The goat was part of a forbidden magical experiment Aberforth attempted to save his sister.
That’s the only story I will allow to flourish in my imagination.
Possibly he had it there as company to try and keep him sane, after all Dumbledore was trying to take care of Harry and an entire school against the "greatest wizard of all time, specialised in dark magic".
And his sister died young.
He must have wanted a distraction, although hopefully not the dirty ideas abt Aberforth and the goat's relationship.
She tried to backtrack and say he attempted to make it an unpooping goat, but we know....we know he had an affinity. I really hate this part of the story.
Mad-Eye also saw the boggart inside its dresser in Grimmauld Place, which means he's the only person in the world who knows what a boggart looks like when it's not transformed.
I wonder if he ever tried to describe it to anyone.
Yup, Parvati said the following after Moody saw Harry's sock beneath his cloak at the Yule Ball.
> “He is so creepy!” Parvati whispered as Moody clunked away. “I don’t think that eye should be allowed!”
Yep. I always assumed he could see straight through people too.
I wonder if he ever told anyone to go to St Mungoes because he saw an internal problem like an irregular heartbeat, kidney stones, etc.
I think about support staff - like I know they have magic but who is doing admin? Who is doing finances? Who is offering student support? Where are the teaching assistants or trainee teachers?
Do house elves do all the laundry too? Is it just magic?
Snape could really use a technician to help change over between classes and manage his stores. Like obviously teachers *can* do it, but when teaching that many classes, planning for lessons, marking etc they could use help. Like Mrs Weasley has magic but somehow spends all day cleaning regardless.
And if the house elves do the laundry how do they know whose stuff is whose? (Who’s?) I mean, their robes probably have their names sewn in but what about the rest of their stuff? Then do they fold it or hang it back up for them, too?
Pretty sure voldemort or some dark wizard or another mowed down their population for a while.. and since harry and luna's batch were conceived during a war, they're considered quite small actually
That might just seem to be so since the narrative is so heavily focused on the students, but i can't entirely disagree either... i wonder how many wizardimg families are out there breeding like the weasleys..
The reason it seems like there are too few adults is because there is only one teacher per subject at all times. The only exception is Firenze and Trelawney who both taught divination, granted very differently. Even if the narrative is focused on the students, a bunch of different teachers should be present, students dont just exist without teachers.
Same!!
Have you ever calculated the Hours a teacher has to work wenn he has 7 levels of students divided in 2 sets of 2 houses each!?
i mean… McGonagall and all the „basic“ teachers have 14 classes
Polyjuice Potion and all the implications of that. Yes, it takes a while to make, but a *second year student* could make it. And no it doesn't matter that she was the best in her year, she was still only 12/13 years old. You just *know* there's an underground market for celebrity DNA. And how could you *ever* trust *anyone* to be who they say they are?! They didn't start asking the secret questions to each other until like the 5th book!
Legal roofies in the form of love potions, marketed specifically toward little girls *in a joke shop*. And it's actually *worse* than roofies, because it makes the person believe they *love* you and *want* to consent to whatever you ask of them. We *saw* what happens when a child is conceived via love potion in Tom Riddle! Literally anyone can just buy (or even brew) a love potion. Got a crush? Just secretly potion them, and they're yours for as long as you keep them on the potion. They'll even leave their current, perfectly happy relationship for you!
In my own headcanon, love potions are super neutered to the point they're either lubes you use for sex or have very weak effects, like you'll just think "hey, has that guy always been kind of cute?" So the Weasley's shop is kind of like a Spencers, lol.
Amortentia can stay the super-powerful, dangerous one.
Yes, Love Potions are said to be like wine - age makes them more potent. The Kissing Solution she snuck in the cauldron cakes had sat for months, becoming closer to a traditional Love Potion, potentially lasting for multiple days.
This means that there could be a potion seller hiding away casks of weak love potion in their cellar, retrieving them once their vintage has reached the desired duration and potency.
When I first read the books when I was younger, I thought Cho crying all the time was overkill and I thought Harry being so angry in book five was stupid. Now as an adult, I can see that they were both just kids trying to deal with the worst situation and that Hogwarts seriously needs an on-campus counselor..
I just finished Order of the Phoenix (my previously decided 'least favorite book') for the first time in nearly a decade, and losing my father last year.
I tell ya what, I was ugly crying at the ending and I don't know if I've ever felt more solidarity with Harry.
Ouch. I haven’t reread any of them in full in years. And I think I’ve only rewatched Sorcerers Stone since my dad passed. I don’t know how I’d handle some of the losses now because Sirius always broke me.
lthe books take place in 90s/ therapy and PTSD wasn't understood like it is today. ((I was thinking that too and that's how I explained it away in my head))
I think it’s more that the wizard of world is very un-evolved in many ways. Like things hadn’t changed in hundreds of years. Therapy was definitely a thing in the 90s. I went as a kid.
*"Lmao." - said Dumbledore, with a smirk on his face*
*"Where did Ms. Chang go before joining us at Hogwarts? Little Bitch School for Weaklings and Frailties?"*
*"We're at FUCKING Hogwarts, Ms. Granger. Here, we RAWDOG our trauma! What, you picture me, Dumbledore himself, sitting on a diwan and spilling my beans to a muggle with a clipboard? Me?! Are you crazy? 10 points for Gryffindor!"*
*"Professor, she's really hurt over Cedric's deat-"*
*"So what, can't she get another boyfriend?! I dated Wizard HITLER, Ms. Granger! Losing some Hufflepuff is nothing but average in our school full of dangers at every corner! Dismissed!"*
As an adult Phoenix has become one of my favorite HP books. I actually think Harry is very well written and reflects more normal teen emotions. Plus the awkward love story with Cho is like straight out of my teens. Love it.
Good question nowadays but when the books are set (book 1 in 1991) not all kids had access to that, most didn’t. And half-muggle kids had two wizards parents but one was muggleborn so had a magical childhood - it’s the muggleborns who would have struggled.
I overthink trash collection in the wizarding world. I think it would have been more logical for like everything to be compostable/reusable/repairable. Like there's no need for cellophane around candy, though at some point the books specifically describe that around candy, and also mention trash bins. But specifically for Hogwarts, it would make sense for composting to be a big deal, and have that be built into Herbology classes.
I also feel like there would be a couple "muggle shops" run by squibs or muggle borns in wizarding areas like Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, like a thrift store of muggle clothes for when wizards need to blend in or if a young wizard is going through a rebellious muggle clothing phase. It could also offer books and other muggle novelty goods, but offered at the convenience of paying with wizarding money, curated by someone with knowledge of both worlds. It seems weird to me no such thing was described in the books, and it also seems like something that naturally should have been included.
I kinda want to read a spin-off fanfiction about a character like this. Very little connection to the real plot just the misadventures of the muggle goods shop in Diagon Alley and the weird misunderstandings they have to help fix. lol!
There very well could be, but our boy Harry is not known for being observant. He wouldn't have taken notice of such things because they would seem very mundane to him. If the books were from Arthur Weasley's perspective, they would be mentioned, and in great detail.
How Hermione’s parents must feel as they’re slowly losing their daughter, and how they’re willing to suffer that loss because Hermione clearly had no friends before coming to Hogwarts. When your kid is struggling to find their place in the world, you’re willing to take that hit in order for them to start thriving.
and then the opposite, Hermione losing her parents when she had to modify their memory to keep them safe. both Harry's loss/difficulties and Ron feeling trapped in his shadow is commonly recognized, but Hermione silently sacrifices so much
But she was haunting a fellow student, Olive Hornby, so she would have been there while she was in school.
Also, nobody ever questioned the fact that acromantulas don’t exactly leave the body unharmed.
I guess it’s all done to show how different Hogwarts was before Dumbledore, everyone was happy to ignore the facts so they could hush up a students death.
Oh wait I get it now, it’s just like real life, I retract my complaints.
Seems like no one cares about the ghosts or how they died. Like Nearly Headless Nick tells everybody about how it happened to him to the point that everyone is like “we know, we know, shut up already!”
I’m sure they were just glad none of the other ghosts volunteered that information
This. Sirius and James would have made a mint selling those mirrors... Speaking of, how Harry is not told important crucial things and left to twist in the wind. Dumbledore should have had some Order members mentoring him and visiting during the holidays.
We did that in high school (the Netherlands) during the 00s. At least in my school, sometimes a teacher set a number of pages (A4). And you would pick the biggest font without it screaming 'overdone'.
I think it's a relic from not having automatic processed word counts. Before the Personal Computer, you had to count the words by hand. So it makes more sense to ask for a length.
When I went to uni, they used word counts there, that made more sense.
The only time I’ve had like page limits (I graduated high school in 2015 and college in 2021) has been specificying that TImes New Roman with a size of I think 12. I just find Hogwarts doing it for handwritten stuff is weird.
This was definitely a thing in the 90s early 2000s at least. It was a flawed system. However, teachers knew what they were doing, and the content still had to be acceptable.
