no wizards here

[Athena Appleton]

I was thinking about what Fudge says in OotP about there being no magical people in the area where Harry lives... I don't put much stock in what he says, because we know of many other areas where the ministry has some fairly sloppy records, so it's very likely they don't know about it... but something got me thinking...

We know that at some point, there were witches and wizards living quite close to Privet Drive. When Voldemort disappeared, it was on the local news that owls were seen everywhere, and Vernon noticed a lot of odd happenings that we know had to do with the wizarding world. There were also several times when Harry was stopped on the street by a person in odd robes (quite obviously wizard folk) just while he was out shopping.

I don't know the area Fudge is talking about, or how big an area, if it's just on Privet Drive, or in the city, or in some surrounding area, but I believe there is significant evidence that there are and always have been wizarding folk living right near Harry Potter.

[Sacred Guardian]

well, i don't know how far harry lives from london, but i would assume that is where mr. dursley works. owls passing over doesn't mean there were wizards there, just they were passing through, though it is a good point about the wizard he met while shopping, but he might have moved or somthing

[Evil Wizard Petting Zoo]

Yeah, I don't have much faith in Ministry records either. Then again, Fudge could have been lying, I wouldn't put it past him.

[Athena Appleton]

I decided to look back at the first chapter of P/SS...

Here are the odd happenings in the order they happened:

1. Before Vernon left the house, an owl fluttered by the window (most probably having to do with Mrs. Figg, who we find out later is a squib.)
2. On Vernon's way out of the street, he sees a cat reading a map, and a sign (we know this cat is McGonagall, waiting for Dumbledore.)
3. Here's what gets me: taken from page 3 of P/SS: "But on the edge of town (Athena talking again: I'm assuming the "edge of town" refers to the edge of Little Whinging, not the edge of London, if that's where Vernon works. Back to Rowling), drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes - the getups you saw on young people!"

Like I said, I don't know if Fudge was talking about just Privet Drive, the surrounding neighborhood, or the whole town. I would imagine he was talking about the whole town, and there was apparently quite a few wizards and witches in the area when Harry was a year old. I'll buy into the idea that a few of them may have moved, but I find it unlikely that all of them moved.

Also, I've gotton the idea that London is some distance from Privet Drive, as no one, as we know, has gone to London for a day trip. Vernon only agreed to take Harry to King's Cross in P/SS because they were having to go to London anyway to get Dudley's tail removed, so I would think it was at least some ways away.

[Evil Wizard Petting Zoo]

Is Little Whinging a real place? I know Surrey is. If so then it would help to look at a map. I always thought London was about an hour or so from Little Whinging.

Maybe Vernon's company "on the edge of town" is almost crossing over to Big Whinging (is there such a place in HP?) If there is a Big Whinging then there would be more people and possibly more witches and wizards.

I hope I didn't just make a fool out of myself for suggesting there's a Big Whinging. I've heard someone say there is but I dunno for sure.

[Alice I]

This is from the Harry Potter Lexicon.
Using Mapquest and Multi map I found Surrey to be a suburb of London west and south of the city. Little Whinging does not actually exist but acording top the lexicon artical below Little Whining would be some twenty miles out side of London. There is a map on this page and the address is:
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/atlas/britain ... urrey.html
Hope this helps address the ?'s

Where is Little Whinging?

Little Whinging is in Surrey, a county of Southern England, to the south and west of Greater London. Surrey is bordered by Greater London to the east, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire to the north and Hampshire, Sussex and Kent to the south.

Although the bulk of the County lies to the south of the River Thames, a small area lies to the north. It is here that Little Whinging lies. There have been many boundary changes to Surrey, and the major ones are shown in the map above.

However, the most recent changes to the County boundary that are not shown (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Surrey County Boundaries Orders of 1991 and 1994) leave a certain fog over that small portion of the County to the north.

Surrey became, in the 20th Century, a place of great prosperity as more and more people moved there, many of them commuting to work in London. There was an ever-greater demand for housing and large areas of countryside were covered in new developments. The London suburbs had arrived.

These rapidly created new communities had a pleasing orderliness and uniformity about them and they became a Muggle Paradise, pleasingly ordinary and normal, as were the Dursleys and all proper people.

It is this predictable order that allows us to discover more about Surrey, Little Whinging and, most especially No 4 Privet Drive.

[Athena Appleton]

okay, my bad...

soooo, Vernon commutes to work to London... not having ever visited England, I can't be held accountable for not knowing where Surrey and Little Whinging would be in comparison to a big city.

[Nobby]

i couldn't tell you either Athena and i live here!!!!

[Alice I]

I'm sorry Athena
My intension wasn't to make you feel bad.
I have never been to anywhere before either it's just that I am writing this FF that required me to do all this location research for places like The Leaky Cauldron, a big Department store in London, Azkaban Fortress, the actual location and distance from Privet Dr. to the Burrow, the actual location and distance to Hogwats and so on and I thought my research would help.

Anyway you are just fine and I really like your theories and ideas.

[Athena Appleton]

girl, you know I don't take things like that seriously. don't apologize.

so, just out of curiosity, where is the burrow? I don't know much at all about location, I didn't know Hogwarts was in Scotland (thought it was in England) until the other day

[Nobby]

i would have thought the burrow was in the south of england as well. maybe surrey etc. just because they drive to the station in cos. i don't recall the journey being too long

[Alice I]

The Burrow is south and West of London by a fair piece from the map approximately 120 miles.
It would take Hedwig roughly 3 hrs. to fly it.

It is near the south coast and runs along the Otter River that dumps out into Lyme Bay along the English Channel. It is South East of Exiter by roughly 20 miles according to Multimap.

This link should get you to the Multimap page where you should see a red circle that is Ottery Street in the real England, which does run along the Otter River.

You can use the zoom function to get a closer look.

Also the lexicon has a nice map of the burrow itself and the town Ottery St. Catchpole found at this other link.

[Alice I]

OMG sorry about that link messing up the page dimentions.
I have PM'd Jotomicron and asked him to help fix it.
Boy what a dope

Anyway I clicked on the link and it shows you the real close up
so use the zoom feature to zoom out and see where it is in relation
to the rest of England.

// Done, Alice I. [Edited by Jotomicron to make previous links shorter]

[Alice I]

Thanks Joto!
I will use the info you gave me about making these nice short links next time.

Anyway Athena I found out something that might be of interest and is a contradiction to the Lexicon.

According to the HP Lexicon there is no King Cross Rail Station but I just went to British Rail on-line and tried to buy tickets from London to Wick which is just about as north in the UK as you can go by rail.

The trip would take 20 hrs. and 22 minutes and leaves from Kings Cross Station in London! So I guess there really IS a Kings Cross Rail Station.
BTW Brittish Rail is BUKO expensive. for one way one person it is 270 pounds for this trip.

If you have any other ?'s about where things are in England I would be happy to find the answers and post Nice Short Links to them.

[Athena Appleton]

I knew there was a King's Cross station, because I read an article when the first movie came out that there was kind of an honorary Platform Nine and Three-Quarters there...

I've found a lot of stuff that contradicts what is said on the HP Lexicon. I quit trying to understand their timelines, since they swear Harry was born in '80, but almost all the information they've come up with has him being born in '82.