Is Petunia older or younger than Lily?

[hp_lexicon]

No: HPFGUIDX 118415


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at e...> 
wrote:
> > (See, this is why I don't entirely trust the timelines on the 
> > Lexicon, which is otherwise really good.)



> is some inconsistency there, although Steve at the Lexicon does 
> use 'circa' with most dates to indicate approximation). 
> 

Thanks for pointing this out. We don't have exact dates for James, 
Lily, etc. That's why there's a c. in front of the dates. In fact, 
if you look at many of the dates, they appear twice or three times: 
once as c. XXXX, noe as YX (XXXX), and then possibly as just XXXX. 
That's because I wanted to be as accurate as possible. ONce is for 
events which are approximate, one is for events which are relative 
to other events, and one is for dates we are given specifically in 
canon.

I don't care if you choose to not trust the timelines, but please 
read them correctly so you make your choice to trust or not trust 
honestly. I think some people think I just made stuff up or wrote my 
guesses down as exact facts, and I promise you that I didn't.

How do we know when James etc. were born? There are a number of 
references, but the most clear is Jo's recent statement that Sirius 
was "about 22 years old" when he was sent to Azkaban. That means 
that James and Lily were also about 22 years old when they died. We 
can't say for sure how long it was between their deaths and Sirius's 
being sent to Azakaban, so none of these dates are exact, but we can 
get pretty darned close.

Again, distrust the timelines all you like. Most of the errors have 
been spotted and fixed, but there is always the possiblity of more 
errors in something this complex. However, don't distrust it based 
on a faulty understanding of how it's put together or where the 
information comes from. 

Steve
The Lexicon