McGonagall's Age

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 23

Our old Yahoo club said:

<In PS, McGonagall is described as " a rather severe-looking woman" 
with her hair drawn into a tight bun, and as "a tall black-haired 
witch". I guess that mention of black hair makes us think she must be 
quite young, but my theory is that Minerva makes liberal use of the 
wizarding equivalent of 'Lady Grecian 2000' to create the illusion of 
youth. I wouldn't be surprised if to find that she was a contemporary 
of Albus Dumbledore and, in fact, about 60.>

Dummbledore is older than 60: 50 years earlier than CoS he was 
already the (auburn-haired) Transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts, so I 
imagine him as having been around 30 at that time, thus around 80 
when Harry meets him. I don't imagine him being anywhere near as old 
as Nicholas Flamel (but maybe he is, and it was his fight with the 
evil wizard Grindelwald rather than age that turned his hair white), 
but I do imagine that wizards tend to live longer than Muggles, for
an average of 100 years rather than our Muggle 75. Along this line, I 
expect that wizard folk, of any age over 30, tend to look younger 
than Muggles of the same age. McGonagall probably is 60 as you said 
(she was Harry's parents' teacher), but thus would be taken for 40 
or 45 by a Muggle.