Vague Thoughts on Apparation

[annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 93465

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:
> I'm confused about apparation and how the students learn it. Curious
> about how other see the process.
<snip bboy_mn's ideas on learning apparition, which look good to me
even though I got a different impression>

Annemehr:
Great!  Well, before I jump in, I'll just note that some of the minor
details of learning to drive are different in my state, but I won't
bother listing them since some of those laws have changed a bit since,
er, 1976!  :D

Just going by my impressions from the books (and Percy, Fred, and
George), I got the idea that learning to apparate has nothing to do
with Hogwarts.  That would mean that everyone turning seventeen during
a given school year would go home for the summer and *then* learn how
to apparate.  I don't know who teaches them -- just anyone who has an
apparition license, or a Ministry official?  Then when they're ready,
they take the test with a Ministry official and are licensed by the
Ministry.

The reason I got these impressions is because 1)I figured it had to do
with the Dept. of Magical Transportation, and 2)the three Weasleys
who've acquired licenses in Harry's experience have done it in the
summer, and Fred and George's birthday was in April.  There was plenty
of time after term ended for them to learn and take their tests before
Harry joined them.

That's not to say they couldn't have been learning apparition in
Hogwarts without Harry noticing, I realise, but that wasn't my
impression.  Of course, maybe they would have had to go out to
Hogsmeade to really practice as the distances may have been too short
for really good practice within the Hogwarts grounds.  I still think
they don't do it at school at all, though.

Let's see...
OoP isn't really specific about when exactly Fred and George passed
their test, but GoF has Percy passing his two weeks before Harry
arrived at the Burrow, which is apparently about three weeks before
the start of term for Harry's fourth year. (GoF ch. 6, p.67 US)  I
checked the Lexicon, which does not have a specific birthdate for
Percy but does have this to say:

---------------------------------------------
Percy is four years older than Ron; he was in his fifth year when Ron
was in his first. He was probably born in the summer of 1977, so that
he didn't turn 17 until he left Hogwarts. He got his apparition
license during the summer of 1995 and enjoyed Apparating here and
there just to show off the fact that he could.
----------------------------------------------
[Note: Lexicon means to say he got his license in the summer of 1994,
which is when he would have turned 17 if born in 1977, and it's also
the year at the beginning of GoF.]

Percy turning 17 after leaving Hogwarts seems odd to me, because it
would mean he was a whole year ahead; he would have had to have spent
his entire seventh year at Hogwarts as a sixteen-year-old, in other
words.  And yet Fred and George and Angelina turn seventeen during
their sixth year (GoF), so how can Percy never turn seventeen until
after his seventh year, unless a cutoff date was ignored somewhere?  I
think he must have had his birthday before he left school (quite a bit
before), but didn't learn apparition until the summer.

Well, take it for what it's worth.  I enjoy delving into these kind of
questions, but I don't have a real attachment to these ideas or anything.

Annemehr  
who didn't mean to turn this post into a discussion of Percy's age or
anything...