How much did Hermione age from time travelling in “The Prisoner of Azkaban”?
The book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (PoA) documents the experiences of Harry Potter in his third year of magical education and adventure at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In their third year, Harry Potter, his friends Ron and Hermione, and all of his peers began their studies in elective courses. Harry and Ron chose to take Divination and Care of Magical Creatures, while Hermione chose to take Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, Muggle Studies, Ancient Runes, and Arithmancy. Unfortunately, there was not enough time in the week to take all of her electives, so Hermione was given a time turner. The time turner allowed Hermione to regularly go back in time and attend all of the classes in her frequently double-booked schedule.
An interesting question arises from this situation: How much additional time did Hermione experience by regularly going back in time during her third year at Hogwarts?
Many of the details that are necessary to answer this question cannot be confirmed. Even things like course schedules, school breaks, and class period duration are never explicitly stated. As a result, this estimation will be based entirely on educated assumptions.
The first and most general of these assumptions is that Hermione only used her time turner to attend classes or take exams, and not to complete homework or attend extra-curricular activities. The remainder of this article will propose several other assumptions that will be used to understand the length of weekly class periods, Hermione’s exam schedule, and the structure of the academic calendar. In the end, these pieces of information will be used to conduct a final calculation.
Weekly Class Periods
Assumptions about the frequency of classes each week:
- Each class meets twice per week
- Standard class periods are 1.5 hours long and double class periods are 3 hours long
- Each week, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions classes have one double period and one standard period
For this approximation, we will assume that there are four standard class periods per day and each class period is 1.5 hours (9:00–10:30, 10:30–12:00, 1:00–2:30, 2:30–4:00). The only exception to this schedule is Astronomy, which takes place at midnight.
Based on the assumptions about lengths of classes and the number of classes per week, the amount of time that the students spend in class per week can be easily estimated:
4.5 hours per week: Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions
3 hours per week: Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, Astronomy, History of Magic, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Ancient Runes*, Arithmancy*, Muggle Studies*
*These are the courses that only Hermione attended. Harry and Ron did not take Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Muggle Studies.
This time distribution was settled upon because there is evidence for double potions lessons each week, implied evidence for double defense against the dark arts lessons each week, and evidence that both courses meet twice a week. (PoA, Chapter 7; PoA, Chapter 10) There are no other classes that have evidence for double periods. I assumed that all other courses met for one period twice a week or a double period once a week. This assumption would then result in Harry and Ron having class 30 out of 33 hours each week. This is a reassuring result because there is not enough time to comfortably fit another elective into Harry and Ron’s normal schedule; hence Hermione’s time turner.
Despite the fact that Ron and Harry’s schedule allows for two free periods each week, the text both implicitly or explicitly states that Hermione was required to go back in time in order to attend all of her additional classes. Therefore, it is assumed that all of the time that Hermione spent in her three additional electives is a result of her going back in time.
This assumption holds true until Hermione drops Divination in late March. (PoA, Chapter 15) Prior to this event, there is evidence that Hermione needed to go back in time during her Divination period to attend another one of her electives. (PoA, Chapter 12) After dropping Divination, Hermione does not need to time travel during this period to attend her class and therefore does not need to time travel for those three class hours each week for the remainder of the school year.
Exam Schedule
In chapter 16 of PoA, we are provided with Hermione’s exam schedule for the first day of exams as well as an implied schedule for Harry’s exams. With both of these sources of information, Hermione’s final exam schedule can be distilled from the details. Additionally, by assuming that students have an hour-long break for lunch (and last-minute studying), Hermione’s schedule demonstrates that exam periods at Hogwarts are equivalent to a double class period: three hours.
School Year Schedule
Assumptions about the academic calendar:
- classes start on September 2, 1993
- students do not attend classes on Saturdays and Sundays
- winter break runs from December 18, 1993 through January 2, 1994
- spring break runs from March 31 through April 3
- classes end on June 17
- exam period runs from June 20 through June 23
One of the most consistent dates on the Hogwarts academic calendar is that every year the Hogwarts Express takes students to school on September 1. Classes always begin on the next weekday. This would mean that for Harry’s third year at Hogwarts, classes began on Thursday, September 2, 1993. As a result, the first “week” of classes is only two days long.
After beginning in September, classes then run until winter break. According to chapter 11, winter break starts immediately after a Hogsmeade weekend. Given that winter break is only two weeks long, it is safe to assume that winter break started on Monday, December 20, 1993. (PoA, Chapter 10) At the very beginning of chapter 12, Harry states that classes resume just after New Year’s Day. This means that classes most likely resumed on Monday, January 3, 1994.
The students have their next break during the “Easter holidays”, which presumably coincide with the traditional Easter holidays of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. In 1994, Easter Sunday occurred on April 3, therefore break would run from the preceding Thursday (March 31) until April 3. As a small aside, Scotland is the only country in the UK that does not traditionally observe Easter Monday as a bank holiday. Considering that Hogwarts is located in Scotland, I will assume that the institution would not observe Easter Monday.
The next significant schedule inconsistency is exam period. Several (seemingly unrelated) sources of evidence can be used to determine when the exam period starts.
- According to Chapter 31 in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, upper level examinations take place during two weeks in June. During that time period, Harry notes that younger students are still attending classes.
- In the final chapter of PoA, Harry says that he would have to wait two months until he can return back to Hogwarts.
- At the end of every year, the students have free time after their exams and before the end of term feast. This is often when the heroes embark on (and physically recover from) their greatest challenge of the year.
From the above details, and according to the calendar for June 1994, we can assume that Harry left Hogwarts at the end of the last week of June, and that the students had exams during the second to last week of June. Chapter 16 of PoA, specifies that Harry’s exam period ran from Monday to Thursday. This would mean that the students completed their last week of class on Friday, June 17, 1994.
Final Calculations
Before executing the final calculation, it is important to note that there is one instance where Hermione uses the time turner for a non-academic purpose. At the climax of the story, Harry and Hermione go back in time for three hours.
Now, given the above assumptions, the following calculation can be made:
- Additional time spent in class prior to dropping Divination: 9 hours/week
- Additional time spent in class after dropping Divination: 6 hours/week
- Number of weeks in class prior to dropping Divination: 28 weeks
- Number of weeks in class after dropping Divination: 11 weeks
- Additional time spent in exams: 6 hours
- Adventure time: 3 hours
Total time: 327 hours = 13.625 days = 2 weeks
So, during her third year at Hogwarts, Hermione experienced the equivalent of two additional weeks of lived experience compared to her peers.
This estimate is entirely dependent upon all of the above assumptions. The assumption that holds the most weight in this estimate, however, is the amount of time that Hermione is required to go back in time each week for classes. There is no way to confidently confirm or deny any of these data points, so I would still invite others to question the assumptions made above and challenge my calculations.
