harry potter - In what year does the epilogue of Deathly Hallows happen?

The Epilogue is the last chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It shows an episode when Harry's children and Ron's children meet on a railway station to board the Hogwarts Express.

The very first sentence of the epilogue says the Epilogue happens on the 1st of September. But what year is it?

I know this should be easy to tell, because the book says “Nineteen years later” and we know all the dates, but I've computed it three times already and always got a different answer. So now I'm confused and think it's better to clear this up once and for ever, so that if other people are confused about the dates too, they can just find this answers here.

Answer

It takes place on Friday, September 1, 2017.

The Battle of Hogwarts took place on May 2, 1998.

We get the year from Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday Party in Chamber of Secrets: Halloween in their second year takes place in 1992, then the battle takes place sometime during what would have been their seventh year. Then the date comes from the documentary J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life.¹ (Clip on YouTube)

Nineteen years after 1998 takes us to 2017. We then get the date from the first line of the chapter:

The morning of the first of September was crisp and golden as an apple

As I’m sure any well-prepared person already has their calendar for 2017, it’s easy to look this up to see that it’s a Friday.

^{¹ In the documentary, J.K. Rowling marks the Battle of Hogwarts/Fred’s death as 1997, but May 1997 is before the end of Half-Blood Prince, so I’m discounting this as J.K. Rowling’s dodgy maths.}

Comments

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