Talk:Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Timeline

Explicit dates
Wikibooks is not Wikipedia. We are not a place that dumps long lists of useless facts and dates. This page will soon be designed with a flow in mind, and so explicit dates will not be helpful. We are looking for continuity, not explicit citations. The books do not refer to events with dates and neither will we since this is a story and not a history lesson. -Matt 22:13, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Understood... and yet, the dates do tend to make things easier to understand and put in sequence. I would like to make one suggestion: that dates be provided for Harry's birth and first year. The rest can be left dateless... but if we have dates in for the earlier stuff, as I think we should because otherwise it all kind of bunches up and is incomprehensible, we should have a date for the starting point of the story.
 * Dates are only really important for when the story interacts with our world. Book 6, we have the conversation with the Muggle Prime Minister, which from internal evidence would be John Major. Is it worth mentioning that the prime minister who tried to kick Cornelius Fudge out the window would, in that scheme of things, have been Maggie Thatcher? Chazz 23:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I understand that it would make current sense to have years there to mark lapses of time, but only temporarily. Once a proper diagram is created, I don't think those years should be there. -Matt 01:45, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The fact that Harry and Neville are born "as the month of July is dying" is important to the story and should, I think, be retained. The fact that this happened in 1980 as per internal evidence in the story, I will grant, is only important to mark the length of time from when the Chamber was last opened. I am going to replace a very limited set of dates, with the intent as you suggested that they be kept only until a proper diagram is in place. Chazz 03:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The best way to go about this may be to just create a table and have different background colors for regions of time. Embedding a good look into a wiki is often a hard task, and I'll have to do some research. -Matt 03:04, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * One thing I will note is that until I had the time to actually work it out, it didn't seem possible to me that Riddle could have been born in the 20s. One of the reasons for retaining dates is to make that sort of timing plain to the reader... Chazz 03:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Is it useful to tell a reader that someone was born in the 1920s though? To me, that brings in bias about the time period and doesn't have to do with the story. Working with something like "60 years before Harry's birth" seems much more appropriate. -Matt 00:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * A very valid question. My feeling is that it does make some difference, as Merope's life in "Half-Blood Prince" seems unnecessarily primitive unless we do notice that it is in the 1920s; knowing that, it merely seems somewhat backward, as we would expect from the Gaunts. (Granted, the wizards seem to cling to what we would consider outdated technology, and purebloods would do so even more -- though it seems that Grimmauld Place is on the electric grid.) Likewise, Tom Riddle's orphanage, and the street scene there, seems incongruous until we know that it is 1935 or so. Is it important that this timeline, by the way, makes Hagrid about 60 years old? (Voldemort also, but he's had a body refresh so it doesn't count...) Chazz 17:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Revision: Grimmauld Place is not on the electric grid; it is evidently illuminated by gas lamps, or some wizarding equivalent --- hopefully one that's a little less dangerous, gas lamps burn a methane / carbon monoxide mixture. Chazz 20:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * See below for further info, but explicit dates should be included now that the entire series is set and explicit dates exist in the last book. -within focus 18:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Shrieking Shack timeline
Online ephemeris at sunrisesunset.com states that sunset in Glasgow on 10 June 94 was at 9:59 PM, and civil twilight at 11PM. As the Dementor attack was in full dark, it must have happened around midnight. While I am not wedded to the specific date, we do know that it is early June, and that Hogwarts is in Scotland, which gives us a very late sunset in any year. Chazz 09:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Death of Moaning Myrtle and Tom Riddle Sr.
