Nicolas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone

[mongo62aa]

No: HPFGUIDX 58993

As many of the posters to this group are aware, Nicolas Flamel and 
his wife Pernelle were real people.  Nicolas was one of the most 
famous alchemists of the age, who, according to legend, did in fact 
discover the Philosopher's Stone.  He was born in 1330. (The date 
used by the Leaky Cauldron is 1326 - this appears to be a retcon made 
in order to allow PS/SS to take place during the 1991/92 school year) 

Every non-HP site I could find says that his birthdate was 1330:

http://www.flamelcollege.org/flamel.htm
http://seekers.100megs6.com/GatewaytoAlchemy9.htm
http://22.1911encyclopedia.org/F/FL/FLAMEL.htm
http://www.crystalinks.com/alchemy1.html
etc., etc., etc.

Hermione discovered the text concerning Flamel soon after the New 
Year.  In the text, we find:[quote]Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six 
hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year...[/quote]I take this to 
mean that Nicolas had turned 665 in the calendar year just ended, but 
had not yet turned 666. This would mean that PS/SS takes place in the 
school year 1995/96, which would fit with the publication date of 
1997 for PS/SS, and with the otherwise anachronistic PlayStation 
belonging to Dudley.

As for the Deathday Party, well, I would give it very little weight, 
as NHN has said at another point that he had not tasted food 
in 'almost four hundred years' or thereabouts - I do not have the 
actual quotation in front of me, but it was a lot less than 500 
years.  We have two inconsistant dates of death for Sir Nick, so I 
give the KNOWN birthdate of Nicolas Flamel much higher weight.

This would give us the following timeline:

PS/SS 1995/1996
CoS 1996/1997
PoA 1997/1998
GoF 1998/1999
OotP 1999/2000
Book Six 2000/2001
Book Seven 2001/2002

This would put Tom Riddle's fifth year, when he opened the Chamber of 
Secrets, in the 1946/1947 school year, a couple of years after 
Dumbledore had defeated Grindelwald.

I already know that this goes against the CoS DVD timeline, which was 
approved by JKR, but, since that timeline is basically identical to 
the Leaky Cauldron timeline, I suspect that the DVD timeline was 
copied from the Leaky Cauldron timeline, and approved by JKR after a 
cursory examination.  I do not think that she paid real attention to 
the dates, as is illustrated by the Famous Wizards Trading Cards, 
also approved by JKR, in which NONE of the witches or wizards are 
shown as living any longer than ordinary Muggles, despite JKR's own 
statements that magic people live longer (i.e. Dumbledore's 150 
years).  In another example that JKR was not paying attention to what 
she approves, she has written that Dumbledore had eaten Bertie Botts 
Every-Flavour Beans as a youth, but according to the cards that she 
approved, they were not invented until sometime in the 1950's or 
1960s, when Dumbledore was already over 100 years old.  Therefore, I 
do not regard the CoS DVD timeline as canon, even though JKR had 
approved it.  It is inconsistent with the books.

Bill