January 16, 2006

Numerous people have been writing and asking us to clarify dates for Snape, Lily and the Marauders. I have added information to Snape’s page with our latest thinking and links to the evidence we used to arrive at our calculation:

Notes on Dates for Snape, Lily and the Marauders: 1959 or 1960?
We know Snape’s birthdate from Jo’s website; the year range is more complicated to calculate. Our dates are based on the following:

• Jo said that Snape was 35 or ‘6 in an interview where she was referring to Goblet of Fire (Comic Relief chat), so that would be 1995 in Harry Potter time, which would make him born in 1959 or 1960.
• Then she said in a FAQ that Sirius was “around twenty-two” when he went to Azkaban, which would have been in 1981, and that points more to 1959.
  Harry describes the events in Snapes’ pensieve memory as being “over 20 years ago” and that was when he was taking his O.W.L.s, so that would suggest that James (and Snape, Sirius, Pettigrew, Lupin and Lily) took their O.W.L.s in 1975, not 1976, which would have been exactly 20 years before; this actually skews us even more toward the late 1950s (OP28, OP35, OP36).