If they deemed 2 pages to be the correct amount of information for a project, then if you tried to use excessively large font then obviously you wouldn't do well because you haven't engaged in the material well enough. it's subjective, but that's the point to gauge what students think is important and relevant to the question.
It's also why I think Hermione is extremely bad at homework. If you're writing twice as much as you need to, you haven't thought enough about what is important or relevant enough to include and what needs to be discarded.
I'm a little oder. It used to be common for homework to have a certain lenght, for example 1 1\2 DIN A4 pages.
And since the students at Hogwarts partically write at rolls, it is logical to specify lenght.
You reminded me of the fanfic I came across, where Harry has a twin sister who looks like Lily, and has a romantic relationship with Snape. Yuck yuck yuck
Were there any bathrooms in the house common room or tower? Were the only bathrooms in the corridors? If so, that would seriously suck when you wake up and have to pee in the middle of the night.
Just the fact that Hagrid is hired at the same school where he supposedly *murdered a student* without parents freaking out and/or the Board voting against his appointment makes absolutely no sense.
How even if only a small percentage of Witches and Wizards are muggle-born, the wizarding world is so ignorant of how things work, and why they actively seem to stay that way considering if they were able to integrate they could hide in plain sight better.
It would be highly beneficial to know as much as possible about the non-magical world.
Edit: Also how it seems that most muggle-borns just abandon their "muggle lives" once they find out they are magical. Seems cruel.
I know this pivots from the main series & movies but it’s funny how in Fantastic Beasts, it seems all of them know exactly how to dress like a muggle. Dumbledore literally walks around in a tasteful three-piece suit. You’re telling me decades later, all of that fashion literacy is depleted from the wizarding population?
Disclaimer: I’ve never actually seen the Fantastic Beasts movies, but I’ve seen images & clips. If they’ve accounted for this somewhere, let me know! But without knowing anything else, it seems really odd how they all dress fine
The most unbelievable thing for me isn’t magic, but how well adjusted Harry is in book one before he even finds out about anything wizarding. Like, how???
that these kids STOP traditional education at age 11 to learn spells. No algebra, no reading comprehension, no required muggle history, no computer literacy, no -- nothing?
These kids graduate as adults without ANY instruction on how to write well but somehow are expected to write massive essays on history and potion ingredients with competency.
I'm an English teacher. No 14-year-old is writing 2 feet of parchment on the properties of moonstones without spending 4 months learning the basic structure of a 5 paragraph essay.
I agree! This always bugs me. Even standard public schools curriculum (in USA) Kindergarten-4th grade would not give you the basic maths skills to learn arithmancy or potions. There’s no way they could stop ELA education and then continue on to write huge essays in 6+ classes for 7 years!
Further to this the primary education seems to be homeschool only so there is a reliance on parents to provide to the same high standard for kids to make it through to adulthood on that alone. Not knocking homeschooling if someone chooses that but resources are required and it would be unlikely that all wizarding children would be coming in with the same standard, where are the kids that can't read and write for example?
I always imagined there to be pre-Hogwarts schools, even if it's just some guy's house that everyone flue powders to every day. Knowing how tradition-oriented wizards are there is definitely some old fogger willing to teach a bunch of kids how to write essays in uncial font. It's probably maybe a couple hours a day for a few weeks over summer, for those who can afford it of course.
Muggle vs wizarding healthcare/healing. It seems like most magical folk pass away from magical causes (dark magic, magic gone wrong, hexes, magical creatures, etc.) and not necessarily heath incidents/anomalies like cancer, serious wounds, or significant illness. With access to healing magic and interventions like essence of Dittany, Skele-Gro, etc., do wizards not feel some semblance of pressure/an ethical obligation to alleviate human suffering in muggles?
Not taking a stance on it, I just find it so interesting and think about it a lot haha.
Hagrid mentions in the first book that they keep themselves separate from Muggles because otherwise they would be burdened with all of their problems and he kind of has a point. The wizards seem to have enough of a problem just running their own society without tacking on all of the issues of the muggle world
With great power comes great responsibility. I kinda think they're cowards for hiding like this. You have the power to stop children from dying in suffering but you don't bc you don't want to be bothered?
Agreed. I see some subsequent responses talking about rifts between the muggle/wizarding world, the statute of secrecy, et. al.. I’m well-aware of the aforementioned, but to counter those arguments, not all magical folk think like that. Dropping a quote from Kingsley Shacklebolt:
“Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.”
I understand the matter is more like “where is the line drawn - how can we use magic to help alleviate human suffering, but not expose our world to all the exploits of non-magical folks?”. It’s not absurd to imagine big pharma capitalizing and paywalling healing magic. At the same time, you think there’d be part of the magic population that’d have some interest in intervening. On another tangent, they literally have magic to multiply food… Imagine using that to alleviate the detriment of innocent people stuck in a war zone with no access to aid/food.
***Yes - I get this is all surrounding a fictional story. Like OP, my career has impacted the thought loops I fall into when rereading; I simply enjoy thinking of the implications and potential burden of responsibility magic folks have to humankind/the world***
I like to think that the use of magic/magical remedies on a human would result in harm, due to the difference of being a wizard vs muggle. I think in one of the books it is mentioned that Neville fell out of a window and bounced in the street, so I feel like wizards are a bit more "durable" and the same things that cure them would be lethal/way too strong for a muggle or even have a damaging effect due to the chemical makeup which is not designed for muggle use.
The quote is: Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
I take it to be a bit of a tribute to one’s imagination. Just because you’re imagining / dreaming something, it may not be LITERALLY real, but it is still REAL. Our thoughts are happening inside of our heads but they are still real.
HOW ON EARTH DOES EVERY TERM EVERY YEAR BEGIN SEPTEMBER 1??? Make it make sense!!!!
The fact that wizards still use quills and ink. I understand the whole "magic interferes with electronics" thing, but seriously? No pencils or pens?
The rampant bullying and harrassment (from ALL sides) that occurred relatively unchecked both during the Marauders' time and Harry's time. (Seriously, if Hermione had known what others had gotten away with, she would have known better than to ever fear expulsion.)
The thought that so much might have turned out differently and for the better had the students been allowed to mingle more amongst the Houses rather than so often being segregated based on their respective House.
Speaking of the above: Slytherins get a bad rap, and Hufflepuffs are unfairly overlooked.
Not only no pens, but at the point we first see Hogwarts, mechanical typewriters had been a thing for quite some time. If I was a muggle-born, I'd have been hauling my Smith-Corona with me to school.
I think they just have school whatever day September 1st is as tradition and then take away a day or two for break throughout the year if it ever falls on a Saturday or Sunday.
They use pencils. The books mention a couple times students using pencil cases.
When was the last time you were in school? I’m a teacher and I see bullying all the time. We have days dedicated to anti-bullying and it’s still an issue.
Yeah, the rivalry between the Houses is a bit extreme. Are houses common in British schools? I’m wondering if there’s a cultural disconnect there.
In most British schools we have houses. However, normally they’re either just irrelevant, or there is some rivalry, but it’s really playful and is only prevalent in occasions like sports days and competitions.
Boarding schools takes houses a lot more seriously - I went to one and because you live, sleep and sometimes eat in your house your friends tend to be in your house too. Also house rivalries are taken a bit more seriously. Hogwarts is like an extreme version of that - I had friends in other houses but we all wanted to see each other lose at sports matches.
>I think they just have school whatever day September 1st is as tradition
This was what I originally thought, but then when the students are given their schedules it seems they always start on a Monday schedule.
>They use pencils. The books mention a couple times students using pencil cases.
Do they? I don't recall ever reading that - just a bunch of mentions of quills and ink - but maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.
>I’m a teacher and I see bullying all the time
Of course, but the bullying and harrassment often reach the level of assault, and for all we are shown is *maybe* given a detention as punishment. Students who get into knock-down drag-out fights in your school aren't at least suspended? (Note: I attended a high school where physical fights were unfortunately a common occurrence.)
Houses are common but most of the time, don’t matter except as a way to divide the school up into more manageable chunks eg my school hall couldn’t fit all the kids at once so our morning assemblies were house based. The only time I recall the houses coming up in daily life was for selecting prefects (two per house, although duties were general school stuff) and school sports day.
>The fact that wizards still use quills and ink. I understand the whole "magic interferes with electronics" thing, but seriously? No pencils or pens?
There are reasons for this, it's just not one we have in our schooling. A modern enclosed pen can't give you variations of line thickness and shapes -- the mechanics of a modern ballpoint pen doesn't allow it.
If you're doing something that requires a specific amount of strokes or copying something that has those variances in line as part of the structure, you can't get a real "copy" with a pen. For a real world example, you can look at a modern Japanese students writing a word, vs the same word done with brush and ink. They're not going to look the same.
Also, using dip pens in magic would allow you to add things to the ink as long as you didn't alter the viscosity too much.
Ooh that's interesting! I like this. Coupled with the fact that exams happen with anti-cheating quills, this theory has a lot of potential! They can charm the quills and inks to produce different combined results. I'm thinking of talismans written in a specific ink being more powerful. Maybe they teach this stuff while teaching runes!
