewer in Harry's year than in the Severus/Marauder generation
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Comments 13
And see why she petitioned the Ministry for Hermione’s time-turner? The girl would have broken the schedule otherwise!)Yes, I proposed something along those lines. If there are only one or two students who take more than 2-3 electives it is easier to give them Time Turners than to make the schedule work out ( ... )
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The all-Gryffindor class sounds very odd to me, unless there was some schedule weirdness that year that made it easier to cram the other three Houses together for Transfiguration and have Gryffindor by itself. I don't know what that might have been, but it's possible. Or maybe they arranged things that way specifically so McGonagall could give Gryffindors only days off homework before games. Which could allow for Umbridge teaching Slytherins separately for DADA, as you say.
The thing is, I can't remember that there were ever any joint classes or students from other houses mentioned in any subjects other than Potions, Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures (at least not until after OWLS). I definitely always got the impression that those were the only shared classes until I started thinking about it and realised that there'd have to be at least thrice as many teachers to make that work anywhere in the space-time-continuum...
Thanks for working out the maths :-)
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Doing the math has at least helped me narrow down what possibilities I can believe. I mean, even a Hogwarts of 300-ish students requires some suspension of disbelief, because it seems unlikely that they would never run into an irreconcilable schedule conflict, but I can handwave that much. But I just can't believe in a larger student body without a really, really good explanation--and I can't find one. I've been going around in circles for a while, wondering whether I was unfairly dismissing the idea of a larger student body and Harry's year being unusually, extremely small... but nope. I just can't buy it.
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This was actually in Harry's year, Justin Finch Fletchley in Hufflepuff. We hear the story in COS, when the two work together in Herbology.
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But also, as Oryx says, Justin is in Harry's year. So if anything, he's an example of how there wasn't manipulation to lower the number of Muggle-borns that year. On the contrary, they probably made a strong effort to make sure he attended.
I don't know that Hermione's parents are anywhere near rich enough to afford a school on par with Eton (it couldn't be Eton regardless because Eton is boys only), and while I'm not fully versed in British class politics, I don't think dentists generally expect their children to go to such a prestigious school. They probably don't have generations of tradition of the family always going to whichever fancy ( ... )
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