Rebel Goddess posted a comment on Monday 19th March 2007 12:55am for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

I adored the way you explored the Wizengamot, the way it works, Harry's power and Smith. It was brilliant. The sections about Snape and Draco were also excellent. Wonderful chapter. I can't wait for more. The fight scene was terrific - and a very good way of showing how the wizarding world works.

I think that there's a reason why there are a thousand students but so few in Harry's year - Voldemort. There was a baby boom after World War 2, why not the same for the wizards? Few people would seriously consider the rise of a Dark Lord the best time to have a large number of children. As for teachers, we're told there are professors but they're usually mentioned in passing when it comes to the students they teach. If Harry doesn't take a class, we don't tend to hear about the professor. I always thought that each teacher tended to teach a particular year and that possibly there were extra teachers that we never learned about. Never been sure where they are but I think like the money system, it was something JKR never saw fit to explore fully. Perhaps the elder Ravenclaws help out?

Kerry Clarke posted a comment on Monday 19th March 2007 12:05am for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

First of all, I'm really enjoying your story. I find all the political stuff very interesting, though I've never read a political Harry story I've enjoyed so far - they usually coincide with an annoyingly-superpowered-for-no-reason Harry, which just isn't something I normally go for. Here, though there is an explanation, and things are well-written. I find the Spell Mongery stuff interesting and original, as well.

About the number of students at Hogwarts, I've always thought about it in this way: Harry's age group would all have had to of been born during war (the year below him and older). There were probably many people who planned on having children but decided to put it off until they could in a safer world - wartime just isn't a good time to have a baby. For that reason I think of those years as being smaller than average at Hogwarts - with Harry's year and the year one older and one younger than his as all bing particularly bad because of Voldemort being at the height of his power.

Even the year under Ginny is probably only a small bit larger, due to the uh... time it takes to have a baby, though I wouldn't be surprised if following years got very large due to a post-war boom, much like what happened after WWII.

I think of Hogwarts as possibly normally having about a thousand students, or that being the capacity of the school. During Harry's stay there, particularly his first few years, significantly less students attended, being the low point of class size in the school. This allows for there being only 6-10 students in each house in Harry's year when by rights there should be over thirty. One problem with thinking is that it doesn't account for Muggleborns, as their parents would not known of any war happening. This throws off the Muggleborn/Halfblood/Pureblood ratios, and would make Muggleborns much more rare compared to Purebloods or Halfbloods than they appear in canon.

Patches posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 11:07pm for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

This is a great chapter. I really like the way the story flows. I was surprised about the way Harry recovered from his run in with the Vampires. I thought Dumbledore's explanation of how Harry should interact with the other teachers was a little strange but understandable in ways. In other words, Dumbledore expects Harry to be the better man but to also try to learn from dealing with Severus. Not an easy pill to swallow. I liked the interaction with Ginny. Harry is clueless about his own feelings. It is no wonder he is misinterpretting Ginny's true feelings. The scene with the Wizagamot and the aftermath was interesting. We will see how Harry learns to deal with the "government"! Thanks for writing. pms

Tero Alanne posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 9:29pm for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

Not really a review about the story, which is excellent by the way, but a question:

I noticed that you posted this chapter on phoenixsong.net over a month ago and I was wondering if the "delay" is because of some changes in the chapter or some other reason not worth mentioning? I read some parts of this one and didn't really notice any difference.

I ask this just to know if the chapter apearing on ffa.net is the final version and the one I should read. Although reading it twice wasn't really that horrible :)

hptrump posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 3:12pm for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

Well I see where Ginny loves Harry but does Harry know or when is Harry going to express his feelings?

Evan Mayerle posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 12:59pm for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

Oh, as to the number of students. Let's consider:

1000 students evenly distributed over 4 houses gives 250 students per house. Assuming relatively equal numbers for each year, that averages out to 35 or 36 per year per house. Assuming an even male-female ratio, that says there should be 17 or 18 in each dorm room. Since we don't see that in the case of Harry's year in Gryffindor, either there's more than one dorm room per sex per year, an uneven distribution of students per one or more of the above criteria, or a spot of innumerancy on the author's part.

Evan Mayerle posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 12:52pm for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

An interesting chapter with much to chew on. The only real fanfics with a political dimension that I've read, besides yours, are Chrys', Dr. T's (esp. his set with Harry going back in time to fix things after winning a rather Pyrrhic victory), and "Harry Potter and the Winds of Change" on FFN (though this last adds another chamber that gives the Puerbloods extra control).

I like the way you're taking this and I look forward to seeing how things evolve.

Nyeshet posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 12:38pm for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

Ancient peoples occasionally spoke of their elders having lived for hundreds of years. This was not necessarily literal (in fact, it could not have been literal). It was just a way of stating they lived for a very long time.

