I don’t see why squibs can’t go to Hogwarts. There are more than a sufficient number of classes that don’t require your ability to cast spells and charms, and it seems unfair that children from magic families who grew up in a magical environment shouldn’t be integrated into magic society. It makes more sense to me for them to be potioneers or herbologists or finding some other way to integrate them into the world they grew up in as opposed to expecting them to adapt to the muggle world.
(Tech’s note: unfortunately you do need magic for those classes. I mean MAYBE dealing with magical creatures doesn’t require much, if you stick to the smaller stuff, but you can’t keep a dragon in check with no magic =| )
Why do you need magic for potions or herbology? Potions is just following instructions to find the right ingredients and prepare them properly. I suppose maybe some preparations of ingredients might require using a wand but not all of them.
Same with herbology? It’s just learning to tend plants which could sometimes require magic but not always?
As for care of magical creatures, Hagrid isn’t a fully realized wizard, and he’s capable. Why wouldn’t a squib be? Maybe they couldn’t handle a dragon, but it doesn’t seem like EVERY caretaker of magical creatures needs to handle dragons. In fact isn’t that rather rare?
JKR has given interviews saying that Potions requires magic and the use of a wand at some point (which means Snape’s “no foolish wand-waving” is an over-exaggeration.)
Here’s the exact quote, from a 2006 interview where a reader asked what would happen if someone without any magical ability could brew a potion:
J.K. Rowling: Well, I’d have to say no, because there is always…there are magical component in the potion, not just the ingredients. So, at some point they will have to use a wand. I’ve been asked what would happen if a Muggle picked up a magic wand in my world, and the answer would probably be something accidental… possibly quite violent. Because wands, in my world, is [sic] merely a vehicle, a vessel for what lies inside the person…
For a muggle you need the ability, in other words, to make these things work properly but you’re right and I think that’s an interesting point. Potions seems, on the face of it, to be the most Muggle-friendly subject. But there does come a point in which you need do more than stir. Thank you, good question.
I’d assume a similar requirement for Herbology, or possibly an implied (but not ever really seen in the books) requirement that you would need magic to successfully work with the plants, at least the more dangerous varieties – you might be able to handle something like Devil’s Snare with a lighter and some ingenuity instead of magic, but possibly there are plants that require actual spells rather than Muggle substitutes. (Even so, I’d assume that the theory and at least some of the subject matter would be within reach.)
However, I still don’t think that there’s a good reason for excluding Squibs from Hogwarts: you could have a curriculum for Squibs, given that there are plenty of jobs in the Wizarding World that don’t require use of magic. A Squib at Hogwarts should be able to take Astronomy, History of Magic, Muggle Studies, Ancient Runes, possibly Arithmancy (JKR hasn’t really developed this enough as a subject for us to know what it entails), and perhaps some abbreviated form of Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology. (They couldn’t, say, use a Severing Charm to remove a Crup tail, but they could observe unicorns, flobberworms, and help feed skrewts and whatnot. NEWT-level ComC might be out if magic is required around more dangerous creatures like hippogriffs, but OWL level ComC seems like it’s within reach.) They would also be able to study the theoretical portion of the magic-based subjects (Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, etc.), though I think it could be incredibly frustrating to learn all the theory and never be able to apply it.
But there are plenty of jobs in the Wizarding World that don’t need magic or that could be done by Squibs with the proper OWLs. How much magic does a Ministry bureaucrat need on a daily basis – you can’t be an Unspeakable or on the Committee for Experimental Charms or an Auror, but what magic do you need to work in the Department of Magical Sports or the Department of International Magical Cooperation? A Squib could easily serve as Minister for Magic – how much magic does Cornelius Fudge actually have to use?
A Squib could easily be a shopkeeper in Diagon Alley – not necessarily someone who has to deal with biting books or magical remedies, but, say, the owner of an ice cream shop or the Leaky Cauldron? (Heck, given that wizards don’t seem to generally have contact with Muggles but have to get their groceries somewhere, how about being a wizard grocer?)
Outside the realms of Ministry and small business (which do seem to be the two largest sources of magical careers), you could learn languages like Mermish or Gobbledygook and work as a translator, or serve as a liaison between Muggle-borns and the Wizarding World, or be an author writing books about any number of subjects (or fiction!), or be an actor and attend WADA (the Wizarding Academy for the Dramatic Arts, mentioned in Beedle the Bard.) You could use a NEWT in Ancient Runes to translate ancient works or be a magical archaeologist, or perhaps work on Arithmancy tables, or be an anthropologist and engage in comparisons between the Wizarding and Muggle worlds. YOu could be a reporter and publish articles in the Prophet – you might not be able to play Quidditch, but you could report on it. And assuming that the only difference between magical and non-magical photography is the developing potion, you could become a photographer and have someone else brew the potion to develop your prints. (With some help from full-fledged wizards, Squibs could expand their abilities even further – treat it like a disability that needs reasonable accommodation instead of something that warrants being cast out of the magical world, and the list of careers would widen.)
I mean, you’d certainly have to modify the curriculum, and many subjects that are Hogwarts electives would become Squib core curricula, but it definitely seems like there’s more of a role for Squibs in the Wizarding world than wizards generally allow – in-universe, you could say that cultural prejudice keeps them from being allowed these roles, but I’d definitely say it’s an area that should be ripe for activism.
(Of course, there’s another interesting aspect of things: pure-bloods in particular pride themselves on their magical ability and believes it makes them superior, and in-book being a Squib or having a Squib in the family is a source of shame, so the prospect of Squibs attending Hogwarts and surpassing fully magical students in certain subjects would be fairly major. Not to mention that Squibs are essentially Muggles raised in wizarding families – remove the stigma from being a Squib, and it removes anti-Muggle prejudice, which would further undermine the establishment. Look at how much emphasis is placed on having a wand, using a wand, etc., in DH – there’s a whole aspect here that I’m just touching upon, the idea that’s so ingrained in Wizarding society that wand-users are superior and that only people with the power to use a wand are truly citizens of the Wizarding world. Imagine a Hogwarts where wand-using witches and wizards, non-wand-using Squibs, and wand-using goblins/centaurs/non-humans could all attend, with different classes and different areas of study. That would make for a fairly radical shift in Wizarding society, no?)
fallingivy if you haven’t seen this yet
LAWS STUDIES IN THE MAGICAL WORLD and other various governments