Hello, does anyone know where I might be able to find a timeline of the final Battle of Hogwarts? I'm writing a mystery story and a lot of the plot depends on when things happened...I am looking for something that is specific, such as "sometime between 11pm-2am, Snape dies in Shrieking Shack", etc. If you've seen this somewhere or have any input, please let me know! Thanks so much!

These are various times I've calculated - some are exact; some are estimates: It's difficult to know how long Harry was in King's Cross with Dumbledore - perhaps he returned instaneously or perhaps both he and Voldemort collapsed for 20 to 30 minutes? Voldemort says in the final duel with Harry that he killed Snape 3 hours ago. Difficult to fit that in because Harry was still in the Shrieking Shack when Voldemort gives him one hour to surrender. If anybody can improve on this I'd be interested.

Dates: Arrive Hogwarts 1st May, 1998. Battle of Hogwarts commenced at 00:00am 2nd May, 1998

London Sunset: 20:25. Scotland Sunset: 20:57. Scotland end twilight about 21:57. Sunrise:05:30

...TIMELINE...

08:00 Approx. Escape from Gringotts on dragon. Dragon flies all through the daylight hours.

20:52 Sunset Scotland time. Harry, Ron, Hermione already escaping from Gringotts on dragon en route to Scotland

21:50 Jump from dragon over lake. Now getting very dark

22:10 Arrive at Hogsmeade. Virtually completely dark.

22:45 Harry, Ron, Hermione arrive at Hogwarts via tunnel

23:00 Ron and Hermione go down to Chamber of Secrets to get Basilisk fangs and destroy Hufflepuff cup

23:10 Harry goes to Great Hall looking for Ron and Hermione

23:15 Voldemort demands they hand over Harry before midnight

23:30 Kingsley address gathering in Great Hall to discuss battle plan

23:45 Harry meets ghost of Helena Ravenclaw (Grey Lady)

23:55 Harry leaves ghost. Hagrid comes through window (Grawp outside)

00:00 Battle begins in grounds and castle attacked. Death Eaters, giants, spiders, dementors

00:05 Hagrid runs after Fang

00:15 Harry passes Fred etc guarding an entrance. Then Aberforth. Then finds Ron & Hermione with destroyed cup and Basilisk fangs

00:20 Back to Room of Requirement. Ginny, Tonks, Neville's gran exit into Castle. Ron & Hermione kiss.

00:25 Harry, Ron, Hermione exit R & R and re-enter as Room of Hidden Things. Begin search for diadem

00:50 Finally find and destroy diadem in fiendfyre

01:00 Death Eaters break into Hogwarts Castle.

01:10 Fighting in Castle. Fred killed

01:15 Harry looks inside Voldemort to find out where he is.

01:20 More Fighting. Hagrid taken by spiders towards Forest.

01:45 Harry, Ron, Hermione finally get out of castle. Giants. Dementors, etc.

02:00 Head towards Whomping Willow thence to Hogsmeade and Shack.

02:15 They reach the shack.

02:20 Snape killed by Nagini

02:30 Ceasefire. Voldemort gives Harry one hour to surrender

02:40 Pensieve. Snape's memories, etc.

02:50 Harry walks through Forbidden Forest, etc.

03:30 Harry arrives at Voldemort's camp

03:35 Voldemort uses killing curse on Harry

03:50 Slow march to Hogwarts

04:30 Voldemort outside Hogwarts Castle entrance brags Harry dead etc. Neville scene etc. Nagini killed

04:45 Harry slips on cloak and 'disappears' Fighting resumes. Centaurs, thestrals, hippogriffs, others

04:50 Chaotic fighting. Death Eaters being destroyed. All being drive back into Great Hall

05:20 Harry face off with Voldemort. Explains wand etc.

05:30 Sunrise. Harry & Voldemort duel. Voldemort dies.

This is wonderful! Without having the book in front of me, the best I had was that Voldemort demanded Harry surrender by midnight the first time, and then it being dawn when Voldemort is defeated. It is hard to guess at some of these...I mean, how long does viewing Pensieve memories take? I have no idea. Same with the scene in King's Cross - it could be nothing, or it could be some time. This is so much more detailed than I ever hoped to find... Thank you so much!

