Tonks

[heidi]

I haven't actually seen the Family Tree as I've been on handheld all day (and it crashed and ate the afternoon's email and I've had no chance to get on the desktop) but am I right that it has Tonks born in 1975?

Assuming her birthday was before September 1, she would've started Hogwarts in 1986?

And they're in school for seven years, so she would've finished in...

1993?

Well, that causes a bit of a muddle. Is it really '75?

Because I really don't want it to be. I don't want her to have been at Hogwarts while Harry was still there. Really.

(I've sorta presumed that she finished Hogwarts in June of 1991, btw...)

Comments

[teawithvoldy.livejournal.com]

What the???? Amd I missing some important HP news???

*Looks around confused

[moony]

I didn't see her name at all on the Tree, actually.

[zorb]

I don't think it makes sense for her to have been at Hogwarts when Harry was. When she meets him in OotP, she acts like she's never seen him before.

This Family Tree thing is just not trustworthy.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Tonks isn't on it at all. There's a "burn mark" where Andromeda's name should be.

[shelaghc.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the family tree at all. But since when does JKR ever make sense when she tries to create timelines?

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

My assumption was that she finished seventh year a month before Harry commences his first year. It wouldn't make sense for her to be any younger.

[hedwig-snowy.livejournal.com]

I don't see Nymphadora Tonks on the tree. Her mom is on there (well, scrubbed out), but Tonks is not.

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/blackfamilytree.html

The Lexicon has her graduating in 1991 and was born in 1973.

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/tonks.html#timeline

You don't agree with that?

[sarcasticpixie.livejournal.com]

i've also not seen the new family tree, if there is indeed a new one. but i am curious!

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Can't have been 93. She has to have had 3 years of Auror training, plus a year out in the field (at least half a year) before OotP.

Heidi, I think it's time that you and I both learned to let go of dates. JKR will never actually get them right.

[allysonsedai.livejournal.com]

I just think that over the years Jo has not shown herself trustworthy when it comes to the maths. What was that fuss a while back in regards to Charlie Weasley's age?

I tend to lean towards common sense than by Jo's dates. There's no way Tonks was at Hogwarts with Harry, it just doesn't make sense. Besides, in OotP, doesn't McGonagall make a statement to Harry ("Career Advice") about how long it's been since they've accepted a student into Auror training? No one since Tonks?

I've loaned out my book, so I can't check but maybe someone can produce the original quote...

[friede.livejournal.com]

The short answer is (as you've seen), neither Tonks nor Andromeda are on the tree (or at least any tree I've seen), though that doesn't mean the damn tree wasn't a bit illuminating...

According to the tree, Andromeda is the middle Black daughter, born sometime between 1951 (Bellatrix) and 1955 (Narcissa).

Assuming the earliest possible birthdate (1952), and the earliest possible marriage (meaning married/pregnant just after leaving Hogwarts at age 17), Nymphadora Tonks's earliest possible birth year is 1969. This would, for example, make her 28 in 1997 (AKA Y17 in Lexicon-speak), or graduating Hogwarts in 1986.

Of course, assuming Andromeda was more centrally-placed between her sisters (i.e. born more around 1953), and had her daughter at age 21, that puts Tonks' age at the more-likely 24 (born in 1973, graduated in 1991) in Y17. This is also what the Lexicon's "count backwards from auror training" method ends up with, so.

All the tree does is put some upper limits on how old Tonks can be -- for my money, I'll stick with the Lexicon's math over JKR's.

[ravensnape.livejournal.com]

Totally agree with friede. Having seen the Black Tree that caused all the stir today, I will say that Tonks is not on it and Andromeda is placed between Bella and Narcissa. I'd send you a copy of said Black Tree, but it's image has been pulled from the orginal source and she was told 'bad girl, you were NOT to share that before the auction tonight'. Because I like to keep the lawyers happy *grin* it's under wraps until the official one is sold at auction. The real question is whether this tree is just a rough draft of JKR's, or a working tree with which she plans out the story. If that's the case its no wonder Her math is FUBAR, because the dates are quite wonky in some places. For example Cygnus (1938-1992), the father of Bellatrix(1951), Andromeda and Narcissa(1955) would only have been 13 when Bella was born.

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen any revised family trees that include Tonks, so I've gone back to the book to gauge her age. If Tonks had been born in 1975 and had finished Hogwarts in 1993 allowing her years to overlap with Harry's, then what she says upon first seeing him at Privet Drive with the rest of the Advance Guard seems rather odd:

"Oooh, he looks just like I thought he would," said the witch who was holding her lit wand aloft. She looked the youngest there; she had a pale heart-shaped face, dark twinkling eyes, and short spiky hair that was a violent shade of violet. (OotP, US Softcover, P. 47)

This comment would make sense perhaps if she had attended a school other than Hogwarts and had therefore never met Harry.

Schmanon!

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

:Points to Sam's post.

Let go of the dates. They're just wrong and they'll make you crazy.

I just came up against an older, other problem, regarding McGonagall's years teaching and Dumbledore's time as Headmaster. You can work out the dates correctly for them, but then that messes up the MWPP timeline. Or you can stick to the MWPP timeline, but that means that Dumbledore and McGonagall overlapped as Transfiguration teachers. (And we've dealt multiple times with the problem of only one teacher per subject....)

Dates are just wrong. Crack be smoked here.

Canon schmanon.