How Tall is Harry?

[RandomPasserby]

I have to admit it tends to throw me off a bit when the author names James' parents (or Hermione's parents) something else but it's not something which would stop me reading a story or I'd even consider mentioning in a review. There are fics I love where Charlus and Dorea aren't James' parents or Hermione's are named something other than Dan and Emma (it took me forever to notice that this was a reference to Dan Radcliffe and Emma Watson)

Because my headcanon doesn't actually make it canon.

Mind you, fanon seems to have buggered up the fact that Harry's Hogwarts letter doesn't deliberately arrive on his birthday so, even when he's in an environment that won't stop him getting his letter it still arrives on his birthday.

Nope. It arrives almost week before his birthday and the letter says (which, ironically, is almost always included) to reply before July 31st (Harry's birthday). Which makes sense if he's had six days to reply to it but not if it arrives on his birthday.

[Kitty279]

Might have to do with the fact that I had a look at the family tree, ruled Charlus and Dorea out for age and other reasons and invented my own characters when I needed it, and then suddenly saw them being used all over fanfiction. Still am not convinced that they are James' parents. That makes a difference, I suspect.

A friend of mine used her own name for Luna's mother, and of course someone complained because Luna's mother's name was 'Selene'. She considered, decided she liked it, changed it - and got another complaint because the name was 'Celeste'. You really can't please everyone. The joke is, every one of these insists that it was canon when it was never mentioned.

That is probably because people forget the details like the fact that he may have gotten the letter on his birthday, but that owls had been coming for days. There are lots of little things. Look at the number of muggles killed during the confrontation of Sirius and the rat. Sirius supposedly killed Pettigrew and twelve muggles, thirteen in all. As a consequence, I keep seing 'thirteen muggles'. Fans are really as bad as JKR herself with details.

[RandomPasserby]

I like to think they're James' parents (40 is fairly late for a first child, especially given the Black's relatively short lifespans) but if JKR ever decides to give us the names of James' parents and they aren't Charlus and Dorea I won't be heartbroken.

Then again, I get the feeling that JKR worked downwards rather than upwards on the Black Family tree (meaning there are at least two 14 year old fathers on there) which, when it comes to fantasy family trees, is never good. You work upwards from the characters who appear. Means you can factor in things like the supposedly extended lifespan of witches/wizards.

I just add it into the pile of 'Headcanons I like but which aren't strictly realistic' like there being a Pottor manor and Harry being more than relatively wealthy.

Now I really want to give Luna's mother a name like Jane or Anne.

[Kitty279]

Sure 40 is late, but as the average wizard or witch seems to get much older than we mere mortals, it doesn't seem that old. Dumbledore was over 100, after all, and still worked. Riddle was around 70 and not exactly described as aged, either. And Minerva wasn't exactly described as old in her late 60's, either. So 40 didn't seem that old to me. But there was another reason. Remember how Sirius and Harry stood in front of that tapestry and talked about the family tree? If Charlus and Dorea had been James' parents, why was it not mentioned? Wouldn't Sirius have said something to point out the couple that meant the most for them both? Save, of course, JKR decided on these two only after writing the books, forgetting as usual everything she had written.

That, and she can't do any math to save her life. Sometimes I wonder if she just put the birth and death dates into that family tree without even actually doing the math how old they were when they started a family and all that.

You can always do that, but don't be surprised if lots of reviewers complain

[physicssquid]

Putting the birth and death dates into the tree without actually doing the maths, is a really bad idea. Of course, we don't really know how old people were when they started a family, so we can't really say for sure that most of the dates JK gave, aren't useful. The only ones I really have difficulty believing, are those who were fourteen when becoming fathers, like Pollux Black with his daughter Walburga, and his son Cygnus, with his daughter Bellatrix. Really, I think those dates were completely wrong. The wizarding world was stuck in the middle ages or Victorian era, and I doubt they would accept teenage pregnancy, so for some of the dates, I'd be moving them close to or more than a decade back.