There is considerably more speculation in the Notes On Dates in that particular part of Riddle's history than I would like; I'm actually assigning hard dates to Myrtle's and Riddle's deaths. I don't like that because it does border on the sort of hardcore speculation that we are trying to avoid. But what I'm trying to establish is sequence – what the actual sequence of deaths is. We don't yet know whether it was the death of Myrtle that allowed Riddle to make the diary Horcrux; it seems unlikely because the diary is aware of things that happened after Myrtle died. It is relatively certain that it was the death of Riddle Sr. that allowed creation of the ring Horcrux, and possibly of Riddle's parents (Voldemort's grandparents) that allowed for creation of the diary Horcrux. We can be certain that the locket Horcrux was created later, as it was only in this visit with Morfin, immediately preceding Riddle Sr.'s death, that Tom found out that the locket existed at all; he had definitely not had time to charm it out of Hepzibah Smith. And I believe it may yet be important that Myrtle died a few years before Tom Riddle Sr. to know when Myrtle died relative to Tom Sr. Chazz 09:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Revision pending: I ran across something in HBP tonight that throws all this lovely reasoning right away. Chazz 08:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Revision: Tom talked with Slughorn about Horcruxes after he had killed his father; in Slughorn's memory we see Tom wearing the Gaunt ring. Presumably he didn't yet know enough about Horcruxes to create one, and Dumbledore does say that after he had made the ring into a Horcrux, he no longer wanted to wear it. So the order of deaths is once again uncertain; Riddle could have killed his father in the summer preceding his fifth year, or in the summer following his fifth year, though not in the summer following his sixth year – Slughorn would have said "You're head boy" rather than "You're a prefect" if it had been Tom's seventh year. But we are led to believe that the death of Riddle's father and grandparents did not allow him to make a Horcrux, because he did not yet know how. Chazz 17:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Second revision: Harry says in DH that Dumbledore believed that Riddle had already made one Horcrux when he talked to Slughorn. Thus the ring we see on Tom in Slughorn's memory was a Horcrux, made at the death of his father, and it was only when he had made a second one, and was sure his hiding place, Gaunt's shack, was never going to be disturbed (after Morfin's death), that he stopped wearing the ring, and jinxed and hid it. Chazz (talk) 17:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Hepzibah Smith and DADA application
We don't have a clear indication of when Hepzibah Smith died, except that it was very shortly after the episode where she showed Tom Riddle the Hufflepuff cup and the Slytherin locket. There is an implication that it was within a couple of years after Riddle graduated from Hogwarts, as he was then working for Borgin and Burke, and the implication is that that job did not last very long. We do know that it was ten years afterwards, and winter, when Riddle, then calling himself Voldemort, came to Dumbledore (who had then replaced Dippet) and asked for the Defence Against the Dark Arts job. I have arbitrarily placed both events in mid-February. Chazz (talk) 23:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Voldemort's first reign of terror
In chapter one of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Dumbledore says, regarding the celebrations, "They have had precious little to celebrate these past eleven years..." The implication is that Voldemort's reign of terror got properly underway in 1970, to be ended in 1981 when he tried to kill Harry. Thus, Voldemort's application for the teaching position must have happened before that, in 1960 or thereabouts. This does align with our tentative placement of Voldemort's application in February of 1960, and Hepzibah Smith's death in February of 1950. Chazz (talk) 17:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Graphical timelines
Question: I have added to the timeline in year 2 as I was updating the summaries... and I find that there is a heck of a lot there now. I almost shudder to think what the timeline for the later books (GoF, OotP, HBP) will be like when it's fully populated. Have I gone overboard in putting events on the timeline? Chazz 18:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think you're fine. This will eventually be placed in a better-looking format and I think it will work more easily that way. -within focus 02:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've found what we'll use to show the timeline. I dumped a few quick lines in the "Year One" section (even though it looks terrible). It's called EasyTimeline and it's integrated into MediaWiki here. Examples exist on that page and we'll have to start playing around with them to make the dates here look good. -within focus 03:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * EasyTimeline seems to always want to put recent at the top when set to vertical... I haven't found a way to fix that yet, though I granted have only skimmed it. I'm thinking that we might want to go horizontal instead, which will also allow us to fold the timeline... Chazz 20:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * So be it. I'd still like to have a method that doesn't use exact years, but we may be stuck with them. It is a complex system, but its integration with MediaWiki is ideal. -within focus 23:22, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * We could, of course, go with relative dates in the timeline; or we could set a date format that doesn't include a year. The fact that the actual years (which we luckily have) are required to generate the PNG doesn't mean that we have to show them, unless we want to. But if you don't want to include years, we may have to redact the family tree of the Ancient and Honourable House of Black, which does include dates... and as that is sourced from J. K. Rowling herself, I don't think I want to do that.
