[HPforGrownups] Re: HP Canon book question?

Shaun Hately drednort at gmail.com
Wed Nov 30 06:48:42 UTC 2016


No: HPFGUIDX 193082

On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 4:37 AM, J Lyon jnoyl at aim.com [HPforGrownups] <
HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>
>
> >Originally, I think it arose from the Deathday Party which marked the
> 500th anniversary of Sir Nicholas' death in October 1492. Hence, this is
> October 1992. Harry is in the Autumn term of his Second Year. Hence he
> started at the school in September of 1991 when he was eleven.
>
> James:
> This, and that is all canon has in it, and JKR regrets that whole Death
> Day party to this day, I am sure.
>

Aalthough for a long time, that was the only reference we had, JKR gave us
a reference in a later book that confirms the dates. James and Lily's
gravestone in 'Deathly Hallows' does confirm their date of death as 31
October 1981 - I just checked, it is there in black and white (page 268 and
again on page 272 of the British editions).

She also tweeted this year on September 1st that it was Albus Potter's
first day at Hogwarts which caused a mild kerfuffle because she'd actually
miscounted and it's next year that he is due to start (she confirmed this
in a later tweet).

This just indicates that JKR is not all that good at calendar mathematics,
which she has admitted before. The Harry Potter books are intended to be
set at a particular time, but she doesn't obsess about the details, which
is why 1st September is always his first day (and apparently still is). You
can certainly assume that the Wizard calendar doesn't quite match our own
(I do), but the years are pretty solid.
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