To ensure that your first-year students get to school
safely, you:
a) have a group of teachers escort them from the train
station to the school along a well-lit road, or
b) send them sailing across a dark lake filled with a giant
squid and other dangerous creatures, with one big dude to look after the whole
bunch
To ensure that each student is assigned to the appropriate
house, you:
a) administer tests that measure the student’s aptitude,
personality and other characteristics, or
b) plop a talking hat on his head
Once the students are sorted, you:
a) help them get to their classes in an orderly and timely
fashion with clear routes to well-marked classrooms, or
b) let them loose in a maze of 142 shifting, moving,
disappearing and reappearing staircases, some with trick steps that trap you, along
with ghosts, poltergeists and a cantankerous caretaker
Your school contains a highly dangerous creature that can
kill a person just by looking at him. Do you:
a) have the creature removed while taking great care to keep
the students far from danger, or
b) keep it in the basement, guarded by security measures
that can’t stop a 12-year-old
A mass murderer has escaped from prison and attempted to
attack one of your students. Do you:
a) evacuate the school and send the students home under
tight security measures, or
b) hold a slumber party in the cafeteria
You have agreed to host a competition to foster
international cooperation with other schools. Do you:
a) hold the three events in the competition over the span of
a couple of weeks to let the students concentrate on their schoolwork the rest
of the year, or
b) pointlessly stretch three events out over the entire year,
with months between each one
Since you are pointlessly stretching the three events out
over the entire school year, do you:
a) invite the students from other schools to participate in
classes and other events with your students to foster that whole international
cooperation thing, or
b) have them living and studying completely separately for
the year, making their presence at Hogwarts pointless
A student who is under age and is known to be the target of
the most dangerous wizard in the world has been chosen to compete in this
competition in violation of the rules. Do you:
a) invalidate his entry on the assumption that it’s the work
of dark magic, or
b) insist that he go ahead with it and wish him good luck
One of the competitors in this event turns out to be a
world-famous Quidditch player. Do you:
a) invite him to all your games and ask him to hold special
workshops for your school’s Quidditch teams, or
b) inexplicably cancel the entire Quidditch season
This competition consists of three challenges. Do you:
a) devise challenges that are entertaining and exciting for
all the students and other wizards who have gathered to watch, or
b) stage two of the events entirely out of view – one
underwater and one inside a maze – so none of the action can be seen by those
who have pointlessly gathered to watch anyway
That only takes us through the Goblet of Fire, but you get
the point. But I still want to go to Hogwarts. Even if it means double potions
with Snape and the Slytherins occasionally. Happy birthday Harry.