 * I think I can see a way to make this look decent; I'll play with it tonight if I can. Chazz 19:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I can understand a direct map of information from a person like Rowling to be acceptable. Those dates are also mostly very far in the past. Several dates on our timeline will be from direct references in the book which I also see as acceptable. It's all the speculation of the 1980s and 1990s that I want to avoid since this is not some poppy fan site but a solid documentary of events. I don't ever want this book to be a crystal ball and conspiracy theory archive. We present the facts and form intelligent inferences from them. -within focus 00:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I have started building the year 2 timeline, and it is, as you can see, very congested... is this the way we want to present this? Of course, it can be de-congested by stretching it either vertically or hoizontally... I have commented out the text version of the timelines for which graphical versions have been completed, for now, pending approval of the graphics. Chazz 21:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The graphics look pretty good to me. We can just expand a timeline horizontally for now. When the book goes to print we may have to recondense the timelines, but for now I think stretching will suffice. -within focus 22:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Prisoner of Azkaban
Chapter 11: Buckbeak's hearing will take place on 20 April according to the letter. Chapter 14: the hearing is the Friday after the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff, which falls in mid February. Somehow we've lost two months. Chazz 07:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

D'oh! Revision: Checking the flow of events in the book, the two months are at the other end of things. Scabbers vanishes early April... Chazz 07:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The long gap in the action between the middle of January, when Harry has his first anti-Dementor lesson, until the middle of April, when he gets the Firebolt back, has confused many readers, including me, as to exactly when in the year we were. It is not immediately obvious that we have reached June, so the Divination exam seems to be happening a lot earlier in the year than we would expect. Chazz 15:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Explicit date provided in Deathly Hallows
In the last book, the date of the death of James & Lily Potter is explicitly recorded on their gravestone as "31 October 1981". Does this provide a solid enough anchor for the rest of the timelines? HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 16:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Grr, explicit dates have become unavoidable now it seems. We've secretly kept them behind the scenes to design the timelines, but now with so much in context now that the series is complete I concede defeat (although I still agree with what I wrote before this last book came out!). With the epilogue especially, my comments last year shouldn't hold up anymore and I'll strike them. I still would like to avoid contextual references (i.e. WWI / WWII) since they don't have to do with the story, but giving some grounding to what's happened with explicit dates is a good idea.


 * Well, it only really works for "modern times": the above discussion also mentioned historical events, such as Riddle/Voldemort's birth: this new data won't make any real difference to those, right? —Phil | Talk 20:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * No, what's there for the distant past is far enough away that I think it actually makes sense to references dates for some context, as long as we're not playing into other events of the time period too much and those dates are fact and not extrapolated from various pieces of information. What I mean by this is I want solid explanation for why unknown or vague dates are being set, not just fan-like predictions (we're a solid literary guide and need solid references). Since it's clearer in our memory, modern events should be very careful to reference any other contextual events outside the HP series. What I'm writing here has to do with other issues mostly, but those far-away dates don't seem to have any need for reassessment based on new facts from the seventh book. -within focus 12:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, and granted this is a long time after this discussion has been closed, still... Explicit dates do little to enhance the understanding of the story except in a very few cases. The fact that Riddle was born in the 20's, for instance, gives us a better feel for the relative standard of living there, and for the orphanage. Apart from that, the Wizarding world spins on its own, largely independent of ours. I feel that we don't, in honesty, need to add any dates that aren't already there. Having the firm dates in book 7, and the one firm date in book 2, allows us to use real world events if we ned to, but by and large we don't need to. Chazz (talk) 17:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Voldemort's second reign of terror
Should the series timeline show Voldemort's second time in power from when he regained his body and full powers (late in GoF/June 1995), when the Ministry of Magic became aware of his actions (late in OotP/June 1996), or when he took over the Ministry of Magic (early in DH/1 August 1997)? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 18:41, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The initial reign of Voldemort is based on when he was clearly in power (as it is based on Dumbledore's "They have had precious little to celebrate these past eleven years" in PS:1). We certainly can't date it from his return in late June of GoF, because he was still hidden then. My personal feeling is that his return to power should be from when he declared himself (early June of OotP), because that's when the panic started, to conform to that same pattern. Waiting until August in DH fits the wording better, but not, IMO, the facts; throughout HBP Voldy is exerting considerable influence over the Wizarding population. Chazz (talk) 01:15, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. (And sorry I took so long to reply, I had some difficulty with school, 9th grade is hard and I'm mostly editing on weekends. Back online now.) --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 19:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed to reflect that. --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 19:31, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

