[HPforGrownups] Gryffindor students in Harry's year! and ages at starting

[Simon]

No: HPFGUIDX 11836

Steve wrote: "I am impressed! This is great! Since I read your post, I have
been trying as hard as I can to find some other explanation for that scene,
but there doesn't seem to be any other way to look at it. But why do you
know that they're female? Maybe five is as many as fits in ANY dorm room, so
if the other two are boys, they have a separate room?"

The following is from CoS Ch 6: "The dormitory door flew open and in came
the other second year Gryffindor boys, Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas and
Neville Longbottom."

Meaning there is definitely only 5 boys.

Also the room could be magically expanded if needed to fit in more people.
Also why would it be a 5 / 2 split between rooms? 4 / 3 seems much more
sensible.



Heidi wrote: "I am convinced that the cutoff date has to be a little
flexible. In my HP Universe, children of wizards and/or witches start
Hogwarts on the September 1 after their 11th birthday (or on their 11th, in
the case of kids born that day) but children from Muggle families, who
attended Muggle primary schools, start Hogwarts when they've finished
primary school and are ready to enter a comprehensive/go to boarding school,
which may or may not be after they are 11. In other words, if Hermione
skipped a year in primary school or started kindergarten at 4, three weeks
before she turned 5, she would've started Hogwarts at 10, turned 11 just
after starting, and would be about 7 weeks younger than Harry."

This makes a lot of assumptions about the schooling that someone has until
they go to Hogwarts. A reasonable proportion of the UK does not go to
Primary school. Primary (years 0 to 6) and Secondary (years 7 to 13) is just
one possible split of the school system. I went to primary school for the
first couple of years of my education and then transferred into an area that
has first (years 0 to 4), middle (years 5 to 8) and upper (years 9 to 13)
schools.

Year 11 corresponds to GCSE year, which is the school year in which you turn
16.

The public school (private) is even more confusing over different school
types. Prep schools educate anything up to 14 year olds (depends on school
and student).

I do agree that it is possible for Hermione to be 7 weeks younger than
Harry, but I would be very surprised if this is the case.



Simon