My daughter was going through he tumblr feed this evening, and she suddenly piped up: “Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts.”
I don’t remember reading anything in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that would establish that as canon. I do recall that the escape from Malfoy Manor was over the Easter holiday. Easter 1998 was April 20, so May 2, 1998 would have been a Saturday about three weeks after Easter.
If I was reading correctly, the robbery of the LeStrange vault at Gringotts occurred on the same day that the Battle of Hogwarts began. So is it plausible that the time spent recovering from their injuries and planning the Gringotts break-in took about three weeks?
Or has Rowling posted a timeline somewhere that I haven’t seen?
I don’t think she has. In the past I’ve seen references to Harry Potter-related dates on the Internet that aren’t specifically mentioned in the books, and I believe devoted fans just worked them out based on the calendars for those years and what references there are to specific dates in the books.
A quick Google shows that May 2 is the date given for the Battle of Hogwarts on the HP Wikia, but I don’t see that they explain how this date was determined. The article does note that May 2 was the date of the fall of Berlin in WWII, so it may have been chosen (by either Rowling or HP fans) as a good date for the defeat of Voldemort for that reason.
In the second book, Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday cake explicitly gives his date of death as 1492. Since that was his 500th anniversary of death, the second book takes place over the 1992-93 school test. Alternatively, Nick’s Deathday party takes place a couple days before Bill Clinton was elected President.
In addition, Deathly Hallows has Harry’s parents headstone show their death as occuring in 1980. Made me sad, since I had previously figured out the book’s dates the way appleciders mentions above, and knowing it was no longer worth nearly as many nerd points.
In the UK, the Easter holidays for schools last 2 weeks for state schools, longer for public (private) schools, which Hogwarts is based on. Those holidays often start just before Easter itself, depending on when Easter is. So it’s possible that the escape was at the end of the Easter holidays rather than over Easter weekend itself.
April 20th to May 2nd is only 12 days, anyway, not three weeks.
sorry to bump a zombie, but i just closed deathly hallows after a re-read and can answer this. while harry and co are on the run, it’s mentioned that ron has been trying to tune in to a radio show run by potter supporters, that requires a password to listen in. it says in the text that it is march when he finally catches it (“but not until march did luck favor ron at last.”) they are captured immediately after this and sent to malfoy manor, and then escape to shell cottage to recuperate. i’d estimate that they were there a month, give or take (the text says “a few weeks”) which means the easter holidays took place in late march. the actual date of the battle of hogwarts isn’t mentioned, but may 2 would make sense.
i guess she didn’t check to see when easter actually was that year, but maybe the wizarding world celebrates it on a different date. /fanwank