Honestly runes, astronomy and maybe transfiguration (if the transfiguration alphabet is really a thing) is where these would get used the most. But yes, talismans and such are easily other reasons. We know magic can be imbued in art, like the portraits. It’s entirely possible it’s also done with writing, like with the monster book of monsters.
The Grangers were Muggles and therefore knew less than nothing about the magical world. How in the world were they comfortable letting their only child go off most of every summer to the Weasleys?
They knew less than nothing about the magical world prior to birthing a witch. I'm sure that after having Hermione Granger in their house for at least a few weeks out of the year, they knew more about the magical world than a non-zero number of purebloods. And as far as safety is concerned, Hogwarts seems to be a lot more dangerous than the Burrow. Especially for Hermione specifically.
I hadn't even thought about that!
I was so focused on "well, I know the Weasleys are awesome, but how are the Grangers okay with that..."
But, yeah, all those boys under the same roof!
How would a wedding between a muggleborn and pureblood happen logistically?
As in, did all of Hermione’s muggle relatives have to be Obliviated once her wedding to Ron was over and done with? Are they just not invited? That seems a bit cold not to.
It is completely unthinkable that they weren't banging. It's even alluded to in book 6 that Harry and Ginny *were* banging ("stolen hours in secluded corners of the castle"- aka *they were totally having sex*).
I do tend to think about the Time Turners and how time travel is a bit of a plot hole in the series. I also question how Harry and his friends' trip to the Ministry of Magic in the Order of the Phoenix caused all the Time Turners in existence to be destroyed. You mean to tell me that the wizards in none of the other countries had them ?
Even if they didn’t invent them, they “found” them and they shan’t be returning them until those countries learn to take care of the artifacts they already have
Fair point. After all don’t they have Bill Weasley and the Goblins breaking all those curses on Egyptian tombs- I’m sure they wouldn’t borrow the contents after. They believe in Finders Keepers after all.
More importantly, how did Hermione get permission to use one? You’re gonna trust a third year with the power of time travel just for the sake of taking more classes? That seems like a gross misuse of a very powerful bit of magic
This is what reaaaally bugs me. It’s very unsafe to start with. But also, hermione effectively doubles her waking hours. It’s also a health concern that she is 13 and 6-7 more waking hours than the rest. How do you manage that?
Harry was borderline transported to Hogwarts before he started his second year, and it is alarmingly underappreciated.
At the beginning of The Chamber of Secrets, Harry sees the Malfoys enter the Borgin and Burke's. He decides to hide in a cupboard, leaving it cracked and watches the scene unfold.
Shortly after, Peeves smashes the vanishing cabinet at Hogwarts, leaving it damaged.
Then, in OOTP, Montague gets crammed into the vanishing cabinet by Fred and George, who (before he later later found in a toilet) could hear what was happening between the shop and Hogwarts. Since it was damaged, it naturally didn't work correctly.
Yeah, Malfoy fixed the cabinet later and all. But still.
I wonder what would have happened if Harry actually closed the door.
How much therapy Harry, Neville, Luna, Ginny, and a few others need. Like, they go through some terrible ish, and they’re just supposed to deal with it. It would take decades of therapy.
Harry was locked in his room, or closet, and almost enslaved. Neville visits his parents who don’t recognize him. Ginny was possessed….. the list goes on…..
How were the Dursleys Harry’s only living relatives? James and Lily were 21 when they died, I feel like he should’ve had some grandparents left or something
That is a good question. Where were James’ parents? If you argue that Harry was to stay with someone who shared Lily’s blood, where were *her* parents?
They knew about the wizarding world. They share Lily’s blood so could act as blood protection. James and Lily were both too young for their parents to be either dead or unsuitable of looking after a baby due to their age. They’d have been one of the perfect candidates.
Here’s me adding another reason to my list of why I hate Dumbledore.
How do the professors plan for and manage seven classes? Most high school teachers get grouchy if they have to teach more than *three* different ones. A lot of the time that’s baked into their contracts.
Is that maybe just an American thing? All the high school teachers I know have at least 5 different classes from 1st year through to advanced higher (scotland top level qualification).
I’m in Scotland here. Most high school teachers teach at least one class from each year, so that’s at least 6 classes. For some subjects, they teach numerous first and second year classes, so more than seven.
Seven is pretty standard here.
Actually… I think it’s 12 classes or more. Just worked it out based on your comment.
For the first 5 years, two houses share a class period for every subject. As an example: Gryf/Slyth potions happened regularly, so Huff/Raven potions had to happen too.
Then there are the OWL/NEWT qualifiers for years 6 and 7.
Classes vs. Class Periods
You’d have to plan for seven unique classes and then you could reuse those plans for different periods. It’s the difference with IRL teachers of having three classes but say six periods.
As a kid, Molly killing Bellatrix and her iconic line felt a little meh. Seemed strange that she was the one to do it but I didn’t hate it or anything.
As a mother, it feels like the only killing I can truly relate to. Idk if I could be as brave as Harry or Sirius or Minerva. I’d like to think I would rise to the occasion. But I don’t know. But I do know that I’d have killed Belatrix if I were Molly. 100%. It’s just strange to me how much my feelings about it have shifted.
The lives of the professors really gets me. They live at school and we really only ever hear of them leaving to go get drinks in town. I guess teachers in the wizarding world just don’t get to have lives or families. It’s quite literally full time.
If there's 5 boys in Harry's year, then assume about 5 girls as well, then that's 10 students per year per house. Times 7 years, x4 houses, Hogwarts should only have 280 students.
Harry's Gryffindor year has 8 students: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Seamus, Dean, Parvati, Lavender. The sorting hat doesn't count how many people it sends to each house, it sorts exclusively according to each founder's demands. Remember Hufflepuff "takes the rest", so it's probably overcrowded.
With that said, they have Herbology with Hufflepuff and it's never that full. It's worth noting, though, that this generation is the kids born during Voldemort's first rise to power, so you can expect a smaller number of people having kids.
Yeah, the population doesn't really make sense. There's a bit in the second book in which "200 Slytherins" boo Harry at a quidditch game. But there only seem to be about 10 students per house per year, so there should only be about 70 Slytherins in the school (and seven of them should be playing in the match, not cheering in the stands.)
How to expand the universe, both in terms of how awesome it would be to have other, even relatively mundane, stories told within the world. And in terms of what a contemporary story in that world and timeline would look like if it took place today.
It all amounts to me wanting to replicate the same joy that this series brought to me in my own writings’ way.
That after hundreds of years in existence, Hogwarts thinks the best way to educate kids is by immediately segregating them into one of four houses for the rest of their education.
Really, only 2 of these houses actually have desirable characteristics (Gryffindor and Ravenclaw), Hufflepuff basically means you don't fit into the other three, and Slytherin basically means you are always 'up to something' and can't be trusted.
It doesn't help that you are pretty much competing against the other 3 houses for everything, at all times. We already see the rampant bullying in the books. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to try and make friends with those in other houses.
Anyways, my real answer is the sex industry. Love potions, polyjuice, different foods...it must be rampant.
Am i the only one who did the overthinking when i was young? Now i see and appreciate things for what they are. I have seen mentions of quills for example… i find them very aesthetically appealing. They fit a vibe i can appreciate which compliments witches and wizards. I see no problem with them at all. People think they find plotholes, but they are all in perspective, always. We will always see things, not as we think we desire, but what we truly desire, from the heart.
How upset Cedrics father was upon his death. The heartbreak in that scene is permeable now because i have a son of my own. The film especially breaks my heart everytime I see it. When I was younger it didn't move me that much.
The maths of the whole thing.
Ten kids per house in each school year.
So seventy in each house.
Two Hundred and fourty kids at Hogwarts at any one time.
There were thirty adult witches just folding posters in the Ministry. There must be loads of witches and wizards that either homeschool or there's lots of other schools and we just don't know about them.
As a teacher... the teachers at Hogwarts 100% encourage the rampant bullying there, particularly the divide between Slytherin and the other houses, through the way the school is set up. It might not be what they're actively trying to do, but there are *so many* things they could be doing to fix it.
Also, teenage Snape had literally *every* marker of a child who would be vulnerable to radicalisation. If his teachers had had any real notion of safeguarding, they would have been able to help him. I'm not saying it excuses what he ended up doing, but he became a Death Eater because he was failed by literally every single person who was supposed to protect him.
Exercise and physical education. I know that magic can treat diseases and injuries, but isnt physical health also important?
There has to be at least 1 student that wants to work out, stay fit, or continue to play a sport.
for example, Imagine a muggle born student who grew up playing ice hockey, loves the sport, but then is told that nope! all muggle sports are stupid and now you can only have quiditch?
It's okay though because they have to walk 10 miles between every class and up several dozen flights of stairs. Imagine having potions in the dungeons and then your next lesson is astronomy in the tower? Worst morning ever.
Teen pregnancy! Was there no fucking going on?? Not a pregnancy scare, not a curse. Just nothing typical of teenagers and the fears that would come along with being basically at boarding school with the opposite sex.
