Ages of Hogwarts First Years (now it's Hermione)

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 11868

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Trina" <lj2d30 at g...> wrote:
> 
> I believe Hermione was a "young" first year student and was 10 
> years old for the 1st two and a half weeks of term.  My basis for
> this is that *my* birthday is September 18 (oh if only Jo had made
> Hermione's birthday on the 18th!)

Trina, could it be that you and Hermione were born at the same time 
because of the different time zones? It's still 9pm Sept 18 
here in California when it becomes Sept 19 in New York. And London 
turned to Sept 19 five hours before NYC did...

> and I was only 4 when I started kindergarten, but soon turned 5.
> I was always one of the youngest in my class and graduated high
> school at age of 17.  

My birthday is November 7 (yes, I'm a Scorpio). I was lucky enough to 
start kindergarten in a school district that in those days had 
December 1 as their cut-off date, so I also was only 4 when I started 
kindergarten. Then I was lucky enough that some changes from public 
school to private school to a different public school district were 
worked in such a way that I skipped one semester each move, total of 
one year. I was 16 for my first two months of college and all the 
girls in my dorm freaked out that my mother would allow someone so 
young to go out of state.
> 
> Also, Jo has said that a magical quill writes the names of all 
> magical children born and they are then notified the *year* they
> turn 11.  So I think that, for example, all children who turn 11 in
> 2001 would be first years in the 2001-2002 school year.

I feel sure that the list of children who turn 11 that 'year' is a 
school year or a cut-off to cut-off year, not a modern calendar year. 
The time of beginning of the Muggle calendar year has changed a few 
times over the 1000+ years of Hogwarts's history -- the latest change 
was from starting on April 1 to starting on January 1 and supposedly 
the origin of April Fools Day was making fun of old fashioned people 
by wishing them Happy New Year. France changed to January 1 before 
England did, and for a time, English people writing letters in Jan, 
Feb, or Mar put a date like February 7, 2000/2001.

I grew up accustomed to a September 1 to August 31 year, because 
that's the 'water year' of California. Southern California rain and 
Northern California snow (the stuff that fills (hopefully fills!) the 
reservoirs when it melts) fall in a rainy season roughly December to 
March, and it wouldn't make sense to divide one season's rainfall 
between two years.

I always think that the magic quill would do better to write the 
names of all magical children in Britain who turn 11 between [cut-off 
date last year] and [cut-off date this year]. Besides some children 
might unfortunately die between birth and age 11, some children will 
have been born in another country before immigrating with their 
parents, and some born in Britain may have emigrated.

> Just because the  Muggle schools have a cut-off date of 
> September 1 doesn't necessarily mean that the wizard schools do.) 

Just because wizarding schools' cut-off date isn't (might not be) 
September 1 doesn't mean it's December 31. We could take care of 
getting Hermione into Hogwarts 2.5 weeks before her birthday by 
making the cut-off date September 30 -- or September 20 -- or Autumn 
Equinox, which is an idea that I like.