JKR says that there are about a thousand students at Hogwarts. This is not literal (in fact, it is not possible for it to be literal, considering the number of professors, among other factors), it is just a way of stating that there are a lot of students attending Hogwarts. In all likelihood there are only a few hundred students at Hogwarts. It has been suggested that Hogwarts once held more, but that the recent war depleted the population so severely that the number of students typical to a year has been approximately halved. That is the explanation I tend to believe. Were the number of students not halved, perhaps as many as 800 might attend (which could, in a figurative manner, be passed off / exaggerated as being about a thousand).

Nice chapter. I look forward to the next one.

amulder posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 12:20pm for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

Re: Numbers of students.

JKR has also said that she's not good at math. To me, the number 450-500 makes much more sense for the student population. And it seems to fit more in with the way classes and meals and so on have been described in canon.

Aren't there some essays and speculation over on the hp-lexicon.org website about this? Those are probably more researched than the comments you'll find here. :-)

For one thing: There are subjects that Harry has not taken (ancient runes, etc) which have profs unknown. Also, perhaps not all profs live at the castle?

best,
...art

Viv posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 10:27am for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

First things first: My review.

I've long loved your use of back-story. There are no edges to your universe, no fuzzy, gray areas where belief must be suspended for the sake of continuity. You blend real history with your own imagination to create a full-service world, in which Harry Potter is only one member, rather than the axis on which everything pivots. I always look forward to your chapters, and was delighted to find this latest installment available. You also managed to capture Harry’s character beautifully, as well as explain away superpowered!Harry with ease. Much thanks, and grand work.

As for your question about the size of the student at Hogwarts, I chose to resolve it one of two ways. The first is that JKR, who acknowledges her hatred of math, simply estimated a student body far larger than actually exists in her world. This creates problems, given the fact that a population estimate based of Hogwarts would not be self-sustaining, especially when pureblood prejudice against intermarriage with muggles is considered. It does, however, fit with the relative sizes of the Death Eaters and the Order, and the scale of the plans they carry out. It would also be more manageable for the premise that Hogwarts is a castle, the amount of time it would take to sort the incoming first years, the relative positioning of the Houses, the presence of so many handy and unused classrooms and hallways or floors, the special dimensions needed for housing and instruction, the number of clubs and activities available to students, the number of staff members and instruction, etc. Granted, all these problems could be made to go away with the singular argument of, "It's magic, anything is possible," but I for one believe that some limitations should be placed on the actual craft for it to hold any believability. (To me, this is where your explanations come in. The use of modern science as a conduit for magic tickles my fancy, so to speak.) Then again, we are talking about magic, so forgive me.

Regardless, there are pros and cons.

The other version is slightly more complex, but perhaps more believable. Each year within each House could be broken up into class groups, or pods, of five male students and five female students. So, within Harry's year in Gryffindor, Harry, Ron, Neville, Dean, and Seamus would make up the male students in pod A. Hermione, Lavender, Paravati, and two unknown characters would make up the girls in pod A. These students would be paired up with the other pod A students from the other Houses. The registrar would then deal with groups of students rather than individuals, thus making scheduling that much easier. (For third year electives and NEWT studies, presumably the pods would be intermixed according to individual preferences.)

In these terms, each pod would have a designated set of teachers. Snape, for example, would be responsible for teaching all students in pod A, regardless of House or year. On Monday, perhaps he teaches fourth year pod A Hufflepuff/Ravenclaws in the morning, and sixth year pod A students of all Houses in the afternoons. This again would likewise add ease for the poor Hogwarts registrar, and makes a certain amount of administrative sense.

This theory too has some definite negatives in terms of canon. How would all the Weasley students have managed to all land in pod A and thus have Snape as an instructor? In this case, one could easily say that pods are assigned by name within a House, but that argument has its own obvious detractors. For that matter, why all the difficulty in landing a Defense professor? Does this problem exist only for pod A, or all pods? There is also never any hint at the existence of additional staff in canon. The other arguments against this theory are too numerous to state here.

Given Occam's Razor, it may be most wise to simply accept JKR's version, no matter how flawed and counterintuitive it may seem. After all, it's magic. Anything is possible.

~Viv, who is slightly embarrassed to see how much she rambled here

Quizer posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 9:40am for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

I'm reading 'The Granger Defense' as the main story, but I've found my interest in the Harry/Ginny version vastly improving over the last few chapters. Harry and Ginny shaking up the foundations of magic theory, with Ginny as an apprentice spell monger, is a very exciting thought. I should have known that you would not make the mistake of giving us the same bland Ginny that is so prevalent in fanfiction these days.


Quizer

KateHC posted a comment on Sunday 18th March 2007 7:42am for Chapter Fourteen - Harry and the Wizengamot

A very interesting chapter which adds greatly to the Magical Universe.