Harry's Height /Cho's a midget?

[serenadust]

No: HPFGUIDX 36875

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Laura Huntley" <huntleyl at m...> wrote:
> 
 I said:
 What 
> >has always seemed very wierd to me was that in Chapter 13 of the 
> >same book Cho Chang is described as being shorter than Harry by 
> >about a head.  Most girls are close to their eventual adult 
height 
> >by the age of 14 (she's a year older than Harry, right?).  I'm 
> >mortified to admit that I measured my 13 year old daughter's head 
> >(didn't tell her why, of course, since she already has her doubts 
> >about my sanity), and it's about 8 1/2 inches long.  This would 
> >indicate to me that Cho is only about 4 1/2' tall!  Since she's a 
> >seeker I would expect that she would be relatively small, but 
> >wouldn't this make her almost freakishly short?  I wonder if JKR 
> >thought this through.

Laura said:

> Being one of the "little people" I feel obligated to add my own 
two cents to this matter.  I'm about 5' 1or so and I'm pretty sure I 
won't be growing anymore.  *accepting sigh*  Anyway, this is short 
for a female, but not "freakishly", as Jo put it.   


I'm *so* sorry, Laura.  That was an extremely poor choice of words
to describe what I was thinking.  I absolutely didn't mean to be 
insulting.  Having been what I always felt was *freakishly* tall in 
my early teens, I should have known better than to put it that way.  
Abject apologies.


<snips Laura's description of her height vs younger brother>

> 
> Therefore, even if Harry hasn't been growing with the same vigor 
that my brother has, Cho still needn't be *that* short. 
 It's all in the perspective, you see -- and it's perfectly 
reasonable that Cho be 5' and Harry around 5' 4", 5' 5".
> 
> mmm..well..
> 


Well, I agree that if it all played out the way you described it, 
then Cho wouldn't be all that unusually short.  It's just that the 
way Harry's shortness is emphasized in all the books (Ron even 
described him as a "midget in glasses" and Trelawney talks about 
his "mean stature" in GoF), and the way that girls this age have 
usually matured to their approximate adult height, I kept thinking 
that Cho must be *really, really* short.  Of course, it all depends 
on your point of view :-).  Anyway, I hope I didn't step on too many 
toes with this.

Jo Serenadust, shutting up about height, now