[HPforGrownups] Re: Timeline for ages & events (updated yet again)

[Troels Forchhammer]

No: HPFGUIDX 85929

At 19:18 26-11-03 +0000, Marci wrote:

>I just finished reading PS again.  I came across Slytherin winning
>the House cup six years in a row.  No mention of them not winning
>since Charlie left.  Only mentioning is that Harry is a 'better'
>seeker.  I think he says something along those lines in POA though.
>
>See why I needed input?  LOL

Regarding the relative age of the two older Weasley brothers, I have
compiled the following based on earlier posts of mine to
alt.fan.harry-potter. I hope it'll help you just a little (it does
offer an upper limit on Bill's age, though ;-)

We know that there was seven years during which Gryffindor didn't win the
Quidditch cup until they won it in Harry's third year, /and/ that the last
time they won it it was with Charlie Weasley. That much is evident from
PoA-12 'The Patronus':

   "  'Seriously,' said Professor McGonagall, and she was actually
    smiling. 'I daresay you'll need to get the feel of it before
    Saturday's match, won't you? And Potter - /do/ try and win,
    won't you? Or we'll be out of the running for the eighth year
    in a row, as Professor Snape was kind enough to remind me only
    last night ...' "
(p. 184, Bloomsbury)

and PoA-15 'The Quidditch Final':

   "  The whole of Gryffindor House was obsessed with the coming
    match. Gryffindor hadn't won the Quidditch Cup since the
    legendary Charlie Weasley (Ron's second-oldest brother) had
    been Seeker. But Harry doubted whether any of them, even Wood,
    wanted to win as much as he did. The enmity ... "
(p. 221f, Bloomsbury)

I usually prefer this set of evidence which ties clearly to the Quidditch
Cup (it is not clear in PS whether it's only the House Cup or both the
House Cup and the Quidditch Cup that Slytherin has won for six years in a
row), however, if we discount Harry's second year (where the Quidditch
tournament was cancelled) the two numbers fit.

We cannot be sure that Charlie Weasley won the cup in his seventh year -
he may have stopped playing or he may have lost the Quidditch Cup the last
year or years while he was at Hogwarts. Still - I will claim that it would
be unreasonable to postulate that he was younger than in his fourth year
when Gryffindor last won the Cup (before PoA that is), and he was probably
older (seeing as he became the "legendary Charlie Weasley"), though not
older than his seventh year. All this adds up to Charlie being somewhere
between nine and twelve years ahead of Ron and Harry, which means that he
is between 20 and 24 at the time when Harry and Ron starts school.

There's a passage from PS-9 'The Midnight Duel':
"  'I tell you, we're going to win that Quidditch Cup for sure
    this year,' said Fred. 'We haven't won since Charlie left, but
    this year's team is going to be brilliant. You must be good,
    Harry, Wood was almost skipping when he told us.' "
(p. 114, Bloomsbury)

This might be seen as meaning that Gryffindor indeed did win just before
Charlie left (i.e. in his seventh year) and while that does seem the most
reasonable interpretation, it is, unfortunately, not the only. If,
however, we accept this interpretation, then we can deduce that Charlie is
twelve years older than Harry and Ron.

Let me summarise this graphically:

"Charlie's years" are his Hogwarts years, which are extended beyond the
seven to provide a reference. "Harry's years" are also Hogwarts years, and
"Gryf. not winning" are counting the years in which Gryffindor didn't win
the Quidditch Cup. At the right is the scenario in which Gryffindor won
the cup when Charlie was in his seventh year (the most likely) and at the
left is the, IMO quite unlikely, scenario in which Gryffindor and
Charlie's last victory was in Charlie's fourth year.

Harry's    Gryf. not    Charlie's    Gryf. not    Harry's
  years      winning       years       winning      years

                            1
                            2
                            3
                            4
                1 . . . . . 5
                2 . . . . . 6
                3 . . . . . 7
                4 . . . . . 8 . . . . . 1
                5 . . . . . 9 . . . . . 2
    1 . . . . . 6 . . . .  10 . . . . . 3
    2 . . . . . 7 . . . .  11 . . . . . 4
    3 . . . . . 8 . . . .  12 . . . . . 5
    4 . . . . . . . . . .  13 . . . . . 6 . . . . . 1
    5 . . . . . . . . . .  14 . . . . . 7 . . . . . 2
    6 . . . . . . . . . .  15 . . . . . 8 . . . . . 3

This makes Charlie presumably 9 to 12 years older than Harry.

It is possible for him to be down to 7 years older if we completely
discard our sense of the reasonable and focus on what's possible given the
texts ;-)

On to Bill.

In CoS Ginny tells Harry that "'I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts
ever since B-Bill came" which tells us that Bill must have been at
Hogwarts while Ginny can remember. Ginny is one year younger than Harry
and Ron therefore 10 to 13 years younger than Charlie. If we claim that
Ginny could, at the earliest have remembered Bill going to Hogwarts when
she was 1, then we can start computing an upper limit for his age. If she
remembered him going to Hogwarts in his last year when she was one, then
he would be about 16 years older than her and 15 years older than Harry
and Ron. The youngest he can be is about 9 months older than Charlie,
which might even put them in the same year. Charlie's age must therefore
be the lower bound for Bill's age as well.

If we go by what seems the most realistic interpretation of Charlie's
Quidditch victories - i.e. that he and his team won while he was in his
seventh year, then we get a Charlie Weasley who is twelve years older than
Ron and Harry, and if we furthermore require that Ginny was three years
old when she remembers Bill coming to Hogwarts, then he would be about
thirteen years older than Harry and Ron (14 years older than Ginny).

There are obviously some uncertainties involved in this - if Ginny's
memory is of Bill coming home with his NEWTs he might be a year older,
there's the statement from PS-7 'The Sorting Hat' that "Slytherin have got
the cup six years in a row!" (Nearly Headless Nick says that, but he's a
ghost - who knows how good his sense of time is ;-) though that might
refer to the House Cup alone and not to the Quidditch cup as well.


Troels