The timeline on the DVD *confirms* canon;

[psychic_serpent]

No: HPFGUIDX 55988

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "serenadust" <jmmears at c...> 
wrote:
> If you assume (as I sort of did) that everyone gets their letters 
> shortly before they turn eleven, then the 1979 birthdate for 
> Hermione would have her receiving her letter almost a year in 
> advance of her actual arrival at Hogwarts.  This "works" for me 
> for two reasons. First, if Hermione had nearly a whole year for 
> her Muggle parents to adjust to the idea and obtain her books and 
> supplies, then I can easily believe that she learned all the 
> books "by heart" and has had time to practice and master some 
> simple spells (on top of mastering everything she needed to learn 
> at her last year in her English "Muggle school", of course).  
> Clearly if her birthdate is 1980 as the timeline states, she 
> couldn't possibly have gotten the letter a week before her 
> eleventh birthday; she was already at Hogwarts then.  With this 
> scenario we can't figure out when the heck she got the letter.  
> This just bugs me.

Actually, I find it hard to believe that the students receive the 
letters at a time that relates to their birthdays, rather than when 
they are starting school.  That would mean letters having to go out 
all year, and the Muggle-borns who are close to the cut-off--
whatever it is--would have knowledge of their magical status well 
before they start school, which could lead to their revealing their 
abilities to Muggles, in violation of the law.  (They might be able 
to sit on this information for a month or two, especially if they're 
going on a holiday and aren't around their usual friends, but I 
think most kids would go crazy keeping a secret like this for an 
extended period of time living in the Muggle world.)  

It makes far more sense for the letters to come about five weeks 
before the beginning of the term, as Harry's did.  (It seems to be 
about five and a half weeks, actually, as the letters were 'trying' 
to reach Harry for about a week before Hagrid came to the rock in 
the sea with another one, on his birthday.)  The following summer, 
all of the Weasleys--and Harry--receive their letters about supplies 
for the new term at the same time.  All of the letters for the new 
students going out simultaneously is far more orderly than sending 
them whenever someone is turning eleven.  I'm guessing that Hermione 
received her letter when Harry would have originally (if it weren't 
for Uncle Vernon)--somewhere around July 24.  Given what we know of 
Hermione, I have no doubt that within a couple of days, she had 
purchased all of her things from Diagon Alley and spent the 
following month immersing herself in everything magical.  Our 
Hermione doesn't need an entire year to do this. :D

> Secondly, all the available canon implies that Hermione is the 
> product of an English school and an English family. Not Scottish, 
> certainly not American, and not Portugese as some posters seem to 
> have suggested.  As Ali confirmed in her post ::waves to Ali::  
> it's overwhelmingly standard in that system for the age cut-off to 
> be September 1 with virtually *no* exceptions.  IMO JKR indirectly 
> backs that up by *always* having the Hogwarts Express depart on 
> Sept. 1, suggesting (to me, anyway) that she's attempting to 
> reflect the standard British/English calendar.  The school year 
> ending in July also supports this calendar.  

Actually, the term seems to end slightly before June is over.  And 
other people who've posted here in the past have argued that there 
are in fact exceptions, because THEY are the exceptions.  So, the 
fact that we've had folks speaking from personal experience, living, 
breathing examples of people who didn't have to wait a year to start 
school in the UK means that it DOES happen.  Most people will tell 
you that American cities with a rigid Sept. 1 cut-off have no 
exceptions either, but I can speak from personal experience that my 
daughter was admitted to first grade at a city school despite not 
turning 6 until Sept. 9, and we had absolutely no trouble.  My son 
didn't start kindergarten until he was nearly 6 because of his 
October 27 birthday, but the following year he spent only a month in 
first grade before being bumped up to second grade, because he 
basically already knew everything the first grade teachers were 
going to cover that year, and it seemed fairly pointless to let him 
languish in first grade just because his birthday isn't seven weeks 
earlier.  For pete's sake, this is HERMIONE we're talking about!  
This girl is scarily smart.  I don't think it's just because she's 
nearly a year older than most of the other students in her year.

> If Hogwarts accepts all the Muggle-born first years who have spent 
> their school careers up to age 11 in that system, it just doesn't 
> make sense to me to have a different cut-off.

Given that most Muggle-born families we hear of (Hermione's, Lily's, 
Justin's, Colin's) are rather pleased to have a magical person in 
the family, if it means that student foregoing a year of Muggle 
school and starting Hogwarts instead, I hardly think they're going 
to complain.  As the Hogwarts education doesn't seem to follow 
logically on a Muggle education anyway, the parents might think that 
it's of little importance whether their child goes through another 
year of English grammar, History, Maths, etc. when he or she could 
be learning to repot mandrakes. <g>  

> I also think that the fact that Angelina Johnson having just 
> turned 17 in late October (GoF, chapter 16) supports the Sept 1 
> cutoff if she is a 6th year student at that time.  We should have 
> that confirmed if she's a seventh year in OOP.  Now, if the cutoff 
> is in fact the autumnal equinox, as some have suggested, then that 
> *could* solve the problem, but that's pure speculation at this 
> point, and I don't want to assume that without some real evidence.

Again, we don't know what year Angelina is in, although many people 
have assumed that it's the same year as the twins.  It seems a safe 
bet.  It's Cedric whom we know for certain is a sixth year who 
turned 17 before Halloween of Harry's fourth year.  And I'm not sure 
what kind of evidence you're looking for if it's not enough for you 
that JKR is TELLING us when Hermione's 12th birthday occurred and 
she had Dumbledore calling Harry and Hermione 13 year old wizards 
near the end of their third year, plus the rough estimate of 
Cedric's birthday.  All of this points to a deadline sometime 
between September 19 and mid-October.  While the available evidence 
doesn't give us an exact date, the evidence (Hermione being born in 
late September of 1980 and Cedric being born in October of 1977) is 
stacked against a Sept. 1 cut-off, or a cycle that follows the 
calendar year.  Rather than being Flinty, JKR taking the trouble to 
confirm Hermione's birth year at this time seems, as someone else 
pointed out, more like her going out of her way to have Krum being 
taught to pronounce 'Hermione' in GoF.  She's probably so sick of 
being asked she wanted to give a concrete answer once and for all, 
in hopes that the fandom could just move on.
 
--Barb
 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent
http://www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Barb