[HPforGrownups] Re: About Florence

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 45371

Melody:
> If Florence is approximately the same age as Snape, it is possible
> that she could be Mrs. Longbottum and had Neville.  It is Snape's age
> group that has children that are Harry's age.  So we can deduce that
> Mrs. Longbottum is *at least* close to Snape's age...assuming she did
> not become pregnant at Hogwarts. ;)
> 

Now that opens up some possibilities.......;-)

I want to question the assumption that it is Snape's age group that have 
children who are Harry's age. The apparently young age of Harry's parents' 
marriage and parenthood has been commented on many times. We don't actually 
know if it's the norm (although presumably the Lestranges also married 
shortly after leaving Hogwarts).

We haven't seen many other students' parents, IIRC, only the Weasleys, the 
Malfoys, Seamus' mother and Amos Diggory.
We have no clue as to Mrs Finnigan's age, nor really to Amos Diggory's, 
although he always sounds rather older, I think. Mind you, so does Percy, so 
I admit that's a dangerous line of reasoning.

When it comes to the Weasleys, I think it's pretty clear that they *are* 
older since their oldest child is considerably older than Ron. OK, so Ron 
isn't a first (or as often seems to be the case) an only child. Malfoy, too, 
despite only having (apparently) one child is also commonly perceived as 
being older than the MWPP/Snape generation. 

What it boils down to is that we really don't know *what* the average age of 
Harry's generation's parents are because we simply aren't told. I tend to 
agree with your later suggestion that the Longbottoms were rather older.

Of course, the other point is that we have no idea *who* it was that was 
kissing Florence, anyway. It might have been Snape, it's true, but others 
have thought that Sirius is more of the 'hex now, think later' mentality. 
Then of course, there's the Barty Crouch variation and the Filch was kissing 
Florence Norris variation.....

For anyone who hasn't read all these, a trawl through the CUPIDSBLUDGER and 
related theories thread (Post 35144 onwards) is very entertaining.

Eloise


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