It has long been debated exactly when the time line for the illustrious Harry Potter series begins.  Speaking of course of the birth of the main character, Harry Potter forward.  J.K. Rowling has never given an exact year in the books for Harry’s birth.  Only a month and a day, July 31.

This being said it should be noted that while a great deal of the reason for the unmentioned year is Rowling’s ever-elusive writing style.  It is almost certainly also due to the publishing companies that distribute the books all over the world.  Publishing companies have a distinct habit of requesting or even requiring that authors not date their books.  

Dating a book is when someone includes a specific year in which events in a book take place. Months and days are fine, but years bracket the story into a specific time frame.  The reasoning behind this is that publisher’s want their books to be universal to all ages. Being capable of taking place during the current time frame, or during the reader’s time frame.  No matter how far in the future someone reads the book. This is especially true for younger readers.  A number of publishing houses prohibit the use of year dates in juvenile fiction for fear of invoking a generation gap between the reader and the characters, causing the reader to lose interest in something he or she can’t relate to.

This could explain part of the reason a year is never given for Harry’s birth. But some events in the books are telling.  They even contradict each other.  Even publishers miss details once in a while, and continuity for a writer, can be a difficult art to master.

Fans have long taken it upon themselves to try and decipher all the clues existing in the Harry Potter books. Sketching out their own time line.  The anchor point of this time line being the 500th Deathday Party, of Gryffindor’s house ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, though he prefers to be called Sir Nicholas. This takes place in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  (Chapter 8 page 133, American Hardback edition, first printing 1999)  Here in bold print it specifically states, on Sir Nicholas’ cake:

“Sir Nicholas De Mimsy-Porpington
Died 31st October 1492”

Using this as a point to back track from, fans have determined that Harry’s birthday would be July 31,1980.  As 500 years from 1492 would be 1992.  Harry is in his second year at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry during this book.  Having started at age 11, which is standard for students of this school, he would have been 12 in this book. Thus the time line determination.  (A full time line using this theory can be seen at the Harry Potter Lexicon at “http:/www.12k.com/~svderark/lexicon/timeline.html”)  Guess the publishers didn’t notice Sir Nicholas’ cake. OOPSIE! 

JK, even went so far as adjusting and approving a time line on the recently released Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone DVD. Which clearly marks Harry’s birthday as July 31, 1980.  So we must accept this time line as fact and canon, now mustn’t we? Not necessarily. 

Muggle technology is such a pain isn’t it?  Especially when it comes to Harry Potter.  It won’t work on Hogwarts School grounds and apparently it’s still flawed on Privet Drive. Technology has always been an irrevocable time marker for human society. The abacus, the first calculator, the first computer, and first gaming system are good examples.  In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which documents Harry’s fourth year at Hogwarts, where he is now turning 14, Harry writes a letter to his Godfather Sirius, the summer before his fourth year. In this letter he very clearly states the following, when speaking of his cousin Dudley:  (Which can be found in the American Hardback edition, first printing 2000, Chapter 2 page 25)  

“They told him they’d cut his pocket money if he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and chucked his PlayStation out of the window”

This taken in account, the ever-popular Sony PlayStation can be the only gaming system JK is speaking of. This one little piece of muggle technology sets the entire Harry Potter time line on its ear. The first Sony PlayStation came out in December of 1994.  (Please see the Sony Corporate website for reference information at http://www.scee.com/corporate/sonyhistory.jhtml)  Assuming that Dudley had indeed gotten the first of the line, which considering how spoiled he is would be very likely, of a line totaling four versions to date.  Harry would have to be at least a year younger than previously thought!  Since Harry sends his letter before his fourth year begins, if he had been born in 1980 it would have been June or July of 1994, some 5 or 6 months before the first PlayStation came out!

This leaves us with only one answer.  Harry could not have been born before July 31, 1981, in order to have written his letter in line with the technological time frame.  We know it couldn’t have been a second model of PlayStation that Dudley owned, The PS One, because Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published July of 2000, and the PS One didn’t make it’s debut until September of 2000, 1 or 2 months after Harry would have written his letter.  Apparently JK Rowling failed to notice this small flaw.

It is more in line with my beliefs that the books themselves are written and published just after the events depicted in their pages. Which would most certainly be in better keeping with the technology influenced time line we now see our selves presented with.  Then again we also have the predicament of Sir Nicholas’ Deathday party and it clearly states he died in 1492, five hundred years prior, which again would have made it 1992 and not 1993 as would have been necessary for Dudley to possess his PlayStation when he did. The Harry Potter time line continues to contradict it self time and again.

Perhaps after 500 years a ghost’s memory gets a bit dusty, or maybe he possessed a small amount of vanity and wanted people to believe him younger than he really was.  Or maybe in the Harry Potter world, there’s some way one can acquire new technology a year before it’s released to the rest of the world.  
We may never know.  The only thing that remains certain is that the Harry Potter time line will forever remain a conundrum.

Eraina M. DeLong
May 10, 2003