Molly and Arthur's Age

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 174563

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Katie" <anigrrrl2 at ...> wrote:
>
> I woke up this morning thinking about HP...and it popped into my head 
> that Molly and Arthur must be quite a bit older than Harry's parents, 
> Sirius, Snape, and all that group. Because when the books began, Bill 
> and Charlie were already into their careers and out of school, so maybe 
> 20 and 21?
> 
> How old do we think the Weasley parents are? Who would have been their 
> contemporaries at school? 
> 
> Katie
>
Carol responds:
It depends on whether you believe that Molly and Arthur went to school
before Hagrid became gamekeeper (his predecessor was "a man named
Ogg") and before Filch became caretaker (his predecessor, Apollyon
Pringle, supposedly gave Arthur some scars that he still retains) or
the statement in HBP that Arthur and Molly married right out of school
at the beginning of VW1. If the first is true, they have to be older
than Hagrid, who was expelled and made gamekeeper, or more likely
assistant gamekeeper at thirteen and is three years younger than Tom
Riddle. The Apollyon Pringle part is not so problematic: McGonagall
says in DH that Filch has been caretaker for twenty-five years, which
would mean that he became caretaker eight years before Harry was born,
when MWPP/S were about twelve years old.

Another clue is Arthur Weasley's rivalry with Lucius Malfoy, whom we
know to be five years older than Severus Snape and MWPP (see the
fistfight in CoS). If Molly and Arthur left school immediately before
MWPP/S entered it as first-years, he (and Molly) would be about three
years older than Lucius Malfoy. So the only piece that can't be made
to fit is Ogg, the gamekeeper before Hagrid. Hagrid, expelled in 1943,
would have had to be the assistant gamekeeper as late as 1970, when he
was fifty years old.

But then, we have two conflicting versions of when DD became
headmaster (when Tom Riddle applied for a job and when Lupin became a
student) and the whole impossible mess of Charlie Weasley's age.

JKR forgets details (completely natural given the number of pages
she's written and the number of years she's been writing--and the
editors can't be expected to remember details over all the books,
either. They're human, too, and working to tight deadlines). She even
has Harry say that DD "never killed if [he] could help it" when the
remark originally (and more logically) applied to Mad-Eye Moody. She
is utterly hopeless at math.

I think, though, that we're supposed to believe that the Weasleys are
about eight years older than Snape and the Marauders and Lily,
finishing school the year before that group enrolled at Hogwarts. And
I think that Bill, the oldest son, is supposed to be about nine years
older than HRH and Charlie is supposed to be seven years older. ("We
haven't won the cup since Charlie left" cannot be made to fit with "we
haven't won the cup for seven years" matter how hard we struggle.)

I recommend a combination of willing suspension of disbelief and
Double-think.

Oh, and can someone please explain to me how Lily's Muggle parents and
sister got onto Platform 9 3/4 in Snape's memory? Never mind. It was
necessary to the plot just like Lupin's transformation when the moon
peeped out from behind a cloud in PoA.

On another note altogether, did she mean for Albus Severus Potter's
initials to spell ASP? (I take no credit for this observation, which
was made by someone dear to me.)

Carol, who thinks that JKR weaves a powerful story and would rather
examine theme and character than plotholes and inconsistencies