Gran's age (Was: Wizard ages)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 149289

Geoff wrote <snip>:
> Secondly, posters in the past have on more then one occasion pointed
to Griselda Marchbanks as an example of a very elderly witch:
><snip quote> 
> There is another little piece in the same chapter which is interesting:
<snip>
> "I don't think it's true," said Neville quietly from behind them,
"Because Griselda  Marchbanks is a friend of my gran's and she's never
mentioned the Malfoys."
> (ibid. p.623)
> 
> I feel inclined to think that these two ladies are contemporaries -
in the way that schoolfriends sometimes stay in touch in later years
which could suggest that Neville's gran is equally old.

Carol responds:
While there's no question that Madam Marchbanks is ancient, I don't
get the same impression of Neville's gran (Augusta Longbottom), who
seems quite spry and is certainly still formidable. If Neville's
incapacitated parents are in their late thirties like Lupin and Snape
or their early forties like Lucius Malfoy, most likely Gran is in her
seventies or eighties.

My impression is that she's a contemporary of Minerva McGonagall, who
knows that Augusta failed her Charms OWL. It seems to me that only a
student in the same year (or at least the same House) would know that
information--unless McGonagall was Augusta's teacher, which does not
seem probable. (If Augusta was a classmate of McGonagall's, her time
at Hogwarts would overlapped Tom Riddle's, FWIW.)

Marchbanks being a friend of Gran's doesn't necessarily make them
contemporaries. Look at HRH and Hagrid.

Carol, staying away from Snape threads for the moment