Discussion: Aging in the Wizarding World

[hpgoldenage_mod]

Time for our first discussion post. :)

What does canon tell us about aging in the wizarding world and what is your own head canon on the topic? Feel free to cite canon examples as well as reference fanworks, perhaps a favorite fic that matches your head canon or made you see aging in a whole new way.

Comments

[torino10154]

I wish we had more concrete examples of older witches and wizards. I do think Dumbledore is an extraordinary wizard and there are a few characters mentioned who are older but seeing more like Dumbledore would help things. Then again, a lot of characters we don't really know their ages. Moody, for example.

[woldy]

Bathilda Bagshot is canonically very old (older than Dumbles, since she was a friend of his parents during his childhood), and both Muriel Weasley and Griselda Marchbanks are elderly. I think there are actually quite a few older characters, just in less prominent roles.

[torino10154]

Yeah, those were the characters I thought of as well. And Muriel is just over a hundred, apparently (born 1890 according to wiki). I guess other than a few notable exceptions, like Marchbanks, most wizards we've seen/heard of still seem to be within the range of normal Muggles, IMO.

I was thinking of Dumbledore at 115 and I just read a story about a man of 100 who still drives himself to work 4 days a week (I forget what his job was now but is was on the physical side for someone of that age). Yes, that's not the norm, but it's clearly not impossible. Oh, and the oldest resident of Purcellville, just up the road from me, turns 107 today.