Charlie Weasley's age (Was: JKR update re: Colin)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 115905


I (Carol) wrote:
> > But I don't think Percy is old for his year. In fact, I think he's
young for it. Most wizards learn to apparate at seventeen, when they
come of age. Percy makes a big deal of his newfound ability to
> > apparate at the beginning of GoF, when he has just left school.
This suggests that he has only recently turned seventeen, either at
the end of the school year or during the summer.  
> 
> Hickengruendler:
> 
> We already know Percy's birthday. It's August 22nd, JKR wished him a 
> Happy Birthday on her website. Therefore you are right that his 
> birthday is during the summer. However, since he's four years older 
> than Harry, and Harry was fourteen at this time, Percy was already 
> eighteen. Therefore he really waited around a year to make his 
> apparating-license.

Carol responds:
Thanks. I missed that. But he's young for his year, despite being late
to apparate, so my point (long lost through snipping) still applies:
We can't solve the problem of Charlie's age by making Percy old for
his year because he isn't.  And we've still got the statement in SS/PS
books that it's been seven years since Gryffindor won the Quidditch
Cup. As I said earlier in response to Lawless's detailed post, there's
no way that Charlie, the Quidditch captain and champion, would have
let his team lose for the last four years of his stay at Hogwarts, and
adjusting Percy's age to make him old for his year wouldn't help much
even if an August birthdate didn't destroy that argument. In other
words, we just have to accept yet another inconsistency because JKR is
hopeless at math. Anyway, thanks for the info. I'm glad she wished
Percy a happy birthday. It shows there's hope for him after all. Now I
just need to wait for Snape's!

Carol