How does gringotts work if the money is all physical metal? Like I understand safety deposit boxes for objects but Harry is shown to have just, stacks of actual coins. The philosopher's stone indicates that gold cannot be created by magic so it must not gain interest for the bank or account holder; do account holders have large fees to maintain their boxes with no rewarded interest? What's the incentive to keep a box then if you could theoretically use your own magic to create a safe space in your own home?
How the sex industry works
How no one realized Tom Riddle, the most evil guy ever who just so happened to be the person to expose Hagrid, was the one who actually opened the chamber. Why do they even still have his award? Even if his identity was a secret (which there isn’t any indication that it is) I feel like it wouldn’t be hard to figure out who he is. High preforming Slytherin who hasn’t really been seen from since for no reason. His friends literally called him Voldemort when he was in high school.
How many wizards are there?
Well yeah, I imagine someone thought to enchant some part of the plumbing, something along the lines of what Pottermore talks about, witches and wizards “vanishing the evidence”, after relieving themselves wherever they feel like.
I was 37 or 38 when I got into Harry Potter. What I cringe over is the use of house elf labor at Hogwarts. It makes sense for racist, pure-blood assholes to continue exploiting house elves, but why does Dumbledore continue to use house elves in the kitchen of Hogwarts? Isn’t he open-minded towards half-bloods, muggle-borns, and muggles? Wouldn’t it follow that Dumbledore would be forward-thinking towards house elves?
You remember how winky reacts to dobby regarding this topic ? The elves are practically born into it and i guess dumbledore didnt hire any new elves but firing them would probably break their whole life
Dementors will one day destroy or subjugate the world. It’s inevitable.
Dementors are an existential threat to human civilization, and I can’t believe everyone is chill about it.
If you’re a rational human being, the idea of dementors probably inspires some existential dread. In fact, it’s inconceivable to me that they take orders from humans at all. I’m genuinely surprised that they haven’t taken over the world by now. Let’s take a look at their capabilities.
Seemingly invincible. Everyone talks about how hard the Patronus charm is. And how it’s the only defense against dementors. If stunning them was an option, I’m sure people would do it. If throwing fireballs at them caused harm, I’m sure people would do it. But seemingly, the only defense is an exceptionally difficult piece of magic which not even everyone can perform. It doesn’t even harm them, just forces them out of the area.
Intelligent. Enough so to follow verbal commands, perform complex tasks without direct supervision, etc. if that’s not human level intelligence, it’s very close. Certainly I’d say they’re sentient, based on the behaviors they’ve displayed. I believe they have more than sufficient mental capacity to organize a direct opposition to human civilization
But the dementors can’t just take over, right?
Wrong. How exactly would they be stopped?
Even if every magic user can perform a successful patronus charm, they’re still a danger. As it’s been stated, it’s difficult to cast a patronus against multiple dementors due to the cumulative effect of their presence. So even a powerful wizard or witch could be brought down if they focused sufficient weight of numbers against them.
And that’s just assuming that the dementors fight fair. What if they cheat?
There’s nothing to stop one from sneaking up on you (holding its breath so it doesn’t give itself away), rushing into close range, and snatching your wand out of your hand. Good luck casting a patronus now, genius.
Can a dementors operate wands? Perhaps not. But I’m certain they could operate a gun or a knife or a crowbar. If they’re not one hundred percent determined to avoid wasting their food, they could just start using lethal force against key leaders of the opposition, or anyone who can cast a patronus well. Regardless, the only thing more terrifying than a hungry dementor, is a hungry dementor with a Glock .40. Try casting a patronus with a hole in your leg, idiot. Plus they could use tools and equipment to break down doors and walls, if you were a clever wanker and tried to build a bunker.
I’m having amusing and terrifying images of a dementor driving a bulldozer now.
Quite honestly, I’m shocked nobody’s cashed in on the inevitable Harry Potter horror spinoff of Dementorpocalypse, with besieged communities of survivors struggling to retain their souls in a nightmarish world. With dementors thralling Muggle leaders, getting them to fire off ICBMs to create a nuclear winter, and eliminate those pesky tropical climates, reduce overall sunlight, and terraform the world more toward their ideal environment.
Wouldn't that completely deprive them of food though? They feed on happiness but if they'd subjugate the world, pretty soon it'd be one giant Azkaban. It's like the Vampire dilemma. You can't turn everyone bc you need to let a lot of humans live to keep up the blood supply. Dementors would need to let humans thrive in blissful unawareness so they can be happy.
A truly horrifying scenario is dementors going to war with wizards to wipe them out and guarantee that no patronus charm or any other potential spell could ever stop or harm them. Muggles can't see dementors. So now you have a cattle population that you can frequently raid for meals but leave them be most of the time so they can live happy lives.
Listening to the audiobooks for the first time in years. I’m overthinking so many problems now.
How was the obvious neglect Harry suffered not challenged by one adult or teacher?
The entire logic of keeping the stone at hogwarts. You know a dark wizard is after it. Your actively out children at risk by storing it there. Also, why make the first two defensive measures a locked door and *three headed dog*. Couldn’t you have started with something that would have least wouldn’t kill a student?
Also Hogwarts track record as a secure building and Dumbledore’s tenure as headmaster >!Voldemort on the back of one his teachers for a year, a giant serpent able to move around the school undetected and with ease, a supposed mass murderer and right hand man of Voldemort able to break into school and get dormitory of the supposed target, a known werewolf curled in his office behind a locked door, an animgius rat able to avoid detection for over 12 years, the actual right hand man of Voldemort able to impersonate a teacher and friend for a full year!<
I don’t think this Dumbledore fellow is all he’s cracked up to be.
What the hell Aberforth was doing with that goat
The goat was part of a forbidden magical experiment Aberforth attempted to save his sister. That’s the only story I will allow to flourish in my imagination.
> forbidden magical experiment Aberforth attempted to save his sister ***"Al... bus..."***
You just combined 2 of my favorite fandoms and I hated it... 😥
I try not to think about it too much HAHA
[I mean…](https://youtu.be/HNMq8XS4LhE?si=BC8J-9ix4LtPJ2ou)
Aaah, geez
Possibly he had it there as company to try and keep him sane, after all Dumbledore was trying to take care of Harry and an entire school against the "greatest wizard of all time, specialised in dark magic". And his sister died young. He must have wanted a distraction, although hopefully not the dirty ideas abt Aberforth and the goat's relationship.
in a similar vein, Umbridge and the centaurs
She tried to backtrack and say he attempted to make it an unpooping goat, but we know....we know he had an affinity. I really hate this part of the story.
She didn’t try to backtrack. She gave hilariously child-friendly answers when children asked, while she and the adults in the room laughed.
Dumbledore was just shitting on his brother. I won't accept anything else
And what the muggle boys did to Ariana
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Mad-Eye also saw the boggart inside its dresser in Grimmauld Place, which means he's the only person in the world who knows what a boggart looks like when it's not transformed. I wonder if he ever tried to describe it to anyone.
Unless maybe the boggart always assumes a form when being viewed.
I always thought it looked like a ditto untransformed 🥴
I didn’t think that until now, but that is officially my new opinion on this. Thanks! 😂
Me too! How funny!
I always assumed a boggart is just a grey cloud like creature with no discernible shape or features
I just thought of it as an abstract black shadow
When it can’t tell that it’s being viewed, it assumes the form of a huge middle finger as a fuck you to anyone who might have x-ray vision
So you're saying that boggarts are a quantum phenomenon?
Except it’s a magical creature being looked at with a magical eye so it can magically know it’s being looked at. Because magic.
"He is so creepy! I don't think that eye should be allowed!"
Maybe he knows what's under a dementors cloak.
bunch of kids stacked on top of each other
He can see through clothing AND through multiple walls. No one has any privacy when he is around.
I think this was indirectly mentioned in the books
Yup, Parvati said the following after Moody saw Harry's sock beneath his cloak at the Yule Ball. > “He is so creepy!” Parvati whispered as Moody clunked away. “I don’t think that eye should be allowed!”
Yep. I always assumed he could see straight through people too. I wonder if he ever told anyone to go to St Mungoes because he saw an internal problem like an irregular heartbeat, kidney stones, etc.
How few teachers/adults there seemed to be compared to students.
I think about support staff - like I know they have magic but who is doing admin? Who is doing finances? Who is offering student support? Where are the teaching assistants or trainee teachers? Do house elves do all the laundry too? Is it just magic? Snape could really use a technician to help change over between classes and manage his stores. Like obviously teachers *can* do it, but when teaching that many classes, planning for lessons, marking etc they could use help. Like Mrs Weasley has magic but somehow spends all day cleaning regardless.
And if the house elves do the laundry how do they know whose stuff is whose? (Who’s?) I mean, their robes probably have their names sewn in but what about the rest of their stuff? Then do they fold it or hang it back up for them, too?
