I think the dark mark is just a tattoo with a protean charm on it.

When Hermione changes the numbers on her fake galleon, the numbers change on all the galleons. When Lord Voldemort heats up the tattoo on one Death Eater's arm, all the tattoos start to burn.

So he'll need either a death eater or something else linked via the protean charm to all the dark marks if he wants to summon them.

 

Since the heirs of English magical aristocracy have studied magic in northern Scotland since the 10th century, you can also assume that Hogwarts was originally built complete with faux-steam engine train and sanitation equipment stamped with "made in china".

 

That still wouldn't tell the DE where to apparate though.

 

Sure it would. "I want to apparate to where Lord Voldemort is".

 

Train is staffed and probably runs on your typical coal, seeing as it produces steam. Before the train, students were probably told to get to Hogwarts on their own however they could or go fuck themselves. Or maybe there was a boat, like the one Durmstrang has. Or a hundred other possibilities.

 

See Pottermore:

 

Ninja'd by Glimmervoid - well done, old chap.

 

The Pottermore explanation is a bit naff, though. Clearly Floo powder exists by that point, as Headmasters resisted making Hogwarts accessible by Floo. So why not just Floo to Hogsmeade and walk up/get a carriage to the castle?

 

Presumably, because it's become a tradition of sorts?

Not to mention the impossibility of Harry becoming friends with Ron or James with Sirius, Peter and Remus, if there was no train ride.

 

Remember when Harry landed in Knockturn Alley?

Imagine all the muggleborns displaced.

 

I was talking about before the train was implemented, when they were looking for a solution.

 

I always assumed that it was because the pureblood families didn't want to take a 'common' mode of transport. Floo powder is ridiculously easy to pay for and it dirties your clothes and person with soot.

I don't imagine people who have aristocratic 'better than thou' sensibilities would want that route for both of these reasons. Only poor people use it and it makes your appearance less than perfect.

 

Before Pottermore nerfed it, I had a notion that there used to be a pilgrimage of those young people being collected to receive their magical education. It was done yearly, but the students wouldn't normally return home until they had reached a skill level that could keep their powers in check and enough sense to prevent others from controlling them. So every year after the harvest, the professors would travel to the places where stories of remarkable children were being told, found out who had the gift and 'bought' them from their parents for the next five years (apprenticeships in the muggle world operated the same way).

Later on the walking pilgrimage became a caravan. As it had evolved, people had taken note of the friendships being forged during the often difficult journey, and it grew into a part of the Hogwarts experience just as much as being Sorted or casting your first flawless spell.

Some purebloods might have wanted to skip the arduous journey, but the wiser ones knew that alliances are forged under conditions of shared hardship.

After the Statutes were implemented, the Ministry took note that the pilgrimage/caravan was getting a bit too conspicuous. At first they used a mix of quick travel methods, but the purebloods didn't want to subsidize muggleborns by paying for their Floo powder or portkeys. A ship was contemplated, but the first test voyage was beset by storms (likely induced by the young passengers' discomfort, which shows that accidental magic doesn't always act for the benefit of its creator). Suffice to say, the ship plan sank.

Thus, when the implementation of rail lines came about, the Wizarding world was only too happy to leverage it for their own needs.

 

Paying for portkey? How would that work? As far as I know, portkeys can be basically any kind of object, provided you know how to make a portkey in the first place.

 

If it's as difficult as it should be, this would be the reason to pay.

If you can splinch yourself Apparating, a botched portkey would probably spew your innards all over the countryside after that notorious "jerk behind the navel."

 

Who decided that you can't get an magical animagus
because 9 out of 10 fics where Harry tries to become an animagus he gets an warning that he can't become an magical animagus (eg. phoenix, griffin) but I can't find anything about where it came from.

or is this just something like Harry having an magical time-stopping trunk which also has an extra apartment and a portable room of requirement

 

Most likely the utter lack of any in canon. The closest to that we get is Dumbledore having a phoenix for a patronus.

I think she wrote on Pottermore that it's extremely rare but possible, and that the process of becoming an animagus in general is usually subject to the limitations of space and time. So people in England won't be turning into lions (or Nunduu), and people in this century won't transform into a T-Rex.

But . . . now I want something where Harry is a T-Rex animagus.

 

The problem with magical animagi is that it makes the ability rather OP.

I would be perfectly fine with a character having a magical animal as their animagus form if it was one of the lame ones. But it's always phoenixes and dragons.