Does anyone know the attrition rate of classes from OWL to NEWT? Like how many dropped Transfiguration, Charms, etc after 5th year? That could be a decent-ish way to determine competence. It'd be better than using Dumbledore or McGonagall as a yardstick.

 

At least half of the Defence class is made up of the DA (HBP, pg 170), so that class probably had an unusually high proportion of students. Anyone know how many people in Harry's year were in the DA?
12 people in potions (HBP pg 172), out of the entire year group, so 12/40. And that was after the required potions grade was dropped from O to EE.
Neville's grandmother failed her charms OWL (HBP pg 166). Neville only got an A in Transfiguration, but he got an EE in Charms (still pg 166).
I don't think we know much else about class sizes, but I only searched the first school week of bk 6. However, sixth year is very difficult.

I think that quote speaks for itself.

 

EDIT: Sesc is entirely right, I apologize.

 

Done, sorry!

 

Was Voldemort devoting all his time in Deathly Hallows to tracking down the Elder Wand, or was he doing other things before he robbed Dumbledore's grave?

 

So. Given that Harry's body is a Horcrux, and Horcruxes are only destroyed if the vessel is destroyed, would Harry's corpse continue being a Horcrux if he lived a natural life with the Horcrux intact, and died of old age?

Or does the Horcrux being removed by the killing curse imply that it was Harry's life, instead, that was the Horcrux? And thus if Harry dies the soul fragment would die with him? If that is the case, would Harry have been able to die naturally?

Edit: I'm mostly looking for clarification on which is the case in canon - if there is actually a stated yes or no answer to whether the Horcrux would remain if Harry died naturally.

 

When it comes to living horcruxes, the "destruction of the container" appears to be the ending of the container's life, not its physical dismemberment. Harry dying in DH was enough to destroy the horcrux, even though his body was not physically damaged, and Harry not dying in CoS meant that the horcrux survived, even though his body was damaged.

It's likely that Harry would not have been able to die naturally so long as Voldemort lived, however. Voldemort was like a horcrux to Harry, which is one of the major factors in Harry's return at the end of DH.

 

I don't think that's how the mechanics of that worked - I was under the impression that Harry's return at the end was due to Voldemort's imbibing of Lily's sacrificial magic, which would certainly protect Harry from death at Voldemort's hand, but not from natural causes.

 

The way Lily's magic worked in DH was by anchoring Harry to Voldemort, because Lily's magic was in Voldemort's blood as well as Harry's. It's a horcrux in that sense--an anchor which prevents complete death--but not in the technical sense.

This was the whole gleam of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes in GoF: he knew that Voldemort having Harry's blood meant that there was a route back to life from death for Harry.

 

AFAIK there's nothing in canon that indicates that Lily's magic protected Harry from death in a general sense, and Dumbledore's words at several points indicate otherwise.

 

Just edited in the JKR quote saying Voldemort was a tether to life for Harry. Said "tether to life" is not a native element of Lily's protection as created on Halloween 1981, nor part of the bond of blood charm cast by Dumbledore using that protective power. It's an addition to Lily's protection accidentally made by Voldemort at the end of GoF. So you're correct to say that Lily's protection doesn't protect Harry from death generally... it's Voldemort's protection that does that XD

 

Damn, that's a great quote.

I kind of want FFN to post that as part of the User Agreement you have to accept before you publish anything in the Harry Potter section.

 

Quick question on nomenclature, what would the child of two muggleborns be? Mugglebornborn?

 

A child of two Muggleborns would be a half-blood, which is a kind of catch-all for everything between Muggleborn (two muggles for parents) and pure-blood (two pure-bloods for parents).

Bear in mind, however, that the way the terms are used in practice defy their technical definitions. The proponents of "bloodism" use it as a means to an end... sometimes Muggleborns are considered equivalent to Muggles for political ends, in which case the children of Muggleborns would also be Muggleborn.

Similarly, the definition of pure-blood can be stretched to go well beyond grandparents such that the only "real" purebloods are those who have deliberately eradicated all trace of Muggle ancestry off their family trees, thus ensuring that only people who subscribe to "bloodism" get counted as real pure-bloods.

 

I tought that child of 2 muggle borns would be muggleborn too. It is counted by grandparents.

If you don't have any muggle grandparent you are pureblood. If you have any you are halfblood. If you don't have any magical grandparent you are muggleborn.

 

When Hermione uncovered Rita Skeeter's status as an animagus and prevented her from writing for a full year, did she do so by blackmail or by actually keeping her in that jar for a year?

I always thought Hermione made a deal with Rita, but I've come across a high number of people talking as if Rita was kept captive in that jar in beetle form, which is rather...jarring.

 

Yeah Hermione wouldn't do that. She blackmailed Skeeter into silence threatening her with Azkaban if she crossed the line again. She only kept her in the jar for the duration of the train ride.

On a side note you really need to reconsider the company you're keeping.

 

I want to see a source on this grandparents thing. I don't remember that from canon at all.