For example:
Cygnus Black - father of Bellatrix. She was born in 1951 or thereabouts, so he would have been born no late than 1934, but I would suspect that even 16 would be too young, so maybe being born in or before 1931 would be better.
Pollux Black - father of Walburga and Cygnus. Walburga was born in 1925 or thereabouts, so her father would have been born no later than 1909, but again, I would suspect that would make him too young at 16, so, again, he could have been born in or before 1905, which would make him 20 when his oldest daughter was born.

Those dates would make more sense, but the simple fact that JK, who admitted that she can't do maths, didn't give us any more dates for Harry's generation, we can't really say for certain that we're correct. I certainly can't say that I'm correct in believing that the pureblood families like the Blacks, were twenty when starting families, just that that is my best guess, from the little bit of information we've been given.

[RandomPasserby]

Sure 40 is late, but as the average wizard or witch seems to get much older than we mere mortals, it doesn't seem that old.

We only see two characters who have an exceptionally longer than human lifespan. Dumbledore (115) and Griselda Marchbanks (who was one of Dumbledore's OWL examiners). They seem to age somewhat slower than humans but then again, McGonagall was only 63 in 1998 (seriously, her birthdate is 1935) and that's below the previous default UK retirement age (65).

Riddle I ignore because who knows what he did to himself outside of the Horcruxes or how Horcruxes affect lifespan in general.

Plus, this isn't the average witch or wizard. Dorea was a Black. I did the maths. The average Black lifespan (including everybody on the Black family tree who has a birth and death date) is only 57.7 years old. The longest living Black was 90 and most of them died either in their fifties or in their 70's.

Average age of Black family members starting families (including everybody who has a birthdate and a child with a definite birth date) was 24.6.

For reference this is the tree I'm using because I know there are multiple versions floating around.

[physicssquid]

Jun 16, 2014 11:03:22 GMT -5 RandomPasserby said:

For reference this is the tree I'm using because I know there are multiple versions floating around.

I too like to use that tree, though even there, it makes people believe that Pollux was only thirteen when his oldest, Walburga, was born. At least the birth date for Walburga's brother, Cygnus, makes more sense than some of the dates I've seen for him.

[Kitty279]

Actually, according to the HPL Minerva was born in 1925, and that was based on JKR herself in one of the Scholastic chats:

Question: How old is old in the wizarding world, and how old are Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall?
J.K. Rowling responds: Dumbledore is a hundred and fifty, and Professor McGonagall is a sprightly seventy. Wizards have a much longer life expectancy than Muggles. (Harry hasn't found out about that yet.)

Sure, the Blacks have rather short lives. But who said that they were the normal case for the magical world? I always saw them as an exception to the rule as most of them didn't get even as old as we do, particularly considering what JKR said otherwise, and what we know of Minerva and Dumbledore. Personally, I always put the Black lifespan down to inbreeding and probably getting killed - look at Sirius, Regulus, Bellatrix. They put the average down quite a bit, and neither of them died a natural death.

Oh, and the family tree I use is the one from the HPL

[RandomPasserby]

As much as I love the Lexicon (and I do), HPL hasn't been updated for a while. I loathe the Wiki but I checked and it's 1935 based off of her Pottermore biography. I checked the Pottermore bio and the Wiki's calculations are right.

She took a ministry job after graduating Hogwarts, worked there for 2 years and then started teaching at Hogwarts. According to OOTP she started teaching in December 1956.

Bearing in mind that JKR subsequently revised Dumbledore's age downwards from 150 to 115, how likely was it that her assertion of McGonagall's age was correct?

Also that was published in 2000, barely months after GOF had been published.

Taking the Blacks who were murdered out of the equation only bumps the average up about four years.

[Kitty279]

Ok, maybe she contradicted herself once again, wouldn't be the first time, after all. But I never bothered with Pottermore. When I tried to have a look at the side and realised that I could not just look stuff up but had to sign up and all that rot, I lost interest completely. So I don't care about what she says there. And I avoid the Wiki, too, as I never saw it as a reliable source. I think when I checked it, I found mistakes there, though that was so long ago I can't even remember what it was. As I had the same experience with LotR, that ruled the Wiki out for me.

