Which does make me wonder: doesn't it cost money to go to Hogwarts? If Sirius is cut off from the Blacks, who's paying his school fees? I assume there must be some, because it's clear that one of the reasons the Weasleys are so stretched is the cost of sending every single kid to school.

I don't think there's tuition, but there are uniforms and books and various other things. When Hagrid takes Harry to Gringott's the first time, they take out money to buy his supplies, but nobody mentions then or in the acceptance letter that there are any school fees.

What Hil said about tuition. That's the impression I always got.

I don't think there's tuition, but there are uniforms and books and various other things.

Right, okay. In which case, where's the money to run the school coming from? Do we assume that the Four Founders established a foundation? Actually, that might work, and would also work to explain why there is still a Slytherin House: the trust requires it, and if they tried to break the trust, they'd lose funding for the whole place.

I have a feeling you've already put more thought into this than JKR has.

But isn't a lot of it taken care of magically? Those big feasts, for instance. That's wandwork, not actual cooking.

I could see a trust to take care of the teachers, though, who presumably need some money aside from their room and board.

I have a feeling you've already put more thought into this than JKR has.

I should hope not! I do have the sense that she has gobs and gobs of material she's written down to backstop the universe, even if she hasn't published it. So she probably knows how Hogwarts is funded, she just doesn't seem to have ever said it.

Compare Rowling with Lewis, who apparently invested no thought at all in his world-building, and as a result, it's a right mess. Which may not bother many people, to be fair.

More thought than goes into most stories of the genre, that's for sure. JKR was undoubtedly lucky to get picked up by such a broad demographic of readers, but as far as I can tell her worldbuilding is pretty good, and in line with the other good works of a similar genre.

Yeah, worldbuilding fails under close inspection, but that's not new to YA, or to sci fi and fantasy in general. I think she's doing pretty well with what she's put forward to convey emotion and adventure and excitement and horror, since I'm sure that was her major goal, not putting all the building blocks of a functional society in place.

That's wandwork, not actual cooking.

Nope: the house elfs do the cooking in the kitchens, and the magic just transports it to the hall. Apparently they also do all the cleaning in the castle, and probably transport the kids' luggage about, as well.

So even if they don't pay salaries to the house elfs, they do have to buy supplies, and pay the teachers and whatnot.

What ita said, more or less. I don't think the actual target audience of the books would care about how Hogwarts was funded, and explaining it without having that information relevant to the plot would have been a lot of boring backstory.

It doesn't bother me either, though. I read the books for the emotional touchpoints of Harry's journey, not the details.

But isn't a lot of it taken care of magically? Those big feasts, for instance. That's wandwork, not actual cooking.

They say in the last book that you can't magically produce food -- even if there's magic used for going from raw ingredients to final plate, they still have to get the raw ingredients from somewhere.