Please god, please be the character is 27 and not Emma Watson…please?
So, Harry turned 27 in July, as did Neville? And Ron’s been 27 for awhile (March, no?)
sweet jesus-I know when these fictional characters have birthdays.
Excuse me, while I go try to find a life–any life…
Harry, Neville and Ron are all 26. Hermione is the oldest.
You also forgot Ginny: August 11th. She’s 25.
Well, thank goodness we cleared that up.
As to the question of how many kids there are in Harry’s year, JKR has said that she created 40 for his year, complete with backstories, etc. (Dean’s story in particular is pretty cool) This doesn’t mean that every year has 40, but Harry’s year certainly does. Extrapolated into the wizarding world at large, 40 kids per year born and an average life expectancy of 150 (roughly Dumbledore’s age) comes to approximately 6000 wizards in all of Great Britain, which jibes with Jo’s approximation of the total GB wizard population (amazingly enough, given that she’s “bad at maths”).
But she’s explicitly stated that there are more students than that at Hogwarts. So maybe she’s not so great at maths.
I would trust her maths more, if she had said that there were more wizards/witches than go to Hogwarts. I keep coming back to Stan, the Nightbus conductor–'e never went to 'ogwarts! Surely there are many other examples of either working class wizards or ones who perhaps were deemed too sickly to go and were tutored or just didn’t get in for some unexplained reason.
We never do learn what Ginny did that when Ron and Harry were first years. Home schooled? probably.
What of the kids seen in the Ministry of Magic–the ones that took their parent’s wands and wrought havoc? They are what we would call pre-schoolers, but where do they end up?
What about Sally-Anne Perks and Moon and Parkinson? They are mentioned in the first Sorting, but their houses are not. I am not saying that they are Gryffindor, but they have to be somewhere.
IMS, Rowling said that she had to get the class list established in her head (and written down as notes) so that she could place Harry in his milieu (sp? I didn’t take French). Once that was done, the writing of the scenes with students became easier.
Anybody else notice how Slytherins get what some would call “high-falutin’” names? Millicent, Blaise, Draco–if the name is unusual, chances are it’s a Slytherin. Holds for adults, too, no?
You know, someone already linked to Rowling specifically stating that Stan Shunpike went to Hogwarts. There is simply no evidence at all that any wizards in Britain don’t, except for real weirdos like the Gaunts.
Again, as has been stated earlier in this thread, Rowling has explicitly stated that young wizards are homeschooled.
Who? Pansy Parkinson is in Harry’s year (or thereabouts anyway) and she’s in Slytherin. The other two names are not familiar to me.
You know, someone already linked to Rowling specifically stating that Stan Shunpike went to Hogwarts. There is simply no evidence at all that any wizards in Britain don’t, except for real weirdos like the Gaunts.
Again, as has been stated earlier in this thread, Rowling has explicitly stated that young wizards are homeschooled.
Who? Pansy Parkinson is in Harry’s year (or thereabouts anyway) and she’s in Slytherin. The other two names are not familiar to me.
JKR has said she has detailed backstories and houses for everyone in Harry’s year, not that she’s detailed them all in the books. Dean Thomas, whose backstory appears on her web site, was supposed to be explored more thoroughly but she sacrificed his story fo Neville’s because she found his story to be much more relevant to the central plot.
Sally-Anne Perks, Moon, and others of indeterminate house are listed in theHP Lexicon here. Links to the individual houses also reside there so you can see everyone by where they belong. There’s also an excellent summary of all the quanries associated with the “number of students at Hogwarts” issue.
The answer to the “does everyone go to Hogwarts?” question is answeredhere.
There’s lots of good stuff to be had a JKRowling.com; the answers to many quibbles can be found in either her Extras or FAQ sections. Failing an actual answer there, the Lexicon is an excellent resource, basing everything on its site on verifiable data (either from the books, interviews with Jo, or other relable sources).
Wow, my spacing and spelling were really atrocious on that last post. Apologies.
And they are still in high school? Huh, they must be retarded. Book 7: Harry Potter and the Short Bus.
No, they were in high school back in the 90s. Just because we’re reading the books now does not mean they’re in school now.
Yes, exactly. A few extra hours a day of classes adds up to a few extra weeks that year, during which Hermione was aging, but the calendars weren’t turning pages. Hermione’s age is according to her own frame of reference, but calendars do not, therefore her age and her birthdays are no longer in synch.
You wanted me to know so badly, Excal, that you had to tell me twice?
I had forgotten about the Lexicon–and excellent source for just such questions as these. Thanks!