Oh my god...

I just realized something.

For years, we’ve all wondered how there can be 1000 students (according to J.K. Rowling) in Hogwarts when there are only a handful of students in Harry’s year.

The math doesn’t add up.

We’ve all just assumed that it was an error.

But what if there’s normally dozens of students in each house, in each year?

What if Harry’s year was the exception?

What if there were less students in the Hogwarts Class of 1998 because the period when the other kids would have been conceived (1979-1981) was when Voldemort’s reign of power was at its peak? Between the dozens of adults who joined the Order, the dozens of civilians who were killed in Death Eater raids, and the dozens of adults that didn’t want to bring a child into the world, just then...It’s actually entirely possible that there was a baby drought for a few years in the wizarding world, leading to a smaller class size a decade later.