Yes, it's tricky. We know Harry went all the way back from the shack, viewed the pensieve and then walked all the way down and through the forest, all within ONE hour because that's all Voldemort gave him. Harry was still in the shack when he made that demand.

OK, I've added one or two more little details to my list and of course, I meant Helena's ghost not Rowena

I have to say your timeline is very, very impressive. Because it's so good I have to point out one minor error. The battle took place on the 2nd May, not late June. That will put sunrise in Scotland at around 05:30.

My impression, from the book, was that Harry and Voldemort were unconcious for only a few moments in "real time".

Just for completeness, sunset in London on the 1st May is about 20:25.

That causes me a slight problem. London to somewhere north of Glasgow, if that's where they jumped off the dragon (I'm sure they thought they were near Hogwarts), is over 400 miles; I've driven it more than once and it's a long old journey even in a car. How fast does a dragon fly? A peregrine falcon, in a dive, can exceed 100 mph. If a dragon was that fast they would have had problems holding on, and even then it would be four hours. Pitch it at 50 mph and the journey would have take in excess of 8 hours.

I think Rowling made a mistake there, because I agree with you that they arrived in Hogsmeade "at night", maybe 22:00. Mind you, it is a fantasy book so maybe dragons can use magic!

I hadn't realized there was an exact date for the battle. I put it close to the end of term which I assumed was end of June. We know Ginny didn't return after the Easter Holidays which I'd guess was April. I'd have to check Easter for that year.

Yes, it's possible JKR made some 'minor' errors here. While Voldemort was dueling Harry at the end he said he killed Snape three hours ago. It was hard to make that work because immediately after while Harry was still in the shack he gave Harry one hour to get to him in the Forest (I think he was just in time or a minute or so late because they were just giving up on him.) So there must be almost two hours between his reaching him and the final duel.

I might do some more research on this and update my list. I wish I'd done this list before I wrote my 'Our Sad Duty' as it would have been a useful reference.

I've now slightly revised my times to adjust to the correct times of sunrise and sunset on 2nd May.

The start is not greatly affected. Re-reading the original again I see it not completely dark when the dragon takes off. They see it flying away in the "rapidly darkening sky" then they disapparate almost immediately. Now a rough twilight is about one hour. Since we believe they are already in Scotland we need to consider sunset at 20:57 on 1st May so go to Hogsmeade at say 22:10 it will be virtually fully dark. Interesting that Harry says, "It'll be dark..." suggesting it's not quite totally black in the open country just before they disapparate but it will be effectively very dark in Hogsmeade.

The end is more difficult - more difficult than before. I have to fill another 50 minutes somehow...

I found a new reference: "Screams split the dawn, and Neville was aflame..." We know that the actual first light of the sun was at the moment Voldemort dies so we can take "dawn" losely to mean 'almost dawn,' that is, very bright in the east so it cannot really be less than say 15 to 30 minutes before the precise dawn. This also ties in with the final renewed battle with the centaurs and other creatures joining the fray and driving everyone back into the Great Hall. Having re-read that again it is hard to believe it is more than 15 to 30 minutes. I already had that at 15. I'll extend that to 30.

The rest I have to extend the slow march from the Forbidden Forest. This is, after all, an unknown distance but we can imagine the Forest is very large. We know this place is where the spiders were in CoS. Looking back at that text I see Ron and Harry enter the forest following the path and following the path. Later they turn off the path. Then we get "They walked for what seemed like at least half an hour..." so I believe the whole distance from Hogwarts Castle to Spiders' Hollow could easily be 60 to 90 minutes so 80 minutes is reasonable and that all now ties in with my previous times and I can reduce the time from the killing curse to the start of the march to Hogwarts to just 15 minutes.

[EDIT: There is the problem that Harry was given one hour to get from the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade to Spiders' Hollow in which time he went up to the Castle (itself quite a long way) viewed the pensieve, came out and walked all the way into the Forest, spoke with his parents, etc. and all this we would think he is walking slowly expecting he is going to his death. This is only possible if the route to the Forest is shorter (which doesn't tie in with CoS.)]

