Percy's B/day & new FLINT?

[Cathy Drolet]

No: HPFGUIDX 111029

Carolyn said:
"However, I still have little faith in JKR's maths. Would you agree 
that a fortnight has 14 days, for instance, even in the WW?"

DuffyPoo:
I have no faith in her math skills, or mine either for that matter. ;-)  

Perhaps HP's indicating that there was 'still a fortnight to go before he went back to school" was just a rounding off on his part.  From today, there is just over a week until Sep 1st, but if the 31st had fallen on, say, Thurs this year instead of Tues, I might call it a fortnight.  Close enough to a fortnight.


Carolyn said:
"If Harry had been with them a fortnight, they would have had to have 
mentioned celebrating Percy's birthday sometime between Harry joining 
them and leaving for school, wouldn't they? Too good an opportunity 
for Percy jokes to ignore, surely? One can only speculate hopefully 
on the present the twins might have given him for his 18th birthday."

DuffyPoo:
JKR said, "But I've never focused on their birthdays yet --there hasn't been room!" She was talking about Ron and Hermione, specifically, and that we see them give HP gifts on his birthday but haven't seen him give any in return.  You and I might not have minded a few more lines about Percy's birthday and F&G's jokes, etc., but it may be that her publishers might have objected, as it was they who took out the one line giving Dean Thomas' description in PS.(UK/Can versions).

I presume you're speculating as to adding the actual dates.  I think that is part of the problem.  JKR didn't, I believe, mean to have anything dated to actual calendars.


Carolyn said:
"Wednesday 27th- Sunday 31st 
Trouble at Ministry - 'neither Mr Weasley or Percy was at home much
over the following week' (Ch 10); Mrs Weasley says 'Your father 
hasn't had to go into the office at weekends since the days of You-
Know-Who'."

DuffyPoo:
This is only five days...not a week.   I think you have to back yourself up to start Sat on the 21st in order to get that last week to work.  That makes your total 11 days, I think, and close enough, possibly, for HP to think he has a 'fortnight' until school starts.  Just because there is no Sat the 21 in 1994 on our calendar, doesn't mean it isn't there in JKR's world.  That would mean the pickup at 4 Privet Drive happened on Aug 22.  At dinner that night Percy was drinking elderflower wine (I think) and they had homemade strawberry ice cream for dessert.  Maybe that was Percy's birthday request, and now he's grown up and working for the MoM he doesn't want a fuss made over a birthday, besides, he was too busy with his cauldron bottom report. ;-)  

Perhaps that little * between sections indicates a few days missing that would bring the days up to a fortnight. After all, we don't get a detailed description of everything that happens every day throughout the school year.  In OotP Hermione and Ron propose to Harry that he teach DADA, and that buisness ends a chapter.  The next chapter starts "two whole weeks after her original suggestion" had elapsed before Hermione mentions DADA to Harry again.  Interesting that here JKR uses "two whole weeks" instead of the word fortnight.

Just to add to the mix, Harry clearly indicates his scar hurting in the early hours of Saturday morning, the day the letter from Molly arrived, inviting him to come and stay.  On Tues, when they returned from the QWC, he tells Hermione and Ron that it hurt on Sunday morning.  Harry also says "I hoped he'd [Sirius] would get back to me quickly" (after he'd written him about the scar hurting).  This was still only Tues after he'd sent the letter on Saturday, and he pretty much knew Sirius was out of the country as the bird that brought the last letter was delivered by "large, brightly coloured, tropical birds."

Personally, I just don't take it all that seriously.  I never noticed that Sept 1 and Sept 2 were both Mondays until I'd read GoF at least a dozen times.  It doesn't make one particle of difference to the story (that I can see) or my enjoyment of it.

DuffyPoo



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