school years = how old is hermione??

[Megan]

No: HPFGUIDX 28101

<snip loads of debate on Hermione's age>

Just because Hermione is smart & top of her class, does not mean she
is younger (and therefore more of a "protegé").  I have a classmate
who has a similar birthday (in fact earlier) to Hermione's, is top of
the class, and is almost one year older than I (as I my birthday is
RIGHT before the cut-off, making me only 17 for most of the summer
after graduation).

What proof do we have?  We do know 100% that JKR stated that a magic
quill writes down the names of people as they were born & gives them a
letter after their ELEVENTH birthdays!  If Hermione were still 10 when
first coming to Hogwarts, she wouldn't have (according to JKR--does
this count as canon??) even received her letter yet.  Even if you
maintain that Hermione could not hold the secret that long (assuming
she received her letter in the September before Hogwarts begun), we
could also assume that students receive the letter the summer after
their eleventh birthdays.  This also works.

Not to mention, by the time you reach that age, intelligence has
pretty much evened out.  I'm a whole lot smarter than people born
almost a year earlier than I...so birthdates are really arbitrary
(except when you want to go out!) in secondary school.  Hermione could
just be small for her age--she is female, after all--compared against
two boys.  It also doesn't matter what grade she was in in Muggle
school, as I'm sure Hogwarts could care less about what she is doing
in the Muggle education system.  There is also NO EVIDENCE suggested
that Hermione was a "special case" and therefore sent her letter
early.  McGonagall and others only show her favor AFTER she arrives at
Hogwarts and shows her obvious intelligence to them herself.

As someone who lives this situation of a birthday "deadline" in
school, I maintain that it's only logical that Hermione was like every
other child at Hogwarts and arrived being 11--there's no evidence from
canon (in fact some to contradict this theory) and it's not the mot
logical course for an author to write into her story.

-Megan (who almost wishes she had been born in September--not
August--so she could go out with the rest of her 18-yr-old friends!)