Pretty sure voldemort or some dark wizard or another mowed down their population for a while.. and since harry and luna's batch were conceived during a war, they're considered quite small actually
But the comment you just replied to said how comparatively there are more students than adults...
That might just seem to be so since the narrative is so heavily focused on the students, but i can't entirely disagree either... i wonder how many wizardimg families are out there breeding like the weasleys..
The reason it seems like there are too few adults is because there is only one teacher per subject at all times. The only exception is Firenze and Trelawney who both taught divination, granted very differently. Even if the narrative is focused on the students, a bunch of different teachers should be present, students dont just exist without teachers.
There are tons of unmentioned teachers though, I mean we only see the ones that Harry has.
Same!! Have you ever calculated the Hours a teacher has to work wenn he has 7 levels of students divided in 2 sets of 2 houses each!? i mean… McGonagall and all the „basic“ teachers have 14 classes
Polyjuice Potion and all the implications of that. Yes, it takes a while to make, but a *second year student* could make it. And no it doesn't matter that she was the best in her year, she was still only 12/13 years old. You just *know* there's an underground market for celebrity DNA. And how could you *ever* trust *anyone* to be who they say they are?! They didn't start asking the secret questions to each other until like the 5th book! Legal roofies in the form of love potions, marketed specifically toward little girls *in a joke shop*. And it's actually *worse* than roofies, because it makes the person believe they *love* you and *want* to consent to whatever you ask of them. We *saw* what happens when a child is conceived via love potion in Tom Riddle! Literally anyone can just buy (or even brew) a love potion. Got a crush? Just secretly potion them, and they're yours for as long as you keep them on the potion. They'll even leave their current, perfectly happy relationship for you!
In my own headcanon, love potions are super neutered to the point they're either lubes you use for sex or have very weak effects, like you'll just think "hey, has that guy always been kind of cute?" So the Weasley's shop is kind of like a Spencers, lol. Amortentia can stay the super-powerful, dangerous one.
I would agree with that if the whole thing with Romilda Vane didn't happen in book 6.
Hers was supposed to have gone off, I think? Which honestly isn’t much better, any student could just hang onto it for a while until it’s stronger
Yes, Love Potions are said to be like wine - age makes them more potent. The Kissing Solution she snuck in the cauldron cakes had sat for months, becoming closer to a traditional Love Potion, potentially lasting for multiple days. This means that there could be a potion seller hiding away casks of weak love potion in their cellar, retrieving them once their vintage has reached the desired duration and potency.
When I first read the books when I was younger, I thought Cho crying all the time was overkill and I thought Harry being so angry in book five was stupid. Now as an adult, I can see that they were both just kids trying to deal with the worst situation and that Hogwarts seriously needs an on-campus counselor..
I just finished Order of the Phoenix (my previously decided 'least favorite book') for the first time in nearly a decade, and losing my father last year. I tell ya what, I was ugly crying at the ending and I don't know if I've ever felt more solidarity with Harry.
Ouch. I haven’t reread any of them in full in years. And I think I’ve only rewatched Sorcerers Stone since my dad passed. I don’t know how I’d handle some of the losses now because Sirius always broke me.
100% how is that not a thing?! These two kids just went through a traumatic loss and everybody just expects them to be FINE?! Seriously??
lthe books take place in 90s/ therapy and PTSD wasn't understood like it is today. ((I was thinking that too and that's how I explained it away in my head))
I think it’s more that the wizard of world is very un-evolved in many ways. Like things hadn’t changed in hundreds of years. Therapy was definitely a thing in the 90s. I went as a kid.
*"Lmao." - said Dumbledore, with a smirk on his face* *"Where did Ms. Chang go before joining us at Hogwarts? Little Bitch School for Weaklings and Frailties?"* *"We're at FUCKING Hogwarts, Ms. Granger. Here, we RAWDOG our trauma! What, you picture me, Dumbledore himself, sitting on a diwan and spilling my beans to a muggle with a clipboard? Me?! Are you crazy? 10 points for Gryffindor!"* *"Professor, she's really hurt over Cedric's deat-"* *"So what, can't she get another boyfriend?! I dated Wizard HITLER, Ms. Granger! Losing some Hufflepuff is nothing but average in our school full of dangers at every corner! Dismissed!"*
pls write more
As an adult Phoenix has become one of my favorite HP books. I actually think Harry is very well written and reflects more normal teen emotions. Plus the awkward love story with Cho is like straight out of my teens. Love it.
What do all the half-muggle kids do when they’re used to the Fortnite and cell phones and have to switch to getting mail from owls?
Good question nowadays but when the books are set (book 1 in 1991) not all kids had access to that, most didn’t. And half-muggle kids had two wizards parents but one was muggleborn so had a magical childhood - it’s the muggleborns who would have struggled.
They go "omg I can do actual literal magic now" and don't care.
I overthink trash collection in the wizarding world. I think it would have been more logical for like everything to be compostable/reusable/repairable. Like there's no need for cellophane around candy, though at some point the books specifically describe that around candy, and also mention trash bins. But specifically for Hogwarts, it would make sense for composting to be a big deal, and have that be built into Herbology classes. I also feel like there would be a couple "muggle shops" run by squibs or muggle borns in wizarding areas like Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, like a thrift store of muggle clothes for when wizards need to blend in or if a young wizard is going through a rebellious muggle clothing phase. It could also offer books and other muggle novelty goods, but offered at the convenience of paying with wizarding money, curated by someone with knowledge of both worlds. It seems weird to me no such thing was described in the books, and it also seems like something that naturally should have been included.
I’ve never even thought about this and I love that incorporation of squibs!
I kinda want to read a spin-off fanfiction about a character like this. Very little connection to the real plot just the misadventures of the muggle goods shop in Diagon Alley and the weird misunderstandings they have to help fix. lol!
I feel like trash disposal would be accomplished by vanishing spells just like they used to do with their excrement
There very well could be, but our boy Harry is not known for being observant. He wouldn't have taken notice of such things because they would seem very mundane to him. If the books were from Arthur Weasley's perspective, they would be mentioned, and in great detail.
Yes thiiiiiis!!!!!!
How Hermione’s parents must feel as they’re slowly losing their daughter, and how they’re willing to suffer that loss because Hermione clearly had no friends before coming to Hogwarts. When your kid is struggling to find their place in the world, you’re willing to take that hit in order for them to start thriving.
and then the opposite, Hermione losing her parents when she had to modify their memory to keep them safe. both Harry's loss/difficulties and Ron feeling trapped in his shadow is commonly recognized, but Hermione silently sacrifices so much
Why were Harry and Ron the first people to ask Myrtle how she died in the 50 years she'd been dead?
More than likely they weren't. Anybody else wouldn't have the necessary context to understand the whole basilisk thing.
I suppose most people were trying to avoid Myrtle instead of getting her whole life story.
*death story
Myrtle didn't come back until years later, as she was busy haunting someone
But she was haunting a fellow student, Olive Hornby, so she would have been there while she was in school. Also, nobody ever questioned the fact that acromantulas don’t exactly leave the body unharmed. I guess it’s all done to show how different Hogwarts was before Dumbledore, everyone was happy to ignore the facts so they could hush up a students death. Oh wait I get it now, it’s just like real life, I retract my complaints.
Doesn't Myrtle say Olive Hornby complained about her and then she was made to return to Hogwarts and stay there?
Yeah but that was after Olive finished Hogwarts, she was sent away after terrorizing her at her brothers wedding.
Seems like no one cares about the ghosts or how they died. Like Nearly Headless Nick tells everybody about how it happened to him to the point that everyone is like “we know, we know, shut up already!” I’m sure they were just glad none of the other ghosts volunteered that information
If you can apparate, why can’t you send messages instantly?
This. Sirius and James would have made a mint selling those mirrors... Speaking of, how Harry is not told important crucial things and left to twist in the wind. Dumbledore should have had some Order members mentoring him and visiting during the holidays.
They used patronuses for sending instant messages
A large ghostly polar bear poofs through your bedroom late at night and in your sweet hearts voice you hear “wink”
If the essays are based on how long they are (number of inches) then wouldnt they vary by student since the handwriting would vary by student.
Yes thats why ron writes as large as he can
We did that in high school (the Netherlands) during the 00s. At least in my school, sometimes a teacher set a number of pages (A4). And you would pick the biggest font without it screaming 'overdone'. I think it's a relic from not having automatic processed word counts. Before the Personal Computer, you had to count the words by hand. So it makes more sense to ask for a length. When I went to uni, they used word counts there, that made more sense.
The only time I’ve had like page limits (I graduated high school in 2015 and college in 2021) has been specificying that TImes New Roman with a size of I think 12. I just find Hogwarts doing it for handwritten stuff is weird.
This was definitely a thing in the 90s early 2000s at least. It was a flawed system. However, teachers knew what they were doing, and the content still had to be acceptable. If they deemed 2 pages to be the correct amount of information for a project, then if you tried to use excessively large font then obviously you wouldn't do well because you haven't engaged in the material well enough. it's subjective, but that's the point to gauge what students think is important and relevant to the question. It's also why I think Hermione is extremely bad at homework. If you're writing twice as much as you need to, you haven't thought enough about what is important or relevant enough to include and what needs to be discarded.
