[HPforGrownups] Very Elderly Wizards

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 130984

Dave wrote:
>Just wondering -- If Dumbledore is circa 150, how old does that make
>Prof. Marchbanks and the other OWL examiners??

It stretched the boundaries a bit, Marchbanks's revelation that she'd
examined Dumbledore. I think that a lot of us had assumed that Dumbledore's
age meant that wizarding folk lived about twice as long as Muggles.

There is other canon to support reappraising that. I'm thinking of the
description of Armando Dippet in CoS. He sounds very much older then than
Dumbledore is now.

If Dumbledore is around 150 at the start of the series, it means that he was
born around 1840 and was therefore examined in the mid to late 1850s.

Although examinations are carried out now by retired professors, that
doesn't mean that that was always so.

My own theory is that at the time Dumbledore took his exams, they were
marked in-house. Let's wonder whether Marchbanks was round about
MacGonagall's age when she examined him, that's around 70. That would place
her year of birth round about 1790.

It also suggests that wizarding folk can potentially live three times as
long as Muggles. Barring potential accidents, Dumbledore could theoretically
be headmaster for another 50 years or so and still remain hale. I doubt that
the WW has any concept of retirement ages or old age pensions!

hwyl

Ffred

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