The Cupboard Series 4: The Fourth School

Chapter 3

"And you've looked through all of these?" Minerva asked, tapping the fan of brochures on the tabletop.

Harry nodded. "I've ordered a few others, but I don't think that they'll be much different."

"Where from?" Remus asked. "You've already got brochures on the top schools in France, Bulgaria, Spain, Australia and the United States."

"Italy and China. Oh, and Kenya," he added as an afterthought.

"But you don't speak any of those languages!" Sirius protested.

"I know," Harry replied before sighing. "It's just that, after seeing how much of a difference there was between Hogwarts and Beaubatons and Salem, I simply had to know whether all magic schools were so much more advanced than Hogwarts claims to be."

Minerva, predictably, bristled at the denigration of her beloved Hogwarts.

"Hogwarts has consistently had the highest grades in all of Europe and in fact in the world for decades," she stated emphatically.

"In the subjects that Hogwarts offers. Well, if you don't include Muggle Studies and Divination," Harry added. "The problem is that, including electives, Hogwarts only offers a dozen subjects when most of these other schools offer up to thirty different subjects."

"He's right, Minnie," Sirius said softly. "You know as well as I do that even a hundred years ago, Hogwarts offered nearly twice as many subjects as it does now."

"That's why the castle has so many empty classrooms nowadays," Remus added.

Minerva stared hard at the other three around the dining room table in Potter Haven for close to a minute before giving way with a sigh.

"I guess you're right. Hogwarts isn't what she used to be. In the subjects that we offer, we've maintained our high standards but we're falling behind in so many other areas," she finally allowed.

"And these," here Harry tapped the brochures in the middle of the table, "only represent the largest schools in Europe, the US and Australia. There are dozens of other, smaller schools in every country. Except Britain. Why is that? Why aren't there other schools in Britain?"

Sirius leaned back in his chair studying the ceiling for a bit before offering a one word answer. "Money."

At his confused expression, Remus attempted to elaborate.

"It's not that there haven't been other schools in Britain in the past, it's simply that none of them lasted very long. Every couple of decades, it seems, a new school would pop up somewhere in Britain, struggle along for a few years before simply collapsing and disappearing again. I think the one in Ireland, at Tara, lasted the longest, maybe ten or twelve years before they were forced to shut down.

"You see, schools need money to run. Money to pay the staff, buy equipment, buy and maintain land and facilities and for all those odds and ends that a school needs to run. And that money usually comes in through the tuition that parents pay to send their children there. Students are a school's lifeblood, you could say.

"And what has traditionally happened is that a new school will form because they see a need. Of late, that need has been to offer extra subjects, just like we were talking about before. Sadly, the old pure-blood families don't like it when others, especially muggleborns, who often make up the bulk of these new schools, begin to learn something that they didn't. So, they start boycotting the school.

"They're the ones who control the Wizengamot, so they make sure to enforce extra laws to make it difficult for the new school to operate. They also control the media and ensure that new students don't hear about the smaller school until after they've already enrolled in Hogwarts, if at all. They do all that they can to dry up the funding and simply force the new school to eventually close."