Wizard Aging Process

Rita Winston catlady at wicca.net
Mon Jun 25 02:37:57 UTC 2001


No: HPFGUIDX 21390

Zarleycat wrote:

> If you are a wizard married to a muggle, and your 
> muggle spouse dies at a normal muggle age, is it
> customary/unheard of/possible to find a new (wizard) 
> partner, remarry  and start a second family?  

Or a new Muggle partner. Based not on canon, but on the fact that the
wizarding folk are human beings, I feel it's not that unusual for  a
never-married wizard aged 100 to marry a nice witch aged 25 and have a
few children, spaced at convenient 10 or 20 year intervals. She'll be in
the market for a second husband in another 50 years, sooner if he got
mixed up with Death Eaters and so on.

Magda Grantwich wrote:

> Something has been bugging me about the wizard aging process.
> Dumbledore is 150 (or so).  McGonigall is 75ish.  
> Now this would make sense if a wizard ages one year for every two
> Muggle years: a man of 75 is old and a woman of 37ish is middle-aged
(snip)
> Snape is 35 (or so).  Does he act like a 17 year old?  Yes, sometimes.
> 
> THe trio is 11 to 14 in four books and they reflect their ages just
> as they would if they were muggles.
(snip) 
> So my question is: when does a wizard's aging process slow down so
> he/she can reach the 100 plus stage?  When you hit adulthood?  When
> you reach 70 or so?  Is it simply an extended old age?
> 

I take 'Snape is around 35 or 36' to mean he was around 35 or 36 in PoA.
Born 1957-8, aged 42-43 in 2001. Anyway, his emotional immaturity is not
reflected by his apparent physical age, which could perfectly well be
early 30s. As if he, like the kids, has been aging one for one so far. 

In the Young Tom Riddle flashback in CoS, that was 50 years ago, so
Dumbledore was 100, but his hair was still auburn. i don't think I know
ANY men of 50 with NO gray in their hair -- some are already quite
silver by that age. That suggests that Dumbledore aged slower than one
for two in his first 100 years. 

Meanwhile, as a Muggle woman of 43, I am quite sure that McGonagall is
older than me, not just older than 37. She also has been aging more than
one for two, altho' less than one for one. Altho she is for sure not
over 60 in Muggle years. 

My time line has Bill born in 1965-6 school year (could be born one year
later if only one year older than Charlie not two years older), which
would make him 29 in GoF, and Charlie 27 in GoF, and they both seemed
slightly younger than that. I think the previous guesses were 24-25 for
Bill and 22-23 for Charlie. So they have concealed around 4 years each.

The example of Bill and Charlie suggests that the aging slows down
starting even before the full maturity of, say, 25.

*counts on fingers* Suppose they reach age 21 and then start aging at
one for two for a while ... Bill = 21 + 1/2(29-21=8) = 25, okay, 
Charlie = 21 + 1/2(27-21=6) = 24, not so okay, 
Snape = 21 + 1/2(35-21=14) = 28, I don't think so.... 
Dumbledore in TMR Diary = 21 + 1/2(100-21=79) = 60, i don't think so...

I don't see how to fix a system that makes Charlie and Albus come out
more aged than they really are AND Severus less aged.

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