I've now re-read the original text and completely revised and adjusted the whole timeline and added more detail. It feels much more realistic now. I reduced the march from the Forest to 40 minutes. Everything started to click into place so well I am now absolutely certain that JKR had a timeline for the main events. No question about it. She knew exactly when sunset and sunrise would take place. When Voldemort says "I killed Snape three hours ago." that seems a bit odd fictionally speaking doesn't it when you stop and think. Much more likely he'd only know roughly and just say "I killed Snape hours ago." I now think JKR was looking at her timeline. She made everything fit between sunset and sunrise. Even Harry's walk from the shack to pensieve to Spiders' Hollow in one hour is about possible. Hell, I've even nailed down Ron and Hermione's kiss. It was 18.35 seconds long.

Wow, I'm loving all this detail! I need to sit down and re-read all these messages along with my copy of DH. I feel certain, too, that JKR had everything planned out, even if some things appear at first glance to be disordered or not explicitly stated. I hope to give these a thorough read-through later today!

I wouldn't be surprised if Rowling's notes and timelines weren't as long as the books themselves. I've read somewhere she ended up with somebody who was almost like the continuity person on a film, checking details to keep it all in order. Apparently, though I've never noticed it, one of the few mistakes she's realised is that she managed to make a classroom move floor. She had the whole layout of the castle written down, along with family trees and so on. That's the kind of thing we can pick up on to help in our own stories.

Mine aren't quite that detailed but I do write rough timelines and put in key events just as anchor points. Oh, I write the first chapter and then the last chapter. Once you have those it's just a case of filling in the gaps!

I'd love to see Jo's list to see how close I got mine!

I've made a small modification to insert Harry & Luna's visit to Ravenclaw Tower and Snape's departure.

This is just amazing...thank you to both of you!

I've always wondered about the passage from the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack. How far away is Hogsmeade, anyway? It seems like the first time Harry uses it, in PoA, it takes him quite a while to walk the passage, but then other times, like in DH, they get through it fairly quickly. But then, at the start of HBP, it seems like Harry and Tonks travel a long way from Hogsmeade to the school gates. Maybe the route is more circuitous if you're taking the road and not the underground passage, though. Actually...I just realized that in PoA Harry takes the one-eyed witch passage to Honeydukes, and THAT is the one that takes a long time. I don't remember what the book said about the tunnel to the Shack, I'll have to go back and read that.

As for the Spider's Hollow and CoS vs. DH...I think it would be reasonable to assume that the spiders maybe weren't taking the most direct path through the forest. I would think once they got out of the castle they might make less of a "bee line" (wrong insect to be a pun) and just head in the general direction, so if the boys were following them, they have meandered a bit. Second, and this is relatively minor, but they were, what, 12 then? So their strides were shorter than when they're 16, 17, 18 years old and walking through the forest. But I think the biggest explanation might be that in CoS they didn't know what they were walking into, and so I think they would have been creeping along a lot more slowly. When Harry walks into the forest, I can see him wanting to drag his feet a little, yes, but overall I think he'd be walking around with far more purpose and determination. His mind would have been so wrapped up in what was happening that I bet he was walking a lot more quickly than he realized. So it would be logical, for me at least, if he covered that distance far quicker in DH than he did in CoS.

I know JKR had a map of the whole castle/grounds/Hogsmeade/lake/Forest all in relation to one another, which I would LOVE to see. She can't get that encyclopedia out fast enough! This is one of the few "dynasties" where I feel that there could never be too much information published...I would even read 'Travels with Trolls' if JKR took the time to write it!

Yeah I've often wondered about the distance to Hogsmeade. It must be quite a walk considering you have to walk all the way around the lake to get through the gate then to the train station and Hogsmeade is beyond that. I have a rough sketch map I got from somewhere on the net showing Forest east-north-east of the Castle, the lake to the south of the castle and south of that the track and train station then south of that is Hogsmeade. The willow is up between the top of the lake and the forest. I've not checked it with the original novels though.

Just curious - how did you come up with the 18.35 seconds for Ron and Hermione's kiss? I love that detail. :)

Also, I thought I'd ask here instead of creating another topic: do either of you have a handle on how far a person could reasonably Apparate? It seems like, in the books, that the only real information we get about this subject is when Harry is watching Voldemort search for Grindelwald, and when he checks his Horcruxes. I remember there was a specific line about Voldemort flying, and that "soon he'd be close enough to Apparate". I think it might have been when they were locked in Malfoy Manner.

What are your thoughts about this? If trans-continental Apparation was possible, then Voldemort would have just Apparated back immediately instead of having to fly part way. I ask because I'm writing a story where Hermione and Ron go searching for her parents, and I want their journey to be realistic - not just "and then we Apparated from Hogwarts to Australia".

