the Weasleys

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 42430

Debbie says:
> 
> Yes, I think the Lexicon is absolutely correct; I believe there is 
an enormous age gap, notwithstanding Ginny's statement at the end of 
CoS that she's looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since Bill 
came.  (Regardless of the actual age gap, that statement cannot be 
correct because Ginny cannot possibly have remembered when Bill went 
to Hogwarts.)   And I believe that at some point in the series the 
explanatory Weasley backstory will be told.  But that won't be for a 
long time, leaving us with years to engage in delicious speculation.
> 


Possibly Ginny's statement shouldn't be taken to mean that she's 
looked forward to coming to Hogwarts since Bill *first* came; simply 
that she's looked forward to coming to Hogwarts since *she remembers* 
Bill coming there.

Since the most likely date [according to the Lexicon] for Charlie 
leaving is 84-85, if we assume Bill is one year older he'd have left 
in 83-84, and Ginny would have been between 18 months and 2 and a 
half when he left for the first term of his final year. He was Head 
Boy; it was probably made a big deal of in the Weasley family.

I'd imagine that possibly the toddler Ginny got upset, clung 
desperately to Bill's leg, and insisted with whatever vocabulary she 
had that she wanted to go too... and it became a family story that 
Ginny wanted to go to Hogwarts with Bill. And since Ginny remembers 
that she's always wanted to go to Hogwarts, and has been told that 
she wanted to go with Bill, that's how she phrases it - I've wanted 
to go since Bill came.

Alternatively she might 'remember' it in the way I have one or two 
memories from between two and three - very clear 'pictures' of 
something, and it's my more mature knowledge that can identify what 
the pictures are (I've got a 'picture' of looking up at my pram, 
which was navy blue and towered over me, for example.) Ginny might 
have such a 'picture' of Bill getting on to a steam train, and it's 
her later knowledge that can tag this with 'it was the Hogwarts 
Express and I wanted to go.'

Pip