harry potter - Is there an estimate of how many people work for Ministry of Magic?

it seems that with some exceptions (couple of shops/eateries in magical villages, Gringott's Bank, newspapers and Hogwarts are all that come to mind), a lot of wizards/witches the magical world seems to be employed in some way by the Ministry of Magic.

Is there a good estimate (either based on exact character count, or actual calculation based on a plausible model) of how many wizards/witches work for Ministry of Magic (either head count, or as % of adult population)?

Answer

The absolute minimum is 500. From book 4 (p.93, first Am. ed.), regarding the quidditch world cup stadium.

Seats a hundred thousand... Ministry task force of five hundred have been working on it all year.

So there must be at least enough employees to keep the government running with 500 missing. I'd say that it's unlikely the government could function (to the extent that it ever does) with under, say, half. So that would be around 1000. JKR has said the wizarding population is around 3000. With 1000 in the ministry and 1000 attending Hogwarts, leaving 1000 (less small children) for other jobs - Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, St. Mungos, etc.

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harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

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In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

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Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

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