What year was it when harry was in his First, Second, third, fouth year in hogwarts. I have always wondered those questions, what do you Guys think?

Harry's first year at Hogwarts was 1991. A good source for information like this is the Harry Potter Lexicon, a fan website that catalogs all sorts of information from the books, like time-lines, etc.

ya, but, it doesn't look like 1991, (even though i wasn't around till 1994), like, does britian really look like that nowadays?

The final battle which was between Harry and Vodemort was in 1998. So that means that in the first year at hogwarts it was 1991, and Harry was born in 1980, am I right?

Ya probally....lol, wait, it was in 1998? weird..why so far back in time?

Well if you see that Jk was writting this serias for a long long time than probably when she made the first book was 1991??? I don't know ,maybe.

Yeah JKR first thought of Harry Potter and the wizarding world on a train to London in 1990, and spent seventeen years developing and writing it, so I guess she chose 1991 as the time that Harry started Hogwarts because she first wrote about the characters and that world during that time even though she did not publish the first book until 1997.

JKR did not put many specific year dates in the book, the ones she did include related to wizarding events like the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in 1692. The date that allowed for the determination of the books in space and time was the 500th Deathday party of Nearly Headless Nick on 31 October 1492. Thus 500 years later would be 1992, the time that Harry was in his second year at Hogwarts.

You can find the Timeline for the wizarding world at the HP Lexicon. Warning! Its is quite long starting from the 10th century BC until 1 September AD 2017 when Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione sent their kids off to Hogwarts at Kings Cross in the Epilogue.

This is the entire break down of books - school years - actual year and characters age. These are actually just off the top of my head.

Characters birthday:

Hermione was born September 1979 while Ron was born March 1980 and Harry was born July 1980 so I'm also going to put how old each character was when they broke up for the hoildays.

Book: School Year: Actual Year: Hermione: Ron: Harry

PS - Year 1 - 1991 to 1992 - 12 - 12 - 11

CoS - Year 2 - 1992 to 1993 - 13 - 13 - 12

PoA - Year 3 - 1993 to 1994 - 14 - 14 - 13

GoF - Year 4 - 1994 to 1995 - 15 - 15 - 14

OotP - Year 5 - 1995 to 1996 - 16 - 16 - 15

HBP - Year 6 - 1996 to 1997 - 17 - 17 - 16

DH - Year 7 - 1997 to 1998 - 18 - 18 - 17

Hope that was helpful or useful or interesting.

Seventeen years later - 2015 - 35 - 35 - 34

Look like what, exactly? What, in the little we see of Muggle Britain doesn't look like the nineties?


Ten years is far back in time? Not for an adult. I'm a few years older than Jo and frequently think of something happening rather recently, only to realise it happened twenty years ago.

What I wonder about is when Rowling makes reference to time intervals in the books, how often does she mean it as an exact time and when is it aproximate. For example, in COS it is mentioned that the Chamber of Secrets was opened 50 years previously and Voldemort's entire timeline is calculated based on that. Did she intend it that way or just as 'about two generations ago'? Where this matters is with the timing of Voldemort's killing of the Riddles - in GOF it is dated as 50 years before summer 1994, which would have been when Voldemort was 17, between his 6th and 7th Hogwarts year, but in HBP it supposedly happened in his sixteenth year, ie 2 years earlier, between 4th and 5th Hogwarts year, before he opened the chamber of secrets. According to the first reading the conversation with Slughorn about Horcruxes was in Tom's 7th year, according to the other - in his 5th or 6th. The latter makes me wonder why the shocked Slughorn didn't do anything to dissuade Dippet from appointing Tom as Head Boy.

There are at least 2 obvious timeline mistakes in the books - Sirius' claim in June 1994 that Voldemort had been hiding for 15 years (was he hiding while at the top of his power?) and Snape's claim that in June 1995 he brought Voldemort 16 years worth of information on Dumbledore. I guess Sirius and Snape can't be better at math than Rowling, but things like that make you wonder what to make of other mentions of time in the books - how well can you rely on them when trying to put events in order? For instance, how seriously should I take Fudge's claim, made in July 1996, that Voldemort had been eluding capture for almost 3 decades? Does this mean Voldemort was already wanted as a criminal before the first war started 'officially' around 1970?