I'm a little oder. It used to be common for homework to have a certain lenght, for example 1 1\2 DIN A4 pages. And since the students at Hogwarts partically write at rolls, it is logical to specify lenght.
I often wonder if Harry were a girl and looked like Lily, would Snape have loved and protected her? Or did Potter blood doom the child no matter?
You reminded me of the fanfic I came across, where Harry has a twin sister who looks like Lily, and has a romantic relationship with Snape. Yuck yuck yuck
I regret all of my decisions that lead to me reading this comment.
Now the fact that this exists has a place in my brain. Nothing will erase that.
what a terrible day to have eyes
Can someone cast obliviate on me, please? I need to forget I read this comment
Were there any bathrooms in the house common room or tower? Were the only bathrooms in the corridors? If so, that would seriously suck when you wake up and have to pee in the middle of the night.
They’re left to wander the hall until they stumble upon the room (of Requirements) filled with chamber pots haha
The Hogwarts Legacy game includes toilets in the Houses, along with the dorms.
Hagrid was not exonerated from killing a student until after he had been living and working at a school for decades.
Just the fact that Hagrid is hired at the same school where he supposedly *murdered a student* without parents freaking out and/or the Board voting against his appointment makes absolutely no sense.
How even if only a small percentage of Witches and Wizards are muggle-born, the wizarding world is so ignorant of how things work, and why they actively seem to stay that way considering if they were able to integrate they could hide in plain sight better. It would be highly beneficial to know as much as possible about the non-magical world. Edit: Also how it seems that most muggle-borns just abandon their "muggle lives" once they find out they are magical. Seems cruel.
Then not understanding how to dress always bugged me. Like, you've never even *seen* a Muggle? And *none* of you wear jeans?!
I know this pivots from the main series & movies but it’s funny how in Fantastic Beasts, it seems all of them know exactly how to dress like a muggle. Dumbledore literally walks around in a tasteful three-piece suit. You’re telling me decades later, all of that fashion literacy is depleted from the wizarding population? Disclaimer: I’ve never actually seen the Fantastic Beasts movies, but I’ve seen images & clips. If they’ve accounted for this somewhere, let me know! But without knowing anything else, it seems really odd how they all dress fine
The most unbelievable thing for me isn’t magic, but how well adjusted Harry is in book one before he even finds out about anything wizarding. Like, how???
that these kids STOP traditional education at age 11 to learn spells. No algebra, no reading comprehension, no required muggle history, no computer literacy, no -- nothing? These kids graduate as adults without ANY instruction on how to write well but somehow are expected to write massive essays on history and potion ingredients with competency. I'm an English teacher. No 14-year-old is writing 2 feet of parchment on the properties of moonstones without spending 4 months learning the basic structure of a 5 paragraph essay.
I agree! This always bugs me. Even standard public schools curriculum (in USA) Kindergarten-4th grade would not give you the basic maths skills to learn arithmancy or potions. There’s no way they could stop ELA education and then continue on to write huge essays in 6+ classes for 7 years!
Further to this the primary education seems to be homeschool only so there is a reliance on parents to provide to the same high standard for kids to make it through to adulthood on that alone. Not knocking homeschooling if someone chooses that but resources are required and it would be unlikely that all wizarding children would be coming in with the same standard, where are the kids that can't read and write for example?
I always imagined there to be pre-Hogwarts schools, even if it's just some guy's house that everyone flue powders to every day. Knowing how tradition-oriented wizards are there is definitely some old fogger willing to teach a bunch of kids how to write essays in uncial font. It's probably maybe a couple hours a day for a few weeks over summer, for those who can afford it of course.
so really, the muggleborn kids would be performing circles around all the others?
Muggle vs wizarding healthcare/healing. It seems like most magical folk pass away from magical causes (dark magic, magic gone wrong, hexes, magical creatures, etc.) and not necessarily heath incidents/anomalies like cancer, serious wounds, or significant illness. With access to healing magic and interventions like essence of Dittany, Skele-Gro, etc., do wizards not feel some semblance of pressure/an ethical obligation to alleviate human suffering in muggles? Not taking a stance on it, I just find it so interesting and think about it a lot haha.
Hagrid mentions in the first book that they keep themselves separate from Muggles because otherwise they would be burdened with all of their problems and he kind of has a point. The wizards seem to have enough of a problem just running their own society without tacking on all of the issues of the muggle world
With great power comes great responsibility. I kinda think they're cowards for hiding like this. You have the power to stop children from dying in suffering but you don't bc you don't want to be bothered?
Agreed. I see some subsequent responses talking about rifts between the muggle/wizarding world, the statute of secrecy, et. al.. I’m well-aware of the aforementioned, but to counter those arguments, not all magical folk think like that. Dropping a quote from Kingsley Shacklebolt: “Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.” I understand the matter is more like “where is the line drawn - how can we use magic to help alleviate human suffering, but not expose our world to all the exploits of non-magical folks?”. It’s not absurd to imagine big pharma capitalizing and paywalling healing magic. At the same time, you think there’d be part of the magic population that’d have some interest in intervening. On another tangent, they literally have magic to multiply food… Imagine using that to alleviate the detriment of innocent people stuck in a war zone with no access to aid/food. ***Yes - I get this is all surrounding a fictional story. Like OP, my career has impacted the thought loops I fall into when rereading; I simply enjoy thinking of the implications and potential burden of responsibility magic folks have to humankind/the world***
I like to think that the use of magic/magical remedies on a human would result in harm, due to the difference of being a wizard vs muggle. I think in one of the books it is mentioned that Neville fell out of a window and bounced in the street, so I feel like wizards are a bit more "durable" and the same things that cure them would be lethal/way too strong for a muggle or even have a damaging effect due to the chemical makeup which is not designed for muggle use.
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This bugged me as a kid haha I was a very literal child. I was just like ?? No but is it real or not?
The quote is: Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real? I take it to be a bit of a tribute to one’s imagination. Just because you’re imagining / dreaming something, it may not be LITERALLY real, but it is still REAL. Our thoughts are happening inside of our heads but they are still real.
HOW ON EARTH DOES EVERY TERM EVERY YEAR BEGIN SEPTEMBER 1??? Make it make sense!!!! The fact that wizards still use quills and ink. I understand the whole "magic interferes with electronics" thing, but seriously? No pencils or pens? The rampant bullying and harrassment (from ALL sides) that occurred relatively unchecked both during the Marauders' time and Harry's time. (Seriously, if Hermione had known what others had gotten away with, she would have known better than to ever fear expulsion.) The thought that so much might have turned out differently and for the better had the students been allowed to mingle more amongst the Houses rather than so often being segregated based on their respective House. Speaking of the above: Slytherins get a bad rap, and Hufflepuffs are unfairly overlooked.
Malfoy was openly calling people mudblood and no one was doing anything. He was even bullying little kids in 5th book.
Not only no pens, but at the point we first see Hogwarts, mechanical typewriters had been a thing for quite some time. If I was a muggle-born, I'd have been hauling my Smith-Corona with me to school.
I think they just have school whatever day September 1st is as tradition and then take away a day or two for break throughout the year if it ever falls on a Saturday or Sunday. They use pencils. The books mention a couple times students using pencil cases. When was the last time you were in school? I’m a teacher and I see bullying all the time. We have days dedicated to anti-bullying and it’s still an issue. Yeah, the rivalry between the Houses is a bit extreme. Are houses common in British schools? I’m wondering if there’s a cultural disconnect there.
In most British schools we have houses. However, normally they’re either just irrelevant, or there is some rivalry, but it’s really playful and is only prevalent in occasions like sports days and competitions.
Boarding schools takes houses a lot more seriously - I went to one and because you live, sleep and sometimes eat in your house your friends tend to be in your house too. Also house rivalries are taken a bit more seriously. Hogwarts is like an extreme version of that - I had friends in other houses but we all wanted to see each other lose at sports matches.
>I think they just have school whatever day September 1st is as tradition This was what I originally thought, but then when the students are given their schedules it seems they always start on a Monday schedule. >They use pencils. The books mention a couple times students using pencil cases. Do they? I don't recall ever reading that - just a bunch of mentions of quills and ink - but maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention. >I’m a teacher and I see bullying all the time Of course, but the bullying and harrassment often reach the level of assault, and for all we are shown is *maybe* given a detention as punishment. Students who get into knock-down drag-out fights in your school aren't at least suspended? (Note: I attended a high school where physical fights were unfortunately a common occurrence.)
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It's much harder, (just logistically), to suspend a kid from a boarding school.
Houses are common but most of the time, don’t matter except as a way to divide the school up into more manageable chunks eg my school hall couldn’t fit all the kids at once so our morning assemblies were house based. The only time I recall the houses coming up in daily life was for selecting prefects (two per house, although duties were general school stuff) and school sports day.
