[HPforGrownups] Re: Question on wizards aging.

[Troels Forchhammer]

No: HPFGUIDX 114181

At 09:18 29-09-04 +0000, finwitch wrote:



<snip>

>I can think of several other reasons that wizards have longer life-
>span - it's not JUST because they're magical:
>
>1. No wizard smokes (at least I have never seen one do so, and I
>doubt JKR makes one), and thus they avoid several lethal (and painful)
>lung-diseases.

PS-5 'Diagon Alley' -- upon entering the Leaky Cauldron:

   "  For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old
    women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of
    sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe."

OotP-5 'The Order of the Phoenix' when Harry first enters the kitchen
in the headquarters just after the meeting:

   "  It was scarcely less gloomy than the hall above, a cavernous
    room with rough stone walls. Most of the light was coming from
    a large fire at the far end of the room. A haze of pipe smoke
    hung in the air like battle fumes, through which loomed the
    menacing shapes of heavy iron pots and pans hanging from the
    dark ceiling."
At least Mundungus must have been smoking, but possibly other members of the
Order did as well.

>2. No fast food. (and therefore, not so many heart-failures & such?)
>
>3. No idealizing of being skinny, to go with wearing robes (so no
>anorectics either)
>
>4. No traffic accidents leading to severe consequences (apparently
>they can fix splitting for the apparating excelently, at least it's
>not lethal).

1 through 4 were also true five hundred years ago, and they lived how
much longer than today?

>5. Some good Healing methods, even though they do have magical
>diseases to balance that. (like phoenix tears vs. basilisk bites, or
>Mansdrake Draught, Pepper-up potion...)

That would account for an longer average life-span, but not for a
higher maximum unless there is some way to 'heal' old age, in which
case we should expect wizards to live indefinitely (there is, but it
requires a Philosophers' Stone to make the Elixir of Life, and that
is very rare and obviously not the reason for their generally longer
life).

>6. What else is that Stopper of Death- potion doing than keeping them
>alive?

There is at least two or three other guesses that seem to me more
likely as to what Snape meant.


>7. Magical children can protect themselves effectively (like Neville
>bouncing after such fall!), so much less children dying because of
>nasty adults or unfortunate accidents...

Again this would only explain a longer average life, not a higher
maximum age.

Troels Forchhammer