A not-entirely-flippant speculation: could it be that one of the many differences between the wizarding, and Muggle, worlds, is that in the former, times and dates and figures in general, are a bit more "elastic"? Possibly in "their world", two plus two does not always equal exactly four... a potentially attractive notion for those of us afflicted -- like our author -- with poor-to-dreadful maths skills.

I think it's not so much Jo not being able to do her maths as her not caring about it in the Potterverse context. She has a rough timeline, I think, not a detailed one as later made by various fans. In some interviews she's said something happened in this or that year - but is it something she has figured out for herself, or did it take it from somewhere else?

The CoS being opened "fifty years ago" I take as approximatley. It has a nice ring to it, much better than "fortyeight years ago" or "fiftyone years ago", and the exact years doesn't matter. Just as you would say "ten years ago" even if it really was nine...But you wouldn't say "ten years ago" if it really was sixteen years - perhaps you would say fifteen years.

I'd like to ask Jo if she regrets giving us Nearly Headless Nick's exact death year...or if she just finds it amusing when fans try to make a consistent timeline from a work that didn't have one to begin with.

A point there, Eir de Scania. One would reckon that when JKR started on the Potter books, she didn't greatly expect to become a global-sensation author, with many millions of impassioned fans. When such a situation comes to pass, some of the millions of fans will inevitably be obsessive nitpickers, homed-in on every smallest detail of author's works, and wanting agreement of them, with every other smallest detail; and a number of those obsessive nitpickers will be of the "mathematical" kind.

Concur with you -- interesting to wonder in what proportions JKR finds it flattering, awkward and embarrassing, or simply amusing, about some of her fans wanting everything to work out exactly, to umpteen decimal places, when "that stuff" is basically not very important to her.

Hi, guys.

The time line for Harry is pretty well settled, so I've changed to title and am expanding the topic of the thread to include the current discussion, which is how JKR treats dates in her world. Sometimes she seems precise, other times, not so much. Does it make a difference?

Pleione
LL Moderator

Well, already in PS she gave the exact year of the Dumbledore vs Grindelwald duel. Initially it seemed less important, because in PS it seemed the relevant timeline was from the beginning of the first war, some 20 (actually 21) years before Harry's first school year, but COS expanded the timeline to 50 years previously, and then DH went back to Dumbledore's early years. One could take the references to 50 years and 20 years as rounded dates, but even in the first chapter of PS we are told the war lasted 11 (not 'more than 10') years. There are other places where non-rounded times and ages are specified - like Sirius claiming Barty Jr was 'not a day over nineteen' when he was arrested. Really? Does a 20 year-old look that different from a nineteen year old? Such a non-rounded age invites calculating - OK, Barty was arrested after Voldemort's downfall and was not yet 19, this means he only finished Hogwarts the June before Voldemort attacked the Potters.

OTOH the whole period of apparently 25 years between Tom Riddle's leaving Hogwarts and the beginning of the first war is described very vaguely, with very few canonical events, and even fewer events whose time is given explicitly. We know that some 10 years passed between Riddle's murder of Hepzibah Smith and his subsequent disappearance and his resurfacing for his job interview with Dumbledore, but these 2 events have been placed by different fans pretty much anywhere within the above mentioned 25 years. Does this matter? Depends in how much detail one wants to understand the initial rise of the Death Eaters as an organisation and the conflict with the Ministry. Even within the first war we really don't know much of what was going on before the Marauders' cohort left school. I don't think the level of violence was uniform throughout, I think things were getting worse as time went by and most of what we hear is from the late years of the conflict, but it is hard to tell.

If we ignore all exact years, whether from 'Wizard of the Month' pages or the books themselves, I suppose one could say the important events fall into several time periods: The summer of Albus and Gellert, about 100 years ago; Tom Marvolo Riddle's school days, about 50 years ago; the beginning of the first war, some 20 years before PS; the late years of the first war, some 10 years before PS; Harry's school years. If all you want is a general view of the conflict perhaps all you need is to place events in these general categories and not worry too much about the exact order of deaths of Order members or when each DE was recruited.

