And back to... How Old Are Snape//James/Lily & co?

[hp_lexicon]

No: HPFGUIDX 76071

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Little lama" <mcandrew at b...> 
wrote:
> Lama says:
> 
> If I can just chip in here, these reported ages for Snape and Co 
> really bother me.  

They bother me too, but they are fairly accurate.

JKR said Snape was "35 or 36" but she wasn't specific nor was the 
question specific as to WHEN he was that age. The Lexicon gives the 
approximate date of 1960 but says that it could be several years 
either way. The general range, however, of them being born somewhere 
in the 1958-1962, is verified by the comment in OP that Harry is 
seeing his parents take their OWLs about twenty years ago. 


> the time Harry was born.  So in the three scant years between 
> leaving school in mid-1977 at around 18, and Harry's birth in mid-
> 1980, James and Lily had found time to undertake the necessary 
> training for and establish themselves in a demanding and 
challenging 
> career, which they had also pursued for long enough to accumulate 
a 
> large pile of money due to the special and arguably dangerous 
nature 
> of their work 

Here's where you're making a couple of errors. First of all, we 
don't have any idea what sort of "careers" they may have had. You 
describe those careers as damanding and challenging and even 
dangerous, but we don't know that. Second, all their money didn't 
come from any career of theirs. According to Rowling, James 
inherited his money.

So while the date of 1960 is not to be taken as anything other than 
an approximation, it's not far off and it doesn't create an 
impossible story line for James and Lily's lives. They married 
young, had Harry young, and were at the most 23 or so when they died.

Steve Vander Ark
The Harry Potter Lexicon