When Did Harry Potter Live?

Note: for the sake of this piece, I am completely ignoring the following information from the Harry Potter Wiki:

Fans have created a timeline of the Harry Potter series from one shred of information in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. At Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party in that book, his death is stated to have been on October 31, 1492. Since the celebration was commemorating the five-hundredth anniversary of Nick's death, this seems to say the scene takes place on October 31, 1992. This timeline is reinforced in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when the graves of James and Lily Potter confirm that they were born in 1960 and died on 31 October 1981.

(Source: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Dating_conventions)

I choose to do this because while the numbers may line up, the facts do not. While the stories were set in a Wizard’s world parallel to the Muggle world, the Muggle world does appear often in the series, where not all modern conveniences exist, thus making the magical world more advanced and appealing.

I mean, if you think about it, how is the Dark Mark (or Hermione’s DA coins, for that matter) any different from any number of online lists that instantly notify all subscribers of an event? And are any of the communication methods between magical beings (patronuses, owls (really?!), or even communicating through fireplaces) any more amazing than cell phones? And while cars definitely existed in Harry’s time, none of these cars had GPS or standard airbags.

It is this last Muggle invention, then, that I am using to help pinpoint the timeline of Harry Potter (well, this and one other indisputable source, which comes later). Apparently, the first car was invented in 1672 by Ferdinand Verbiest from Belgium. According to wiki.answers.com, this first car was powered by steam. This would be consistent with the fact that Arthur Weasley never ventured into a Muggle gas station in order to re-fuel his own car, nor did Harry or Ron seem to need to. Later, in 1796, Joseph Cugnot used a steam engine to power his vehicle. Over time, as we all know, technology changed to the point that we are now. But we can safely state that cars have existed for a while.

Fine, so the existence of the car doesn’t exactly narrow down the lifetime of Harry Potter. Moving on, then, we can point to the existence of a subway system in London. Well, a quick visit to wikipedia reveals that the London Underground’s first line opened in 1863, and grew over the years. I could dig more deeply into the various lines that are mentioned in the books, but it all falls into place, so we’re making some progress. Now, instead of “anytime after 1672,” we’ve already narrowed down to “after 1863, but before 1983” (based on the lack of cell phones).

As for vehicle bridges in London, several vehicle and foot bridges exist in London, though I’m not sure when the vehicle traffic began on those bridges. Waterloo Bridge opened in 1817, while Westminster Bridge opened in 1862. And since several of London’s bridges have had structural issues causing them to fall over time, any of these bridges could have been the one that the Death Eaters snapped in half during the end of the series. Click Here to read more.

We’ll narrow it down further by the existence of telephone booths, which must have existed in the Muggle world. According to wikipedia, “silence cabinets” were built in the 19th century (to allow callers to hear calls from distant places and shout without disturbing neighbors). They became commonplace in industrialized countries in the 1910s.

Now, before I give my definitive answer as to when the Harry Potter series occurred, I want to remind readers of one of Voldemort’s powers: Legilimency. In The Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort was able to convince Harry – who really should have known better – that Sirius Black was held captive in the Department of Mysteries. This is important to remember, because Harry was absolutely convinced that the vision that he had was real – with disastrous results.

The Harry Potter series occurred between 1914 and 1921, which means that Harry was born in 1903 (since he was eleven at the start of the series). Muggle world references are consistent with this dating, as is the one bit of outside proof that I hinted at earlier.

According to the first book in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, “Edward” was born in 1901, and died in 1918 at the age of seventeen. As the book referenced the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, we can be fairly certain that that date is accurate.

Now, we know that Cedric Diggory died at the end of book 4, The Goblet of Fire. We know that he was portrayed by Robert Pattison, who later appeared as Edward Cullen in the Twilight series movies.

I remind you again of the magical power of legilimency. While it may be the case that Edward and his mother were in fact inflicted with the Spanish flu when Carlisle Cullen found them, perhaps there was some dark magic at play instead.

One other reference I would like to submit as “evidence” is the book The Magician’s Elephant, by Kate DiCamillo. In this book, while saying the magic words to bring about a bouquet of lilies, the magician also thinks concurrently some other magic words that results in real magic, though with unintentional side effects.

So perhaps instead of “Avada Kadavra,” something similar was stated that put him in a death-like state – let’s call it “Awada Kebavra”. Or perhaps while Wormtail (who, you must agree, was never much of a wizard) was saying the words, he was thinking of something else – and that Cedric was put into a death-like state.

Later, after portkeying back to Hogwarts, in his comatose state, he was transported by his mother (it was, after all, his mother who convinced Carlisle to change him) to America in the midst of the Spanish Influenza Pandemic. Perhaps it was Cedric’s father (who all but disappeared from the series after that book) who took him, perhaps obtaining some veritaserum along the way. Or he may have convinced someone to help him. Amos Diggory no doubt loved his only child and would have certainly done anything to bring him back. According to the Harry Potter Wiki, “his fate after the incident and during the Second Wizarding War is unknown.”

Perhaps it was Amos Diggory himself who performed Legilimency on Cedric so that he believed he was Edward Cullen. Amos no doubt knew about vampires, and could have taken some time to find the hospital where Carlisle worked (we certainly cannot rule out that Amos knew about vampires, and perhaps had heard of Carlisle or the Volturi). According to the Harry Potter wiki, Cedric was 17 when he died (his birthday was sometime in September or October). This is consistent with the age of Edward Cullen, who has stated that he doesn’t remember his human life very well. This would be consistent with Cedric being legilimencized (of course that’s a word, why do you ask?) with only the most vague details of a very generic life in Chicago.

According to the Twilight wiki, Edward “grew up in an old-fashioned family life style. He wanted to enlist in the army during World War One while he was growing up. That changed, however, when he and his parents became sick from the Spanish Influenza in 1918. His father died in the first wave of the influenza.” Cedric, evidently, was an only child. And, as did most wizards of known wizarding families, he attended a Wizarding school. That, I would say, counts as a generic life. As for the Chicago part, well, if all the “wizarding” details – like Hogwarts, being a Precept, the Tri-Wizard Tournament – can be legilimencized out, then convincing a comatose being that he grew up in Chicago shouldn’t be too difficult.

Finally, I must address the issue of mind-reading. According to Severus Snape, “The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by any invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing,” Mind-reading, according to the series, is the ability to perceive the thoughts or feelings of others through extrasensory means.” Meanwhile, according to Twilight, Edward’s “gift is mind reading. He can read the thoughts of anyone he comes near for up to a few miles away; however, he can only read what the person is thinking at that moment.” But, since vampires were not an integral part of the Harry Potter series, it is quite conceivable that while Snape’s definition of mind-reading might be true for witches, wizards, and muggles, the undead may have abilities unavailable to humans (to accompany their super-human strength and speed); the Twilight series did mention that powers of the undead may be enhancements of natural tendencies during pre-undead lives. Bella Swan’s shielding strengths, for example, are clearly present as a human. This view would be supported by Cedric’s popularity and success during his time at Hogwarts, where he was a distinguished academic and athletic student, being prefect and captain. He was a good friend, always seeming to know the right thing to say, and was apparently a good boyfriend to Cho Chang. As was evidenced by Harry’s difficulties in dating (as well as Ron’s), perhaps Cedric’s edge did involve at least a tendency towards mind-reading.

So yes, this theory completely ignores the evidence from the Harry Potter wiki, and instead draws from outside sources that really have absolutely no connection to the series. But frankly, this was more fun – and fit in well with the upcoming release of Eclipse, the third movie of the Twilight series, not to mention my lack of a desire to cook dinner or get any work done :)