Excellent observations Oryx (at least IMO )!

Perhaps there is an extra aspect which might merit to be taken into consideration: We get a good part of these dates not from documents (like the cake for Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpinton in CS and the Godric's Hollow graveyard inscriptions in DH), but from oral communications, and probably we have little reason to assume that such oral communications about the past will be more exact in the Potterverse than they are in our world. (How many years ago was Apollo 13? How many years ago did Blair become prime minister? For hbow many months have you been a reader of the HP books? Giving your answers without checking against any written sources of information: how many cents or knuts or whatever woulds you bet on the exactness and correctness of your answers to these questions?)

Yes, and perhaps some of those oral communications tell us more about the person delivering them than about the event in question. Perhaps when McGonagall tells Umbridge her tenure at her job is 'thirty-nine years this December' - the purpose isn't for the reader to add a datapoint to a timeline but to show us how significant this timepoint was for McGonagall, or for us to see McGonagall showing Umbridge that her questions don't make her nervous in any way.

I agree completely: JKR has done a very good job ad providing each of her main characters with their own language and style of argumentation. That a good a job that it would be unwise not to consider who is speaking when interpreting any of the statements of the main characters.

This has been running through my mind for a while now and just thought i would put it down to see what others thought. In The Philosophers Stone on the Dumbledore chocolate frog card it says on the back that DD defeated Grindewald in 1945 and we know from Deathly Hallows that this duel was
just 5 years after there friendship ended which was when they were both 17 or 18. What do we think to me it would make DD a whole lot younger than the 110 plus i have heard elsewhere.

I've read DH several time and I don't recall any mention of it saying that the duel was 5 years after their friend ship ended.

Milligan got me wondering and I am trying to research and it appears she does have a point. In Chapter 18 pg.358 (US) it does state that it was 5 years of turmoil.
However, there can be no doubt that Dumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, and disappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald.

That would have made DD about 74 when he died but on the calendar card on JKR's website it says DD was born in 1881. Of course Skeeter's info could have been faulty????

I think that the five years of turmoil, etc, could be referring to the five years of the muggle world war. (For Britian and Europe (and Australia) this started in September, 1939.) Grindlewald could have been quietly building his forces until then.

Two threads have been merged here Squish <---- moste potente spell

Please feel free to continue your discussions but, please keep the focus on the use of exact dates, and the mathmatical applications not used well and why JKR decided to do so. Thank you

Moose_Starr
LL Mod

I agree. There was a delay of 5 years before DD went after Grindelwald, but nothing to say that 5 years was immediately after the experiences we hear of. In fact there would be no reason for DD to assume that Grindelwald was about to go straight out and attack and be the worst wizard right then and there. It would take time to build up his support and his philosophy and become feared. To me it's clear that 5 years after Dumbledore realised there were issues with his former friend he finally went after him. But it's also clear that those 5 years do not occur immediately.

I would like to correct that a bit. The five year figure comes from Rita, so need not be balanced, accurate or even true. Rita would at best be counting from the earliest possible moment that Dumbledore could have been aware that his former friend was up to no good.

Either JKr just randomly picked dates, of which I highly doubt, or she chose specific dates of significant occurences in her life. She did state on earlier throughout the series that she sometimes referred back to past life experiences... Which I find interesting to do.. So perhaps that is what she did.

Doesn't Krum say that Grindelwald was a teacher at Durmstrang? It's unlikely that the school would employ him at 18, just as Hogwarts didn't employ Voldemort at that age.

So you have however many years before he became a teacher, plus however long he taught before him then leaving and starting his five years of terror.

I don't think Grindelwald ever taught at Durmstrang-after all, he was expelled from the school so I doubt they would have let him back in to teach.

