Skip to main content

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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more