OOP: Neville Apparating? (WAS Re: Scary Thought)

[Tom Wall]

No: HPFGUIDX 66675

Simon wrote:
Here's a scacry though. From the different books, we have found out 
that Apparating is not east. Percy failed before getting his license 
but the twins managed on their first time. And that many 
wizards/witches won't apparate becos its difficult/dangerous.

Now can anybody see Neville doig well with apparating or will he be 
visiting the local wizard hospital for unspecified injuries :>

Tom replies:
Although I don't have my copy of GoF handy, I was under the 
impression that the Apparation test was taken after a student 
graduates from Hogwarts. I'm basing this on the fact that Percy can 
Apparate by the beginning of GoF, and there's a comment (from one of 
the twins, I think) to the effect of "he's been Apparating 
everywhere, just to because he can." This indicated to me that his 
Apparation was a very recent development.

To that, we can add two canon points: one, you can't Apparate on the 
Hogwarts grounds, so it's unlikely that the students could practice 
for the exam at Hogwarts, which suggests that they learn how to 
Apparate somewhere else; two, the tests take place on level six of 
the Ministry, at the "Apparation Test Center." (OoP, US edition, 
Ch.7, p129) To date, we've never heard of any of the older students 
leaving Hogwarts for their tests - and you'd think it'd be a big 
deal, sort of akin to getting a driver's permit or license, wouldn't 
you?

So, all of this combined with the fact that there will be only seven 
books, one for each of Harry's years at school, suggests that we 
might really never get to see any of the kids in Harry's year 
Apparate at all.

-Tom