The bit about the 'longer life expectancy' is a joke if you go by the way the whole series was set up to kill everyone early. That whole thing leaves me once again with the impression that JKR changed her opinions and facts mid-series way too many times to believe anything any more.

Well, personally I am still wary of using an extremely inbred family as proof for the normal lifespan, but if you want to do it, feel free I doubt it will ever make my headcanon, however.

[RandomPasserby]

I think the Wiki has gotten better. At the very least it cites its sources now, so it's not really a blind assertion.

For some things I do tend to use the Lexicon (if only because it doesn't have half so many adverts and it loads much quicker) but I double check with the Wiki.

Pottermore is kind of fun. I'll admit to blatantly ignoring some of the new canon but some of it's quite nice.

The thing is, I wouldn't call the Blacks 'extremely inbred' from our limited sample size. We have one marriage of second cousins (Walburga and Orion) which isn't illegal anywhere and isn't even considered dangerous. And one possible marriage of second cousins once removed (Molly Prewett and Arthur Weasley, if they're the children of the Prewett/Black and Weasley/Black marriages).

Christ, the English royal family is more inbred than they are just going off the family tree we have.

Now the implications (we can see that the Blacks are clearly related to a large number of other pureblood families) might mean that in the future that there could be an inbreeding problem but that's impossible to tell because we have no idea how Violetta Bulstrode is related to Millicent, how Herbert Burke is related to the Burke in Borgin and Burke's (if they are), how Lysandra Yaxley is related to the Death Eater Yaxley, how Melania Macmillan is related to Ernie, how Irma Crabbe is related to Vincent Crabbe, how Harfang Longbottom is related to Neville, Frank and Augusta, how Caspar Crouch is related to the Bartimaeus' etc etc.

[Kitty279]

Yeah, that would be an improvement if they gave their sources. As would be to not use fanon cliches as canon facts. I seem to remember someone insisting that Charlus and Dorea are James' parents because the Wiki said so. Not something that was making said Wiki look very trustworthy to me

Sure, some of the stuff on Pottermore is interesting, but I wanted a proper research source, not something to play with, and from what I heard, it seems you have to play your way through the site to get your information. I was never one for that sort of game, and by now I simply have neither the interest nor the time for it.

Oh, sure you can't prove that these people are directly related to the ones we know, but you can't prove that the ones who married into the Black family weren't already close cousins, either. And frankly, when I see how insane some members of the family are, I can't help but suspect inbreeding as the source. Otherwise they have a mental illness in the family unrelated to the inbreeding.

Btw, am I the only one to think it a bit strange that the whole Black clan seems to go back to just Phineas Nigellus? His older brother may not have reached adulthood, but what about his sister Elladora? And what about the parents of Phineas? Back then big families with lots of children were the rule, so I find it hard to believe that what the family tree shows is all that is left of the Black family. There should be other branches, shouldn't they?

[RandomPasserby]

You do have to play your way through it to get to the information (and your Pottermore character is a total kleptomaniac) but the potion making is pretty cool.

If they were close cousins surely we would see the names appear more than once on the tree because they'd have to share grandparents. We see the names that we can recognise as other pureblooded families appear once each.

Regarding the mental instability. We see Walburga's shrieking painting and Bellatrix. Otherwise the Black's we see (Andromeda, Narcissa, Sirius, the Weasley's, even Phineas Nigellus' painting) are all relatively stable. Sirius perhaps the least so, but he did spend twelve years in Azkaban even if he had his animagus form.

Bearing in mind that by the time we see them Walburga is painting (but she lost her husband and the son she loved in the same year and probably spent the remaining six years of her life in Grimmauld Place), and Bellatrix had spent fifteen years in Azkaban without an animagus form.