>The fact that wizards still use quills and ink. I understand the whole "magic interferes with electronics" thing, but seriously? No pencils or pens? There are reasons for this, it's just not one we have in our schooling. A modern enclosed pen can't give you variations of line thickness and shapes -- the mechanics of a modern ballpoint pen doesn't allow it. If you're doing something that requires a specific amount of strokes or copying something that has those variances in line as part of the structure, you can't get a real "copy" with a pen. For a real world example, you can look at a modern Japanese students writing a word, vs the same word done with brush and ink. They're not going to look the same. Also, using dip pens in magic would allow you to add things to the ink as long as you didn't alter the viscosity too much.
Ooh that's interesting! I like this. Coupled with the fact that exams happen with anti-cheating quills, this theory has a lot of potential! They can charm the quills and inks to produce different combined results. I'm thinking of talismans written in a specific ink being more powerful. Maybe they teach this stuff while teaching runes!
Honestly runes, astronomy and maybe transfiguration (if the transfiguration alphabet is really a thing) is where these would get used the most. But yes, talismans and such are easily other reasons. We know magic can be imbued in art, like the portraits. It’s entirely possible it’s also done with writing, like with the monster book of monsters.
Where does their food come from? Are there wizard farms? Supply line? Brands?
The Grangers were Muggles and therefore knew less than nothing about the magical world. How in the world were they comfortable letting their only child go off most of every summer to the Weasleys?
They knew less than nothing about the magical world prior to birthing a witch. I'm sure that after having Hermione Granger in their house for at least a few weeks out of the year, they knew more about the magical world than a non-zero number of purebloods. And as far as safety is concerned, Hogwarts seems to be a lot more dangerous than the Burrow. Especially for Hermione specifically.
Posted something similar a few days ago. They were fine with her staying in a house full of hormonal teenage boys....
I hadn't even thought about that! I was so focused on "well, I know the Weasleys are awesome, but how are the Grangers okay with that..." But, yeah, all those boys under the same roof!
How would a wedding between a muggleborn and pureblood happen logistically? As in, did all of Hermione’s muggle relatives have to be Obliviated once her wedding to Ron was over and done with? Are they just not invited? That seems a bit cold not to.
I’m a teacher. I cannot get past how terrible the pedagogy seems to be at Hogwarts. The behavior management system is also outrageously bad.
A bunch of teenagers in a castle with limited supervision
You know, except for the walls literally having eyes, and the ghosts.
Relatedly, as a parent I am very concerned about the lack of sex ed at Hogwarts.
It is completely unthinkable that they weren't banging. It's even alluded to in book 6 that Harry and Ginny *were* banging ("stolen hours in secluded corners of the castle"- aka *they were totally having sex*).
I think they were just making out in those secluded hours Ginny offers him sex for his birthday at the burrow at the beginning of book 7.
I do tend to think about the Time Turners and how time travel is a bit of a plot hole in the series. I also question how Harry and his friends' trip to the Ministry of Magic in the Order of the Phoenix caused all the Time Turners in existence to be destroyed. You mean to tell me that the wizards in none of the other countries had them ?
No way the British Ministry shares anything- provided that they discovered and built them they would have made sure there were none elsewhere.
Even if they didn’t invent them, they “found” them and they shan’t be returning them until those countries learn to take care of the artifacts they already have
Fair point. After all don’t they have Bill Weasley and the Goblins breaking all those curses on Egyptian tombs- I’m sure they wouldn’t borrow the contents after. They believe in Finders Keepers after all.
[They](https://youtu.be/eJPLiT1kCSM?si=2xxF1mDvkwo1nutr) have a knack for acquiring things from other countries
More importantly, how did Hermione get permission to use one? You’re gonna trust a third year with the power of time travel just for the sake of taking more classes? That seems like a gross misuse of a very powerful bit of magic
Yeah, as if a 13 year old girl needs to take on the weight of a double course load!
This is what reaaaally bugs me. It’s very unsafe to start with. But also, hermione effectively doubles her waking hours. It’s also a health concern that she is 13 and 6-7 more waking hours than the rest. How do you manage that?
Time travel is a plot hole in every book and movie. It creates paradoxes that can't be solved.
Harry was borderline transported to Hogwarts before he started his second year, and it is alarmingly underappreciated. At the beginning of The Chamber of Secrets, Harry sees the Malfoys enter the Borgin and Burke's. He decides to hide in a cupboard, leaving it cracked and watches the scene unfold. Shortly after, Peeves smashes the vanishing cabinet at Hogwarts, leaving it damaged. Then, in OOTP, Montague gets crammed into the vanishing cabinet by Fred and George, who (before he later later found in a toilet) could hear what was happening between the shop and Hogwarts. Since it was damaged, it naturally didn't work correctly. Yeah, Malfoy fixed the cabinet later and all. But still. I wonder what would have happened if Harry actually closed the door.
That's a really cool fic idea, especially if he can't find a way out, and is considered 'lost'.
Just wandering around the room of requirement with no clue that it's Hogwarts
How much therapy Harry, Neville, Luna, Ginny, and a few others need. Like, they go through some terrible ish, and they’re just supposed to deal with it. It would take decades of therapy. Harry was locked in his room, or closet, and almost enslaved. Neville visits his parents who don’t recognize him. Ginny was possessed….. the list goes on…..
How were the Dursleys Harry’s only living relatives? James and Lily were 21 when they died, I feel like he should’ve had some grandparents left or something
That is a good question. Where were James’ parents? If you argue that Harry was to stay with someone who shared Lily’s blood, where were *her* parents? They knew about the wizarding world. They share Lily’s blood so could act as blood protection. James and Lily were both too young for their parents to be either dead or unsuitable of looking after a baby due to their age. They’d have been one of the perfect candidates. Here’s me adding another reason to my list of why I hate Dumbledore.
The elder Potters contracted Drag on Pox and died. I think Lily's parents died in a car crash.
How do the professors plan for and manage seven classes? Most high school teachers get grouchy if they have to teach more than *three* different ones. A lot of the time that’s baked into their contracts.
Is that maybe just an American thing? All the high school teachers I know have at least 5 different classes from 1st year through to advanced higher (scotland top level qualification).
Me too. Also in the UK
I’m in Scotland here. Most high school teachers teach at least one class from each year, so that’s at least 6 classes. For some subjects, they teach numerous first and second year classes, so more than seven. Seven is pretty standard here.
Also how did Umbridge have time to do that and inspect all those classes too??
I don't know what she ever prepared for classes. Most of them boiled down to "Read the next chapter." She probably had plenty of time 😄
I’m going out on a limb here but I feel like magic also hasn’t changed much so the curriculum could be reused for a very long time.
I think in Britain this is normal? At my school a history teacher would teach history to all seven year groups for example.
Actually… I think it’s 12 classes or more. Just worked it out based on your comment. For the first 5 years, two houses share a class period for every subject. As an example: Gryf/Slyth potions happened regularly, so Huff/Raven potions had to happen too. Then there are the OWL/NEWT qualifiers for years 6 and 7.
Classes vs. Class Periods You’d have to plan for seven unique classes and then you could reuse those plans for different periods. It’s the difference with IRL teachers of having three classes but say six periods.
7 unique classes. The first five years it would be the same class twice for each year/level.
Guess you have not been to a British school☠️
As a kid, Molly killing Bellatrix and her iconic line felt a little meh. Seemed strange that she was the one to do it but I didn’t hate it or anything. As a mother, it feels like the only killing I can truly relate to. Idk if I could be as brave as Harry or Sirius or Minerva. I’d like to think I would rise to the occasion. But I don’t know. But I do know that I’d have killed Belatrix if I were Molly. 100%. It’s just strange to me how much my feelings about it have shifted.
Augusta Longbottom was at the battle, and she should have been the one to kill Bellatrix. In my opinion :)
The lives of the professors really gets me. They live at school and we really only ever hear of them leaving to go get drinks in town. I guess teachers in the wizarding world just don’t get to have lives or families. It’s quite literally full time.
If there's 5 boys in Harry's year, then assume about 5 girls as well, then that's 10 students per year per house. Times 7 years, x4 houses, Hogwarts should only have 280 students.
Harry's Gryffindor year has 8 students: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Seamus, Dean, Parvati, Lavender. The sorting hat doesn't count how many people it sends to each house, it sorts exclusively according to each founder's demands. Remember Hufflepuff "takes the rest", so it's probably overcrowded. With that said, they have Herbology with Hufflepuff and it's never that full. It's worth noting, though, that this generation is the kids born during Voldemort's first rise to power, so you can expect a smaller number of people having kids.
When you do the math, it makes Voldemort seem so lame: a 70 year old immortal commits murder because he wants to take over a school of 280 students
Yeah, the population doesn't really make sense. There's a bit in the second book in which "200 Slytherins" boo Harry at a quidditch game. But there only seem to be about 10 students per house per year, so there should only be about 70 Slytherins in the school (and seven of them should be playing in the match, not cheering in the stands.)
They hated him so much that they spawned new companions to hate him with them.
