Tonks's age/ ages in general

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 70314

Rachel wrote:
> With regard to Tonks leaving Hogwarts at 17, it is actually more 
> likely that she left, and most students, leave Hogwarts at 18. 
Harry 
> is one of the youngest in his year, because he has a July 
birthday, 
> and so starts, for example, 5th year, aged 15. He will only turn 
16 
> in the Summer holidays after Oop, but, most students would have 
> turned 16 during the 5th year, some even in September at the 
> beginning of the year. It kind of confuses things that JKR has 
made 
> it so that Harry is one of the youngest in his year!

Rachel, how do you know that Harry is one of the youngest in his 
year? There isn't any canon evidence, is there? In fact, I'd say 
that Harry's experience was fairly average, given the amount of 
students disappointed that they can't enter the Tri-wizard in the 
October of their sixth year. I don't know if you're going on the 
English cut-off dates or not - these are the ones that would make 
Hermione one of the oldest students in the year, right? (I could 
snootily point out that Hogwarts is a Scottish school and our cut-
off date is at the end of February, but I'm not sure if this would 
help matters or not)
Kirstini, scratching her head like a puzzled monkey.