I feel that JKR tends to play kind of fast and loose with her dates and numbers, just because they aren't all that relevant to the big picture. When it is relevant, then she stresses it by repeating the same number a few times: In Chamber of Secrets, for example, it is stressed that the Chamber was opened 50 years ago, the diary is 50 years old, the award Ron has to polish "about 50 times" is 50 years old. In Prisoner of Azkaban, it's mentioned repeatedly that the events surrounding the Potters' deaths happened 12 years ago, that Sirius Black had been imprisoned for 12 years, etc. It also comes up a few times that Scabbers has been with the Weasleys for 12 years-- a clue. But generally, numbers and dates fly around pretty easily. For example in the same chapter that unveiled the connection between Scabbers's 12 years and Sirius's, someone refers to Voldemort as having been in hiding for 15 years, which isn't right. It's like the whole "how many students at Hogwarts" debate, to which there is no real answer because it seems to change often, just as rooms move about from floor to floor-- which could be argued as intentional. In those situations, as long as we can visualize the student body and the castle, it really doesn't matter-- it's part of the scenery, not the plot.

I don't think JKR was particularly bothered with dates. She just set the series in 1991+ because that was when she started writing it. For a couple of examples:
*Dudley having a Playstation in early Book 4 (ie July/September 1994) when the console wasn't even released in Japan until December of that year
*A date which escapes me (1st of September? 31st of July?) falling on the same day in two successive books
Dates in the series are just meant to give a sense of relative passing of time - for example, Dumbledore was older than Voldemort who was older than Harry's parents. The dates given in the books aren't sufficiently accurate (and consistent with one another) to support anything more exact than that, but that is all the story really needs.

Well there are a lot of inaccuracies, and inconsistencies when it comes to the dates etc... I've always for one gotten the idea that September 1st always is a sunday, because their school starts the next day, the fist Monday.

That Harry was born in 1980 and all these dates I'm pretty sure are confirmed by JKR and they seem to be widely accepted... Though it's the question, Lily and Petunia can't have been so far apart in age, and you'd guess Vernon isn't too much older than Petunia... But he owns a big(?) corporation at 20-25?

The best source of information about this question of dates is Chamber of Secrets, when Harry went to Nick's 500th death's birthday. In the 8th chapter, it's said that Nick had dead in 1492. So, if it was his 500th death's birthday, in the second year of Harry the year was 1992.

Bold mine
Uncle Vernon is the director of a firm called Grunnings - that doesn't mean that he owns it, or that it is a large corporation. Also, he could be any age (in 1980) from early 20s to in his 30s. His age is not mentioned.

I don't believe Vernon is 20-25 I thought of him in his late thirties and the movie makes him seem even older then that.

Ok, not the owner, but still, high ranking (and they want large orders from other companies at least.)... His age is not mentioned, no, but do you think it likely Petunia (2 years older than Lily according to this), 23 at the beginning of book 1 would be married to someone 10 years older than her?


Same answer to you, if he was in his late thirties, that would mean Petunia married a man about 15 years older than her.

I believe so, they mentioned before that Voldermort spent lots of time with "the worst of the dark wizards" (they mention this in book two)

Sure why not? Doogie Howsers mom married a man 15 years older then her. Besides it's not like Drummings (or whatever the name was) was a major multibranch company. Vernon just owns one factory, it's not inconcieveable for someone to be younger then 40-50 to own a company, rare but not impossible.

Why couldn't Vernon have been 15 years older than Petunia? Once a person becomes an adult, the age differences between mates certainly become blurred. If a mature 30-something meets a nice 40 something they usually aren't fussed with the percise differences in their ages (unlike say a high school senior dating a freshman, which might be a big deal). I could see Petunia wanting the security of an older man and Vernon certainly being greatful for the attentions of a younger woman. Younger women marry older men far more frequently then the reverse actually. Often because it provides a certain degree of security in their mind. As Vernon's age is never stated, it's hard to say but I don't think he was in his 20s at all in the series.

As for JKR I don't think she was to fussed with Dates until fans became fussed with them. Beyond establishing an "order of events" and who is older than whom, acutal pin-point to the second dates and numbers aren't really in JKR's head when she pens her story, I don't think. She proably only has a vague idea of "eras" in her world where in certain events happened. I certainly don't think she thought the deathday cake would become the central point in the Potter calendar system.

Has anyone realised that if the chamber was opened in Riddles 5th year, and it was 50 years ago when harry was 12, that means at the time when harry was 12, voldy was 65 years old! and Hagrid was 63! so at the end of the series voldy was 70 years old when he died! and Hagrid was 68! i never realised how old they were!