Weasley's ages

[Lionel English]

No: HPFGUIDX 92788

> "Molly Rahe" <molly at e...> wrote:
> > According to JKR herself, Bill is at least 28 in book 5. 

I've just finished re-listening to Book 3, and have started re-
listening to Book 4.  I'll be to 5 soon, but off hand I don't 
remember:  Does she (the author's voice) say that he's that old, or 
is that merely an impression of Harry's?

--- "elfundeb2" <elfundeb at c...> wrote:
> If 
> Charlie was really only two years older than Percy, why wasn't he 
> still at Hogwarts in PS/SS, when Percy was a newly minted fifth 
> year prefect?  And it makes no sense to argue that Charlie had 
> just left the year before, because that would make nonsense of 
> McGonagall's statement (I think it was McGonagall, anyway) that 
> Gryffindor hadn't won the Quidditch cup since Charlie Weasley left.

Charlie must have been at least three years older than Percy (or 2 
1/2), because he was not at Hogwarts in PS/SS.  (This assumes, of 
course, that he attended the full seven years, and did not leave at 
the end of his fifth or sixth year).

In Book 3, McGonagall says that Gryffindor had not won the Quidditch 
cup in seven years.  This was five years before Harry started.  I 
believe in the first book it was mentioned that Slytherin had held 
the House Cup for seven years running.  So there may have been a 
year or two where Gryfindor won the Q cup but not the house.

We know that five years before Harry started, G won the Q cup, and 
that Charlie was the seeker on that team.  He must've been in at 
least his second year at this point.  McGonagall's statement simply 
says that Charlie was seeker last time they won; it does *not* state 
that they had not won since he stopped playing, so it does not imply 
that that was the last time he had played.  He could have stopped 
playing early, but this does not seem likely.  It is also possible 
that despite his being a very good player, he was on a weaker team 
after the "legendary match", and they simply didn't win again.  Or 
they didn't win their all their games by a large enough margin to 
take the Q cup.  We know that Wood saw Charlie play, so he couldn't 
have left *too* long before PS/SS.

So Rowling's statements are not impossible to reconcile.  Suppose 
Charlie is 2 1/2 year older than Percy, and started 3 years before 
him.  He would've then been in his third year at the time of the 
legendary match.  Perhaps his second season.

I can't remember off hand, but I think Wood simply says he saw 
Charlie play.  This seems to imply that they did not play together, 
but does not rule out the possibility entirely.  We don't know for 
sure who the Gr seeker was the year before Harry started; but it 
seems highly unlikely that it was Charlie.  This means that Charlie 
was already gone that year, or was there but didn't play.  The 
former seems more likely.  So we either need to push Charlie's age 
back one more year, or consider that he left after his sixth year.  
Still close to what Rowling said, and without violating anything 
else.

As an aside, the year before Harry started, we know that the Gr team 
consisted of Wood, the Weasley twins (their first season), Angelina 
Johnson, Katie Bell, and Alicia Spinnett (first season for all also, 
based on their year) and two unknown players (two because either KB 
or AS had been an alternate the year before).  We also know that the 
year before that, Wood is the only one of the known players who 
would've been old enough to have been on the team, but we don't know 
for sure that he was on the team that year.  That could've been 
Charlie's last year on the team.

Lionel