That sort of mental instability could be the result of inbreeding, but it's only really comparable to somebody like Charles II of Spain.

His family tree looked like this and features five marriages of first cousins and three uncle/niece marriages (one of which was his parents). It's quite literally a circle

The Black family tree doesn't look like that.

My guess is that JKR didn't want to go any further back or didn't see it as necessary. After all, by that point she'd explained how the Weasleys were related to Sirius. My guess is that the Black family does have more history (including Phineas' parents) but that JKR just didn't write it.

I can believe that Elladora didn't marry and that Isla Black and Bob Hitchen's children (who wouldn't have been magical) didn't get recorded on there.

It's also possible that Phineas Nigellus' father only had sisters so the bulk of the Black inheritance went to him.

[physicssquid]

How do we know that the children of Isla Black and Bob Hitchens weren't magical? There is a chance that they were magical, but because Isla was disowned for marrying Bob Hitchens, they wouldn't appear. There is also the possibility that she didn't have any children at all.

As for the rest of the Black family, the Wiki does mention other Blacks, even though they don't get mentioned on the tree.

I don't know whether the information is accurate, but according to the Wiki:-

- Phineas Nigellus Black's mother was Ella Max, and his father was Cygnus Black I.

- Cygnus Black I probably had two siblings, brother Arcturus Black I, and sister Misapinoa, who married Jimbo Blishwick.

- Cygnus Black I was probably the son of Licorus Black and Magenta Tripe.

- Licorus Black was depicted on the family tree in the OotP film as the earliest known member of the Black family, and possibly had four siblings - Alexia Walkin Black, Phoebe Black, Hester Black and Eduardus Limette Black.


If that is accurate, then if Phineas Nigellus really did inherit the bulk of the Black fortune, his uncle Arcturus Black I died childless, and Misapinoa, having married into another family, would have only had her dowry and whatever the Blishwick family owned.

[RandomPasserby]

As far as I know they are all from the movie's family tree (added by people who have the eyesight of a hawk and really HD screencps). At least two of them (Eduardus Limette and Alexia Walkin) were tributes to people who worked on the movie. So I tend towards ignoring them and making shit up if I need to reference Blacks before Phineas Nigellus.

It's possible Isla and Bob's kids could have been magical if he carried the recessive magic gene. If he didn't then there's no way they could have been magical since they would have been magical carriers. I thought about this some more here.

[Kitty279]

ou do have to play your way through it to get to the information (and your Pottermore character is a total kleptomaniac) but the potion making is pretty cool.

See, and I don't like it when I have to play my way through to get any information. I prefer sites like HPL where I can find what I need straight away and in an orderly fashion. Occupational hazard, maybe

If they were close cousins surely we would see the names appear more than once on the tree because they'd have to share grandparents. We see the names that we can recognise as other pureblooded families appear once each.

Not necessarily. For people who married into the Black clan, the family tree doesn't show any relatives, they could be siblings and we'd not know.

Bearing in mind that by the time we see them Walburga is painting (but she lost her husband and the son she loved in the same year and probably spent the remaining six years of her life in Grimmauld Place), and Bellatrix had spent fifteen years in Azkaban without an animagus form.

Do you think Walburga had the portrait made only shortly before her death? Bellatrix was nuts long before Azkaban, if you ask me. Someone who enjoys torturing others like she did isn't exactly sane in my eyes. Others who spent a lot of time there, like Sirius, weren't that crazy. Okay, he could use his animagus form to protect himself, but I'd think that certain traits wouldn't develop by Azkaban, only get enhanced if they were already there. Like her penchant for torture.

My guess is that JKR didn't want to go any further back or didn't see it as necessary. After all, by that point she'd explained how the Weasleys were related to Sirius. My guess is that the Black family does have more history (including Phineas' parents) but that JKR just didn't write it.

Sure, they weren't needed for the story, I was just wondering.

I can believe that Elladora didn't marry and that Isla Black and Bob Hitchen's children (who wouldn't have been magical) didn't get recorded on there.