DH epilogue
Should the series timeline be extended to include the DH epilogue (which, using the phrase "nineteen years later" [the title of the epilogue] and the known years of the earlier events would fall on 1 September 2017)? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd argue against; there isn't really anything that happens then that is timeline-worthy, and I think it might compress the timeline unacceptably to add 20 more years on the end of it. Chazz (talk) 16:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That said: try it, see what it looks like. If nothing else, it will allow us to unfold the "again" from Voldy's second reign... Chazz (talk) 20:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks. It'll go on the timeline soon, see what it looks like. --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 21:28, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There, it's up now, see how you like it. --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 21:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Even on my big monitor, it ended up making the whole thing need side scrolling, which struck me as a not very good thing. I've brought it back to 1050 width, freed up some vertical space by dropping Harry's children to the Hogwarts bar, and eliminated some words that were making things overlap. I think it works a bit better this way... But note that 2017 would be Albus' first year, James Sirius would have been there since at least the year before. Chazz (talk) 00:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Careers Advice
We have been over this ground a few times in the actual chapter (OotP:29). In the UK / Canadian version of the books, the title is "Careers Advice", advice on careers that are available. To that end, we have used that form of the word throughout that chapter, and using it the same way in this timeline is simply retaining consistency. Chazz (talk) 16:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You sure about that? My copy of OotP says "Career Advice". --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 21:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Absolutely positive. Yours is the Scholastic edition, yes? There are several differences between the Scholastic (US) and Bloomsbury (UK) editions. My edition is the Raincoast (Canada), which is word-for-word identical to the Bloomsbury. Generally, we use the UK version as being more authoritative, closer to what the author wanted. If there is content in the US editions that don't appear in the UK version, we try to at least note it. In a case like this, where the difference makes no effective difference, we normally keep to the UK version. Chazz (talk) 00:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, mine is the Scholastic edition, how did you guess? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:57, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Elementary, my dear Watson. Your insistence that the name of the chapter was "Career Advice" means that you are using a different edition than I am, and I have seen before that the single letter difference is one of the few places where the Scholastic and Bloomsbury editions differ. Another is in PS:7, or "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" as Scholastic titled theirs, where you will find that Dean Thomas is described as a tall, black boy; that text is absent in the Bloomsbury edition, where there is nothing between mention of Quirrell and his purple turban, and the Sorting of Lisa Turpin. There is a note to that effect in our text. Chazz (talk) 18:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * My name is not "Watson". It is "Whoop whoop pull up". --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 21:08, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Does no one read the classics any more? A. Conan Doyle, the Sherlock Holmes series. Dated, in places peculiar, but still quite a lot of fun... Chazz (talk) 00:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I KNOW. Still, please don't call me "Watson". --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 01:30, 9 May 2011 (UTC) What part of "I'm joking" don't you understand? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 01:33, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * ... the part where you didn't say you were joking? Apologies for not understanding that, but if you truly had never heard of Holmes, you would not have been the first such that I had encountered. If, instead, you had ended your comment with "...and don't call me Shirley," I would have caught it as an Airplane reference and assumed it was all humour. As it stands, though, until this comment I had no way of knowing you intended a jape. Chazz (talk) 03:09, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ha ha haaaaaaaa... --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 19:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Battle of the Department of Mysteries
Should there be a subsection of the "Year Five" section for a timeline of the battle at the Department of Mysteries? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 22:28, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Withinfocus suggested that at one point, but I'm not sure... it seems to me to be a very linear section of the book, very easy to follow, though fast. I do get the feeling that something more useful would be a map of the sections of the Department that we know about, showing how the various Mysteries are interlinked, and the paths Harry and his friends took through them. Chazz (talk) 22:50, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Just tried it. Couldn't get it to work. --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 13:22, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Hallowe'en
Yes, in this article, as we do throughout the book, we use the archaic "Hallowe'en" as a nod to the British way of referring to it - the word is of course short for "All Hallows' Evening", the day before All Hallows'. In the Canadian and British versions of the books, it is spelled with the apostrophe, and so we have elected to keep that. Chazz (talk) 04:12, 12 June 2018 (UTC)