Rating:
G
House:
HP InkPot
Characters:
Hermione Granger
Genres:
Essay
Era:
The Harry Potter at Hogwarts Years
Spoilers:
Prizoner of Azkaban J.K. Rowling Interviews or Website
Stats:
Published: 01/02/2006
Updated: 01/02/2006
Words: 1,022
Chapters: 1
Hits: 1,735

Hermione's Actual Age

who girl

Story Summary:
It is a well known fact that Hermione used a time turner in her third year, however how much she aged from it is debatable. Here is a reasonable answer, using the books, math, and other reliable sources in order to get it. Slightly edited

Chapter 01

Posted:
01/02/2006
Hits:
1,735
Author's Note:
I like a broad range of fanfics and have read a lot that deal with marriage laws or older relationships for Hermione. One thing I noticed between most of them was the outrageous age they gave Hermione. It began to annoy me, so I began to search the web and see what other people have written about this. Except no one has. So I decided to.


It pops up in various fanfics, and is most often incorrect. It can be a passing comment or used as a device to further the plot. There is no canon proof that using a time turner actually aged Hermione in her third year, and most likely J. K. will never bring this topic up, so this is all a what if the time turner did age Hermione.

Hermione using a time turner in her third year would not age her an entire year. Or two. Or even three, which is the number one fic had. Hermione could have aged a few days and weeks due to her time turner in her third year. This conclusion can be reached though simple arithmetic and guesswork based on the book and other sources.

There are five electives that we know of: Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Care for Magical Creatures, Divination, and Muggle Studies. Hermione took them all in addition to the core classes: Astronomy, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, History of Magic, Potions, and Transfiguration. (HP Lexicon)

Now the length of each class is unknown, as is how many classes they have each day, so this is guesswork. However we do know that Hermione only needed a time-turner for two extra classes (she dropped Divination around Easter and Muggle Studies at the end of the year and didn't need a time-turner for her fourth year).

"Look--they've got you down for about ten subjects a day. There isn't enough time." Ron, PoA pg 98 American edition.

The first class starts at nine o'clock and there are two classes before lunch. We know this because that first day of school the trio had Divination then Transfiguration.

"When the Transfiguration class had finished, they joined the crowd thundering toward the Great Hall for lunch." PoA pg 110.

So let's say there are three classes after lunch; so five classes each day. This can change as double classes last twice as long as regular classes, reducing the number of classes a day. After all, no day is the same. That first day Hermione had Divination, Arithmancy, and Muggle Studies at nine o'clock, but she still had about ten subjects a day, or five extra subjects.

Hermione is adding about five hours to her age every day, guessing each class lasts an hour.

5 (hours a day) X 5 (days in a school week) = 25 hours added to Hermione's age a week.

For the sake of easy arithmetic, let's make that 24 hours, a nice day. Using HP Lexicon's calendar, there are 15 weeks from September to Winter Break, 13 from January to Easter Break, and 9 from Easter to exam week (including exam week).

15+ 13+ 9 = 37

So Hermione has aged roughly 37 days.

However there are a lot of margins of error.

I'm not sure on the class length, if they are one hour or longer. I read somewhere on the internet by someone who is familiar with the British school system that classes tend to go from nine o'clock (that's canon) to four o'clock (that sounds good!) with around an hour for lunch and long passing periods (Hogwarts is pretty big). So that still amounts to about five hours of actual class time a day.

There is no definitive answer to how often Hermione uses her time turner each day. Ron does say she has about ten subjects each day and from that I based my arithmetic. However about ten subjects a day could mean 7-10 classes a day. Or only 2-5 subjects which need added time in order to attend. This also varies each day; seven subjects one day, ten the next, then eight or nine could amount to less than 24 hours each week, making the actual age less than 37 days.

Along with the question of how many subjects each day did she have, is the fact that for 9 weeks (from Easter to the end of school) Hermione didn't take Divination, also reducing the extra time.

September 1st was on a Wednesday for the trio's third year, so their first day of school is on a Thursday. When counting the weeks I didn't include these two days, starting the count on Monday, September 6th. So there is some extra time not included.

There is also her three hour adventure at the end of the year I didn't count.

Judging by her surprise of Dumbledore suggesting she use a time turner for her adventure and her overall stress level, I doubt she'd use it as a way to get extra homework time/sleep. If she was mischievous in that respect, then the extra time I counted from Hermione dropping Divination around Easter can represent that time used for extracurricular activities.

So there is some time I didn't count, more time than necessary I did count, but what can be gained from this essay is the knowledge that in Hermione's third year she would have aged a little more than a month using her time turner.

However this aging can cancel out the three weeks she spent in a petrified state in her second year, in the physical developmental aspect. Whether being petrified also stopped her aging is up to the reader. It could have been like a coma, in which case she would have still aged, or like being cryogenically frozen, so she wouldn't have aged.

Whether any ministry official will give her a difficult time for being around one month older is probably unlikely as I'm sure this aging will never really make it into canon. But one thing is certain. Hermione using a time turner in her third year did not age her one whole year; thus making her drastically older and more mature than her peers, and suddenly susceptible to various marriage laws and relationships with older men (there are well written marriage law/ older relationship fics, however Hermione is already one of the oldest in her class, there is just generally no need to make her two or three years older than everybody). Her birthday is moved from September 19 to August, but that is about it.


I changed the essay a little. I just elaborated that this applies more to fanon as I doubt J. K. will ever really address this, how I could have or have not factored in study time due to my margins of error, and what being petrified for three weeks could mean.