As physicssquid said, that's not correct. Actually, I wouldn't be too surprised if a number of Muggleborn are in truth descendants of squibs. How likely is it that the magical gene turns up all on its own so many times, after all?

It's also possible that Phineas Nigellus' father only had sisters so the bulk of the Black inheritance went to him.

Even if only the son inherited money, that doesn't mean that the daughters weren't members of the Black family.

[teflonbilly]

With regards to the actual thread topic, my guess on the Golden Trio + Ginny as far as height goes:

1. Harry 5'10" - 6' range, solidly above average (both American and British males average 5'9" for this age group)

2. Ron 6'3" - 6'5" range, significantly taller than the norm (DO NOT USE THE FILMS AS A JUDGE ON HEIGH!!#@!@#! the twins are described by Rowling as COMPACT AND STOCKY, not Tall and Skinny like the actors, they take after their Mother's side of the family (and my guess Charlie is in this group too), Ron passed them up in 4th-5th year and consistently described as Tall (one of the few characters in that AGE range to be described as Tall), and he still has 1-2 years of minor growth left in him by the end of the books (0.5"-1" possible)

3. Hermione 5'3" - 5'6", she's never described as short (nor tall) so I'd have her clustered around the British average of 5'4" (I'd skew taller for her, Emma Watson's height is actually probably close at 5'5")

4. Ginny 5'0" - 5'3", she's consistently described as small (but I'd wager rather well muscled like a Field Hockey player) but she grew up rough and tumble with her older brothers so I don't see her being waifish like Bonnie Wright

TB

[ChickenOrder]

Jul 9, 2012 7:02:01 GMT -5 physicssquid said:

With the time-turner thing, I got the feeling that Hermione wasn't the only one to be given one. Maybe Percy and Bill were too, otherwise I can't see how they were able to get twelve O.W.Ls each.

Impossible, Fred and George would have noticed. Remember how they stole his Prefect badge? There is no way that they wouldn't have stolen something as dangerous as a time turner. All the mischief they could cause! And I don't believe Percy (or Bill for that matter) would be able to hide a time-turner for five years from the twins.

Also giving something as dangerous as a time-turner to a kid always struck me as a fallacy. Would the Ministry really do that? It is considered very dangerous. Giving a kid a device which could accidentally erase one's existence is plain crazy. No matter how smart the kid, I wouldn't trust most adults with such a device.

Plus there is no way that students wouldn't have realized if there had been more students than Hermione with time-turners. Students are not stupid. Telling Hermione not to tell anyone was no help either, Ron and Harry figured out pretty quick that there was something going on and I imagine that if it hadn't been for Sirius/Scabbers occupying their thoughts they would have figured out the truth by themselves sooner or later.

Also if the Ministry had allowed Hermione a time-turner for something as banal as attending classes, they should have had no problems using a time turner to make sure Sirius didn't disappear from that tower.

For that matter it makes no sense for the Minister not to suspect kids who had been arguing Sirius' innocence and a girl with a Ministry allotted time-turner to have used said time-turner to save Sirius. Fudge might not be the smartest bulb, but the Ministry is made out of more people than the Minister. Plus Fudge was rather paranoid. I can't see him not suspecting a bunch of kids of nefarious deeds. Even if he didn't at the beginning (he didn't hate Harry's guts by then), he should have brought this up later, Harry's trial would have been perfect for it. Discrediting Harry like this in an article of  Rita Skeeter would have been the last nail on Harry's coffin. 

What I don't get is why Hogwarts didn't make it so that students could attend all classes. It's not like they have an over-abundance of subjects or anything. Hermione is not the first to want to take all classes. Heck what if a student wanted to take classes which were being held at the same time? It is very unlikely that nobody wanted to take classes which overlapped other than Hermione. 

