Hermione's age (was A Mistake and a Question)

[Sofie Campbell]

No: HPFGUIDX 23447

My first point is why does everyone seem to presume that Hermione 
would have to be much more mature  than her classmates for her to 
have been born on September 19 1979? I speak as a sixth form student 
(Sixth year at my school, though going into seventh year in 
September). My birthday is in March, so when I started school I was 
four and a half. This was fairly normal, however in my class there 
were also children who were turning five and others who had just 
turned four. Again this in the British school system is normal. 

I'm questioning the maturity thing because my two of my friends were 
born very far apart. Laura was born on the 27th of October 1983 and 
Zoe was born on the 22nd of August 1984. Now according to what a lot 
of you have previously stated, Laura should be much more mature than 
Zoe. I beg to differ, I would say that in maturity stakes thay were 
equal. I don't know how old any of you are but surely it isn't too 
long since any of you were at school. Were your friends born in 
September more mature than those born in the August of the following 
year? I think not. Life experience matures you, what you has happened 
to you is what makes you grow up. If you've had a particulary hard 
life than you probably mature quicker, the same if you have older 
siblings.

Now take the characters of Harry, Ron and hermione into account. 
Harry has suffered emotional abuse since he was a baby. Raised by 
people who would rather not have had him, Harry has had a fairly hard 
life. Now let's look at Ron, he has five older brothers. To fit into 
this family he would have had to act old for his age. We heard the 
twins teasing him in the first book about his mother trying to get 
something off his nose. He obviously resented this and so will have 
made an effort to act older to regain the respect of his brothers. 
Finally we come to Hermione, both her parents are Dentists possibly 
orthodontists. In Britain Dentists are well paid so Hermione has 
probably come from a middle class background and will have been quite 
sheltered. This may have brought her down on the maturity stakes.

My last point is look at Parvati and Lavender, now compared to them 
see how mature Hermione really is? Even Ginny, an academic year 
younger could give those two girls a run for their money in the 
maturity stakes. But then not only does she have older siblings she 
has had a quite life changing experience in that she almost died in 
her first year.

Well that's my point finished. I hope I've made myself clear. Once 
you get past say five, birthdate has nothing to do with how mature 
you are. Finally I'd like to say that if you have older friends then 
you are more likely to act older than your age. Speaking as someone 
who could quite comfortably converse with adults and be treated as an 
equal aged age ten upwards, I would say that I was quite mature for 
my age which is why I am perfectly comfortable belonging to this 
group.

Sofie, 17 and a proud Gryffindor.