Hi, all.
Chapter 11 notes.
Hogsmeade and Hogsmeade weekends. The Hogsmeade shops listed are all from the “expanded” canon, plus a few more I haven’t named. The Hairdresser’s doesn’t have a canon name, so I gave it one. “St. Hedwig’s Church” is my fanon, and an extension of having a Catholic Friar haunting Hogwarts. I had to make up the Hogsmeade Weekend schedule and rules I described. JKR, and even the extended canon don’t really go into the details, since they aren’t actually trying to run a magical boarding school. In Half-Blood Prince, there is a war on, so having all students return to Hogwarts early would only make sense. Otherwise, JKR is silent about older students receiving more privileges than younger ones. In a school and school without either a war or terrorists running the school, the schedule I described would make the most sense, especially since the seventh years are all Wizarding Adults. With one hairdresser in town and none at school, the way I described would make sense for getting the first and second year students visits to a barber or hair stylist. And, even boys deliberately growing their hair long, and being allowed to, would still need to visit a barber or stylist every eight to twelve weeks or so.
In canon, the reader doesn’t see Madam Rosmerta hire live bands. The reader also doesn’t see students out after dark. A pub such as The Three Broomsticks in real life would hire a live band on the weekends, when there would be enough of a demand that both the Landlord and the band would make money. Since David is not only a musician, but a very popular professional singer and musician, he is being allowed by Headmaster Dumbledore to have his “school band” play live at The Three Broomsticks, for a number or reasons. Beyond letting David’s band stay out extra late on “performance nights,” Dumbledore is also allowing willing and paying younger students to watch at least half of David’s performance. He’s also loaned David help in the form of the school house elves. In turn, David had a separate lower cover charge to cover only one of his two sets, both of which are a fair amount longer than typical for a “bar band,” at least in the United States; so the third through fifth years could, if allowed to stay out just a bit later watch a full set without feeling cheated. He also allowed working Hogwarts Professors to stay without paying a cover charge. David appreciates that Dumbledore is making the “extra effort” for him, so he’s meeting Dumbledore half-way.
In real life, at least in the United States, the venue always pays the royalties for “cover” songs performed by the band or bands they hire. Whether they get a cut of the cover or are paid a fixed and guaranteed fee to perform depends on both the band and the venue.
The teen ghosts by now are David’s friends, and were more than happy to be on stage with him, even to the point of overcoming their own nervousness at appearing on stage before a live audience. In canon, Myrtle was openly flirting with Harry, and reveals herself to be a bit of a perv, especially for a young British teenage girl of the mid 1940s. We only see her interact with Harry, because she only makes friends with Harry. Here, Myrtle is friends with all five living boys, along with the three other teenage ghosts, so she’s more open. Even Simon, the least outgoing of the four teenage ghosts, is coming out of his shell here.
The “talk” David shares with his friends riding back to Hogwarts is also based on “real life” for performers in a band.
“Testing anxiety” for the real life GCSEs, O Levels, and A Levels is also very real. The problems with the use of “norm referencing” in the British tests are also very real. Norm referencing was eliminated in the first couple of years of the GCSEs according to sources I’ve been able to find, but has come back, to the dismay of everyone involved except for the brain-dead soulless bureaucrats who brought it back. What Paul described, while extreme, is also a real problem with norm referencing, since norm referencing declares in advance that fifteen percent of the tested students will fail their tests no matter how well they actually performed, and that some students will also pass no matter what, even if the “best” student only got their names and identification numbers correct.
The “child interactions” in the last section are indicating that the kids are learning and growing “off-camera.” I also used “English in italics pretending to be a non-English language” here.
Since I’m not actually writing a Hogwarts Mystery fanfiction, the next several chapters will gloss over all but the high points of Hogwarts Mystery, while also showing the older Weasleys, Dvoraks, and so on as they grow up to 1991. This will still take more than just one or two chapters though, even with the longer chapters I tend to write.
Cheers!