The only explanation that makes sense is that Dumbledore manipulated events in such a way that Hermione would get a time turner to protect Harry from Sirius. No matter how smart DD is, Sirius knew the castle better than most and was good at hiding being an Animagus and all. A time turner and Remus to stop Sirius makes more sense than the Ministry giving away dangerous magical artefacts to children just because Hogwarts is too incompetent to organize their handful of subjects in such a way that students have the freedom to choose what they want. 

Through pure coincidence almost all students either choose Divination and Magical Creatures or Arithmancy and Runes (where does Muggle Studies fall into this?). In such a situation it makes little sense to overcomplicate things just so one student can attend all classes (especially with all the problems Sirius was causing) and Hermione would have had to drop a subject (been talked into it). Dumbledore instead suggested a time-turner. Minerva is easily swayed by Dumbledore (see: how she dropped her misgivings about placing Harry with the Dursley's just because of DD's say so and didn't even wonder if DD had the necessary authority to make such a decision) so no problems on that front and Hermione is smart but believes too strongly in authority figures. 

Also I don't see why it would have been impossible for Bill and Percy to get twelve OWLs each. There are people who are that smart (or studious).

Hermione was only faltering because she was making herself crazy. She was always revising stuff she had already learned by heart. Which is a total waste of time. For example: Learning incantations by heart I have no issue with, but the entire book? She only has to understand the magical theory part and should be able to explain it, reciting it is not what constitutes good learning. At the end she had to stop because she couldn't keep up her crazy learning program for all those classes. If she had adjusted her attitude a little she would have been able to get just as many OWLs as Percy and Bill without a time-turner. 

[harry]

This is not according to the Movies, this is the approximate height of the Harry Potter Characters ; either mentioned in the book, suggested, or assumed by yours truly.

Okay, here we go,

Harry - 5'9 to 5'11, - About Average, doesn't quite brush 6'
Hermoine - 5'5 or 5'6 - Average to Slightly taller than Average
Rubeus Hagrid - 8'6 - Extremely Tall.
Ron - 6'3 or 6'4 - Tall.
Ginny - 5'2 or 5'3 - Fairly Short
Snape - 6'1 - Mentioned in books that he is slightly taller than the average man, gangly yet stalky
Neville Longbottom - 5'8 - Slightly Short.
Voldemort - 6'6 - Mentioned to be extremely tall for his build
Dudley - 5'11 - Is mentioned to be around the same height as harry, slightly taller
Malfoy - 6'0 - Slightly taller than Harry


Reply what you guys think!

[LunecShipper]

I would think that he would be around 5'9" being kept alive by his own magic and also magical food at Hogwarts. I would put Ron at at least 6'2". Daniel Radcliff was a good actor for harry potter because he was a little thing untol the Deathly Hallows he turned all short and stocky and I'm like whaaaat harry is a little thing.

[Kaden Phillips]

It says that Harry becomes as tall as his father is in the last book. Voldemort also describes James as tall. Even though the average height of an adult male is around 5'10 James would have had to be a few inches taller than that if he was seen as tall through the eyes of someone as tall as Voldemort. So, I believe that Harry ends up being at least 6'0 maybe 6'1.

[wassu[]

Jul 3, 2012 16:33:14 GMT -5 physicssquid said:

Nor do I. And in the stories I'm trying to write, but may not upload anywhere, I've got Harry at 6'6", Ron at 6'4" and Hermione just above 5'8".

harry is a fraction shorter than Draco, who is 6'0, so maybe around 5'6-8? and Hermione's canon height is 5'5, and Ron is the tallest, surpassing all of his family, and maybe around 6'3-4?

[Kitty279]

Just wondering, where are all these numbers coming from? I can't remember them being in the books?

[RandomPasserby]

Also 'a fraction shorter' is not 4-6 inches. The latter is literally half a foot. A fraction would be Harry being 5'11.5

[Grace]

Fantastic post but I was wondering if you could write a litte mre on this subject?
I'd be very grateful if you could elaborate a little
bit more. Thanks!
brad52.mypixieset.com/how-to-avoid-using-we-in-an-essa/
Loww pricwd Essay.
essay writers
essay writers