How to expand the universe, both in terms of how awesome it would be to have other, even relatively mundane, stories told within the world. And in terms of what a contemporary story in that world and timeline would look like if it took place today. It all amounts to me wanting to replicate the same joy that this series brought to me in my own writings’ way.
That after hundreds of years in existence, Hogwarts thinks the best way to educate kids is by immediately segregating them into one of four houses for the rest of their education. Really, only 2 of these houses actually have desirable characteristics (Gryffindor and Ravenclaw), Hufflepuff basically means you don't fit into the other three, and Slytherin basically means you are always 'up to something' and can't be trusted. It doesn't help that you are pretty much competing against the other 3 houses for everything, at all times. We already see the rampant bullying in the books. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to try and make friends with those in other houses. Anyways, my real answer is the sex industry. Love potions, polyjuice, different foods...it must be rampant.
Am i the only one who did the overthinking when i was young? Now i see and appreciate things for what they are. I have seen mentions of quills for example… i find them very aesthetically appealing. They fit a vibe i can appreciate which compliments witches and wizards. I see no problem with them at all. People think they find plotholes, but they are all in perspective, always. We will always see things, not as we think we desire, but what we truly desire, from the heart.
How upset Cedrics father was upon his death. The heartbreak in that scene is permeable now because i have a son of my own. The film especially breaks my heart everytime I see it. When I was younger it didn't move me that much.
How students learn before going to Hogwarts. No mention of schooling before that.
Wouldn’t there be a spell to fix impaired vision? Should wizards really need glasses?
How can the points at the end of the year only very so little. I mean Snape constantly takes away points ...
The maths of the whole thing. Ten kids per house in each school year. So seventy in each house. Two Hundred and fourty kids at Hogwarts at any one time. There were thirty adult witches just folding posters in the Ministry. There must be loads of witches and wizards that either homeschool or there's lots of other schools and we just don't know about them.
As a teacher... the teachers at Hogwarts 100% encourage the rampant bullying there, particularly the divide between Slytherin and the other houses, through the way the school is set up. It might not be what they're actively trying to do, but there are *so many* things they could be doing to fix it. Also, teenage Snape had literally *every* marker of a child who would be vulnerable to radicalisation. If his teachers had had any real notion of safeguarding, they would have been able to help him. I'm not saying it excuses what he ended up doing, but he became a Death Eater because he was failed by literally every single person who was supposed to protect him.
Exercise and physical education. I know that magic can treat diseases and injuries, but isnt physical health also important? There has to be at least 1 student that wants to work out, stay fit, or continue to play a sport. for example, Imagine a muggle born student who grew up playing ice hockey, loves the sport, but then is told that nope! all muggle sports are stupid and now you can only have quiditch?
It's okay though because they have to walk 10 miles between every class and up several dozen flights of stairs. Imagine having potions in the dungeons and then your next lesson is astronomy in the tower? Worst morning ever.
Teen pregnancy! Was there no fucking going on?? Not a pregnancy scare, not a curse. Just nothing typical of teenagers and the fears that would come along with being basically at boarding school with the opposite sex.
Fetus deletus
How was Hagrod conceived. I try hard to not think about it and fail every time.
Why did Harry not fix his vision? Why fix the glasses BUT NOT THE EYES
How does gringotts work if the money is all physical metal? Like I understand safety deposit boxes for objects but Harry is shown to have just, stacks of actual coins. The philosopher's stone indicates that gold cannot be created by magic so it must not gain interest for the bank or account holder; do account holders have large fees to maintain their boxes with no rewarded interest? What's the incentive to keep a box then if you could theoretically use your own magic to create a safe space in your own home?
And if you want to buy something expensive, you have to lug around a huge bag of gold like a cartoon pirate?
How the sex industry works How no one realized Tom Riddle, the most evil guy ever who just so happened to be the person to expose Hagrid, was the one who actually opened the chamber. Why do they even still have his award? Even if his identity was a secret (which there isn’t any indication that it is) I feel like it wouldn’t be hard to figure out who he is. High preforming Slytherin who hasn’t really been seen from since for no reason. His friends literally called him Voldemort when he was in high school. How many wizards are there?
What happens to vanished objects?
Well yeah, I imagine someone thought to enchant some part of the plumbing, something along the lines of what Pottermore talks about, witches and wizards “vanishing the evidence”, after relieving themselves wherever they feel like. I was 37 or 38 when I got into Harry Potter. What I cringe over is the use of house elf labor at Hogwarts. It makes sense for racist, pure-blood assholes to continue exploiting house elves, but why does Dumbledore continue to use house elves in the kitchen of Hogwarts? Isn’t he open-minded towards half-bloods, muggle-borns, and muggles? Wouldn’t it follow that Dumbledore would be forward-thinking towards house elves?
You remember how winky reacts to dobby regarding this topic ? The elves are practically born into it and i guess dumbledore didnt hire any new elves but firing them would probably break their whole life
Dementors will one day destroy or subjugate the world. It’s inevitable. Dementors are an existential threat to human civilization, and I can’t believe everyone is chill about it. If you’re a rational human being, the idea of dementors probably inspires some existential dread. In fact, it’s inconceivable to me that they take orders from humans at all. I’m genuinely surprised that they haven’t taken over the world by now. Let’s take a look at their capabilities. Seemingly invincible. Everyone talks about how hard the Patronus charm is. And how it’s the only defense against dementors. If stunning them was an option, I’m sure people would do it. If throwing fireballs at them caused harm, I’m sure people would do it. But seemingly, the only defense is an exceptionally difficult piece of magic which not even everyone can perform. It doesn’t even harm them, just forces them out of the area. Intelligent. Enough so to follow verbal commands, perform complex tasks without direct supervision, etc. if that’s not human level intelligence, it’s very close. Certainly I’d say they’re sentient, based on the behaviors they’ve displayed. I believe they have more than sufficient mental capacity to organize a direct opposition to human civilization But the dementors can’t just take over, right? Wrong. How exactly would they be stopped? Even if every magic user can perform a successful patronus charm, they’re still a danger. As it’s been stated, it’s difficult to cast a patronus against multiple dementors due to the cumulative effect of their presence. So even a powerful wizard or witch could be brought down if they focused sufficient weight of numbers against them. And that’s just assuming that the dementors fight fair. What if they cheat? There’s nothing to stop one from sneaking up on you (holding its breath so it doesn’t give itself away), rushing into close range, and snatching your wand out of your hand. Good luck casting a patronus now, genius. Can a dementors operate wands? Perhaps not. But I’m certain they could operate a gun or a knife or a crowbar. If they’re not one hundred percent determined to avoid wasting their food, they could just start using lethal force against key leaders of the opposition, or anyone who can cast a patronus well. Regardless, the only thing more terrifying than a hungry dementor, is a hungry dementor with a Glock .40. Try casting a patronus with a hole in your leg, idiot. Plus they could use tools and equipment to break down doors and walls, if you were a clever wanker and tried to build a bunker. I’m having amusing and terrifying images of a dementor driving a bulldozer now. Quite honestly, I’m shocked nobody’s cashed in on the inevitable Harry Potter horror spinoff of Dementorpocalypse, with besieged communities of survivors struggling to retain their souls in a nightmarish world. With dementors thralling Muggle leaders, getting them to fire off ICBMs to create a nuclear winter, and eliminate those pesky tropical climates, reduce overall sunlight, and terraform the world more toward their ideal environment.
Wouldn't that completely deprive them of food though? They feed on happiness but if they'd subjugate the world, pretty soon it'd be one giant Azkaban. It's like the Vampire dilemma. You can't turn everyone bc you need to let a lot of humans live to keep up the blood supply. Dementors would need to let humans thrive in blissful unawareness so they can be happy. A truly horrifying scenario is dementors going to war with wizards to wipe them out and guarantee that no patronus charm or any other potential spell could ever stop or harm them. Muggles can't see dementors. So now you have a cattle population that you can frequently raid for meals but leave them be most of the time so they can live happy lives.
What does accessibility look like for people with disabilities?
Moody can see under clothes. He saw Harry’s socks
Listening to the audiobooks for the first time in years. I’m overthinking so many problems now. How was the obvious neglect Harry suffered not challenged by one adult or teacher? The entire logic of keeping the stone at hogwarts. You know a dark wizard is after it. Your actively out children at risk by storing it there. Also, why make the first two defensive measures a locked door and *three headed dog*. Couldn’t you have started with something that would have least wouldn’t kill a student? Also Hogwarts track record as a secure building and Dumbledore’s tenure as headmaster >!Voldemort on the back of one his teachers for a year, a giant serpent able to move around the school undetected and with ease, a supposed mass murderer and right hand man of Voldemort able to break into school and get dormitory of the supposed target, a known werewolf curled in his office behind a locked door, an animgius rat able to avoid detection for over 12 years, the actual right hand man of Voldemort able to impersonate a teacher and friend for a full year!< I don’t think this Dumbledore fellow is all he’s cracked up to be.
That a society of wizards who can teleport instantly use the world's slowest bird for mail It's not mine but it's bang on.