Ages of Hogwarts students

[serenadust]

No: HPFGUIDX 41962

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Richelle Votaw" <rvotaw at i...> wrote:
> Finally, Hermione.  JKR stated that her birthday is September 
19th.  So, did she receive her letter early and start at Hogwarts 
when she was still 10?  Or did the letter tell her to come the 
following year?  If she began the year that she turned eleven, 
though still ten for 2 1/2 weeks, she would be about 6 weeks younger 
than Harry, 6 1/2 months younger than Ron.  On the other hand, if 
she received her letter after term had begun and had to wait till 
the next September to start at Hogwarts, she would be 5 1/2 months 
older than Ron, and 10 1/2 months older than Harry.
 
Hi Richelle,

If you type "Hermione's age" into the search engine, you will find 
enough posts/arguments/discussions to entertain yourself for weeks.  
If you check Steve's lexicon, you will find (under Timelines, 
Hermione) an essay by Ebony who eloquently makes her case for 
Hermione being younger (1980 birth), rather than older (1979 birth).

 It's not all that important to me, but I do think that she was born 
in 1979.  My reasoning is based on the fact that JKR does seem to 
base Hogwarts school schedule on the British/Scottish calendar and 
most of the British listmembers who have weighed in on this topic 
seem to believe that Hogwarts would have the same Sept. 1 cutoff 
date as most schools in Scotland.  Therefore, anyone with a Sept. 19 
birthdate would fall into the next upcoming class.  My second and 
stronger reason for believing Hermione is older is based upon 
chapter 16 in GoF where Angelina Johnson is eligible for the 
triwizard tournament because she has just turned 17 in October.  My 
assumption has always been that she was in the same class as the 
twins which would make her one of the older 6th years.  Canon isn't 
really clear on this point though, so if she's still around as a 7th 
year in book 5, we'll have strong evidence for Hermione's Sept 19 
birthday making her older than Harry and Ron.  As it stands, we just 
don't really know, but loads of people care passionately about this 
and as you can see from the archives, argue diligently for their 
particular point of view.

Jo Serenadust