There is hardly any mention of snacks or short repasts between the usual meals. There’s just mention of students bringing out glasses or pitchers of juice by the lake (not during meals surely.) And then you have parties and celebrations in the common rooms but the food there is likely bought or stolen. Come to think of it, there are no sanctioned cash-based transactions within the school, even for students nearing legal age. Hogsmeade trips are seldom and irregular.
So back to reality, are boarding/lie-in schools schools really like this? I remember as a kid, I had a stomach that could never get filled. Waiting for more than 3 hours for the next mouthful can be agony. BTW, I’m a thin guy, always have been.
My goodness, look at all the scenes that take place in the houses-of-commons
[ul]
[li]Book One: Troll fight in the girl’s bathroom[/li][li]Book Two: Chamber of Secrets in the girl’s bathroom (hmm, wonder what the menáge entendre was there …)[/li][li]Book Four: Moaning Myrtle ogling Harry in the bathtub[/li][li]Book Five: mention of the Room of Requirement serving an urgent need[/li][li]Book Six: Harry and Draco battling it out in the boy’s room[/li][li]Book Seven: toilets leading into the Ministry[/li][/ul]
Rowling is just a nasty person
When the kids are old enough they’re allowed to visit Honeydukes, in Hogsmeade, to buy sweets, but until then it’s all carefully overseen by Teachers. I believe that’s true of real British Boarding Schools too.
There’s also a shop in Diagon Alley, and I believe Fred and George Weasley sold some sweets at their joke shop too.
George and Fred Weasley had no problem getting the staff house elves to provide them with munchies. And when the trio eventually made it to the kitchen (I think Dobby needed some help with Winky ?) the staff just about buried them with food to take with them when they were leaving.
During Christmas vacation in I think the first book, Ron and Harry toast crumpets and other foods in the Gryffindor common room fire. And it sounds delicious!
I never went to boarding school, but I have on several occasions in my life found myself in similar situations - that is, living communally away from home with no control over the catering (no, it wasn’t prison).
After the first day of hunger between meals, what happens is that people automatically start cunningly pocketing food at the regular meals - at breakfast, you grab an extra bread roll and a couple of rashers of bacon and make a sandwich for later - at lunch, you save a cake or biscuit for later, and so on - and you make up for the shortage at the mealtime by eating more of what is available, but not portable - i.e. another potato or whatever.
I’m fairly sure Hogwarts robes have ample pockets, even without magic.
The very first book has the snack cart on the train, which spawned a whole range of snacks here in the Muggle world.
Chocolate frogs and butterbeers are probably so rich that the students can only consume them on rare occasions. And have you seen the spread they put out at meal time? I question how those students aren’t all 300 pounds.
