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Prompt: music. 

In RN, the Muggles are able to see Hogwarts when they come for the orientation program but according to canon Muggles can't see Hogwarts. So I was wondering if there is any reasoning for it in your world? I'll totally accept it if your answer is that we don't care about canon anymore!

Anon!

I love canon-adjacent questions, let’s get into it!

When writing RN, it was less about “we don’t care about canon anymore” and more “this thing in canon was not well-thought out, let’s fix it!”

So that’s what I did. Because it bugged the shit out of me that a school that had been around for 1,000 years would be inaccessible for so many parents. The castle can be Unplottable and warded six ways from Sunday and still let Muggle families visit, I’m sure. Because there’s no way half-blood (with at least one muggle parent) and muggleborn students’ parents were just totally fine with sending their kids off to a school they had never even seen. Not happening. And also kind of discriminatory, no?

Now let’s visit canon. In Goblet of Fire, Hermione explains how the different magical schools are hidden:

“But Hogwarts is hidden,” said Hermione, in surprise. “Everyone knows that . . . well, everyone who’s read Hogwarts, A History, anyway.”

“Just you, then,” said Ron. “So go on — how d’you hide a place like Hogwarts?”

“It’s bewitched,” said Hermione. “If a Muggle looks at it, all they see is a moldering old ruin with a sign over the entrance saying danger, do not enter, unsafe.”

But if we go back to Chamber of Secrets, Tom Riddle tells Hagrid in the diary flashback:

“The dead girl’s parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered.”

The girl Riddle refers to here is Moaning Myrtle, who is in fact, Muggleborn. From these two bits, I think that much like the barrier to Platform 9 & ¾ or the entrance to Diagon Alley via the Leaky Cauldron, perhaps Muggles cannot see Hogwarts until they know to look for it. Or wards are lifted on an as-needed basis sort of thing for Muggle parents. Either way, I think both you and I have put far more thought into this world-building than jkr ever did 😂.

Hey anon!

Thank you so much. Part of the reason RN is so long is because I couldn’t leave well enough alone when it came to canon things I wanted to fix. The muggleborn experience being a major one. I just cannot imagine how difficult that must be. Let’s take Hermione’s experience first. She has two (seemingly) involved, supportive parents, both dentists and no other siblings. They’ve got to come to terms with her being magical and then be all right with shipping her off to Scotland for most of the year, to a school they have never seen, to a world they can barely comprehend. I just cannot wrap my brain around muggle parents being okay with this? Before they even get to that point of acceptance, they’ve got to go on this bonkers shopping expedition, starting with Gringotts and just… figure it out on their own?

A family like Hermione’s is going to have a difficult enough time with it. Now what about other muggleborn children like Dean Thomas? From what little we’re given of him, we know he’s the only magical person in his family (from DH it seems he has a mother and sisters, all non-magical). A magical child of a single muggle parent with muggle siblings in tow? That’s going to be a nightmare. And I think of the Creeveys too, their dad’s a milkman and according to Colin (from CoS): “It's amazing here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts."

I think Hermione would be horrified at how ill-prepared these children and families are to enter the magical world. And so her program is my attempt to have some sort of orientation to magic prior to September 1.

I actually cut a scene when I was writing RN where Hermione tells Draco about her time spent Petrified in their Second Year. But I got too bogged down in the logistics of her parents trying to visit the school and how would they get there and how they’re informed their daughter is basically comatose and yeah, I think the story was long enough. Readers got the point, it makes no sense for Hogwarts, a school that has been around for a thousand years, to not have some sort of informational outreach procedure for muggleborn children/families. Like you can’t tell me there isn’t a Muggle equivalent of Lucius Malfoy trying to storm up to the school every other day over hippogriffs or potions accidents. Obviously with the books being from Harry’s POV we’re limited to how many other characters’ lives we can see, but the lack of time given to Hermione’s family life is such a gaping hole for me.