Hogwarts Open Day

[MillicentMargaretAmanda]

If you were a Muggle parent, wouldn't you be concerned that you literally never get to visit your kid's school? I mean, you'd had them all prepped to go to the local good Ofsted rated comp, whose catchment area you had carefully researched before moving in year 4. You'd been to two open evenings, and gone on a separate day visit, and then at some point in Year 6, a weirdo with an owl turns up and tells you your child is magic and is going to a boarding school you've never heard of in the wilds of Scotland...
Your requests to visit are refused, there don't seem to be any open days, parents evenings or speech days to attend. You don't even get asked to come when your little darling is lying petrified in the San....

All seems very unfair given that certain parents seem to be there every other week (looking at you Malfoy senior.)

They did learn some lessons that were science-like though. Herbology = (plant) biology, potions = chemistry, history of magic = history (obvs). Maths doesn’t seem to be compulsory but Hermione did arithmancy taught by Professor Vector in her third year. Ancient Runes seemed like a mix between another language and history.

No English though.

They didn't learn English but they were always writing ridiculously long essays, so I imagine they learnt plenty of grammar, persuasive writing, structuring arguments, etc. Just not literature. Wizarding non-fic doesn't really seem to be a thing..

in book one, the pink umbrella has made quite a few appearances already.

So, you can have a magical cooking pot that makes the dinner, but someone still has ot go to tescos to buy the onions and carrots?
Why don;t they just magic those up too

Because food is one of the five principal exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration.

I reckon JK put that in the last book because so many people had commented on after the previous 6....

But how did queenie make the strudel in fantastic beasts then?

she must have had the apples and pastry ingredients, so she could make it, just not create it form nothing!

Funny though, you never see the wizards going to tescos. Why not? and how do they not know about money etc when they must have to interact with the muggle world over thigns like food.

Doesn’t she have all the ingredients already and conjure them together? That said, it looked unlikely knowing what we know about wizarding cooking at the Weasleys.

Funny though, you never see the wizards going to tescos.

Obviously there's a Tesco's Diagon Alley branch. Had all your regular household goods plus a fantastic potions ingredients section, a pet shop for all your transfiguration needs and the booze section sells nothing but butterbeer and elf made wine.

love to see how that Tescos goes through the headoffice accounts etc!

and, is it me, but do wizards in the North of Scotland have to do their shopping in diagon alley?

Is it the only shopping street in the country?

I would assume that wizards in Scotland would go to Hogsmeade. Tesco Hogsmeade is probably pretty nice. But with Apparition and Flue Powder there's no difference in distance.

I worry that muggle taxes are funding the Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts etc.. The wizarding world does not (apart from little businesses in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade) seem to have a private sector. Gringotts seems to do nothing but take deposits. Do wizards pay tax?

Do wizards pay tax

Nah, they make muggles pay for the wall.

Oh forgot about Hogsmeade!

I assumed muggles at Hogwarts were fairly rare, which is why they mention Hermoine being one so much.

I’m trying to remember who else has a muggle parent in the books. There is Seamus but his dad didn’t know his mum was a witch, so didn’t go to Hogwarts.

I wonder if muggle witches have a recessive gene. an ancestor was a witch perhaps.

Yes it’s a recessive gene.

There are fair amount of muggle borns at Hogwarts- off the top of my head

The creevy brothers
Penelope Clearwater
Dean Thomas
Hermione
Ernie Macmillion

All spring to mind.

Gringotts seems to do nothing but take deposits.

And sending wizards to hunt for treasure - Bill was curse-breaking in Egypt to get treasure for Gringotts I think. Plus loaning Bagman money (or was that loan shark goblins?)

On the Muggle-borns - it was Dean who didn’t know if his dad was a wizard or not. Wasn’t it Seamus whose mum was a witch but didn’t tell his dad until after they were married? Justin Finch-Fletchley was muggle-born, and so were the Creeveys.

In the older generation obv also Lily Evans and Ted Tonks. But children from mixed marriages seem much more common than muggle-borns.

Penelope Clearwater

Penelope Clearwater is a halfblood. Hermione pretends to be her when they get arrested by the snatchers - pretty stupid to stop being one mud blood and pretend to be another!

She gets got by the basilisk because she is with Hermione at the time

@RaiderOfTheKitchenCupboard your comment made me laugh out loud

A poor muggle family having to pay in excess of £400 to take their kids to London just to have them ride back to Hogwarts for free

Penelope Clearwater is a halfblood. Hermione pretends to be her when they get arrested by the snatchers - pretty stupid to stop being one mud blood and pretend to be another!

Ah yes of course. Sorry fan fiction has screwed with my knowledge there. She is muggle born in ‘the mauraders plan’ but not in cannon.

I'm not sure I would want to send my magical child to a school where nothing was done about Snape clearly bulling Nevile.

Durmstrang all the way!

I'm not sure I would want to send my magical child to a school where nothing was done about Snape clearly bulling Nevile.

This is always my great barrier with the people who present Snape as ‘misunderstood tortured hero’, and explain away his treatment of Harry because of his history with James. He really seemed to enjoy tormenting Neville.

But yes, the whole school seems about 80 years behind the Muggle world on pastoral care, treatment and support of students, etc. The only saving grace seems to be the food.

Sorry fan fiction has screwed with my knowledge there.

Fan fiction has a lot to answer for!

The only saving grace seems to be the food.

And that's cooked by slaves!

I'd love to know more about Hermione. She seems quite independent and somehow knows more about the wizarding world than Harry does despite also having being bought up by Muggles. Perhaps it was all the reading she did?

I think when we first meet her in book 1 there is mention of her already having read the books on the reading lists (& maybe others too), and she's always in the library. The full blood wizards could be as clever as Hermione if they bothered to put in the work!

I wonder if Hermione's parents got a school report at the end of each year?

But children from mixed marriages seem much more common than muggle-borns.

How do mixed marriages happen when there's so little interaction between wizards and muggles? And once they're married, how do wizards continue as wizards, since they're not allowed to do magic in front of muggles?