I remember that bit about him being close enough to apparate, so there has to be a limit. The impression I got was "somewhere" over the North Sea. I'm sure I remember in the first book that Dubledore had to get back from the Ministry, again suggesting that he couldn't do it by apparition. Hogwarts is maybe 500 miles from London, so it has to be less than that.

What wasn't mentioned was where Horace was hiding out in HBP, because Dumbledore was able to apparate there from Little Whingeing.

As a reasonable guess I reckon maybe just a couple of hundred miles is the maximum.

Oh, that's a good point about Dumbledore visiting the Ministry. And we've already established that the trio took a dragon most of the way from London before Apparating to Hogsmeade, which again implies a shorter rather than longer distance. I never got the impression that Hermione Apparated them from one end of the UK to the other when they were on run, either, but rather used destinations that were somewhat closer together.

Any idea where the Burrow is supposed to be located? Because the trio went from there to Tottenham Court Road in one go, but I have no idea if the Burrow is meant to be near London or not.

Right so I read somewhere that the Burrow is most likely near Devon...have you all heard something similar? Anyway, Devon to Tottenham Court is about 200 miles, and they managed that easily - so I think 300 miles is looking more and more like a reasonable distance for Apparation.

Haha! I was just joking about the kiss because I was so surprised at how detailed the timeline was that JKR had created but it sounds about right though I need to do some extensive testing to make sure:

.M: S

02:70 Hermione throws herself at Ron and kisses him.

03:40 Ron drops his basilisk fangs and lifts Hermione off her feet.

04:00 Harry stares for a second or two then says, "Is this the moment?"

04:00 Ron and Hermione gripped each other more firmly, swaying on the spot.

02:00 Harry shouts, "Oi! There's a war going on here!"

02:25 They hear him and the kiss finally ends.

18:35 TOTAL

Apparation maximum distance is a mystery. My feeling is it's possibly up to a few hundred miles at most. I base this on:

Hogwarts is in Scotland - the north of the UK.

Malfoy Manor is in Wiltshire in the South West.

Dumbledore apparated from Scotland to the cave.

Harry apparated back.

Voldemort flew from the cave to Malfoy Manor to get in range to apparate.

Riddle's orphanage was in London in the South East. Likely a holiday outing to the seaside would use the east coast.

This suggests the seaside resort where the cave was is on the north east coast - nearer to Scotland than Wiltshire - perhaps in Yorkshire.

Overall distances are of the order of hundreds of miles so the max apparation might be say two to five hundred miles - just within range of Hogwarts but not Wiltshire.

This fits in with Hermione's apparating around the country while the trio are searching for horcruxes. I've not checked any particular 'hops' but they must be a few hundred miles at least I would guess. They never hop over to France for instance.

So for international travel use portkeys and for a few hundred miles use apparation. That's my view anyway.

The wiki gives "Apparition becomes increasingly difficult with the distance to be travelled. Inter-continental Apparition should only be attempted by the most highly skilled of wizards." It quotes Quidditch Through the Ages as its source but since Voldemort is possibly the most powerful wizard of his age it seems to conflict with his need to get in range of Malfoy Manor. Even JKR is fallible. Perhaps she put in that delay later when she realized she needed more time.

Personally, for the sake of fanfiction, it is safer and more believable to go with the 'few hundred miles only' theory I think.

Good point about The Burrow. Ottery St Catchpole is based on a place called Ottery St Mary which is, as you say, in Devon. A few hundred miles, tops.

Given that, and that London to Calais is far less, why didn't people apparate to France during the war? Why go on the run? Is there some kind of boundary issue?

Oh, the cave, I had forgotten about that! Now that you mention international travel, I'm recalling the details from GoF - the Bulgarian Prime Minister took a portkey in, I believe, and so did everyone else - although that may have been more for security and organizational purposes (so they'd know when people were arriving) than for ease of travel.

Perhaps even if Voldemort could have managed the Apparation, he wasn't in the mood at that point - how many 'false calls' had he received on his Mark by then? Bellatrix was hesitant to call him at first because they'd messed up and lost Harry in the past, so maybe Voldemort was just feeling like it wasn't a TRUE emergency that required him to Apparate all the way back when he could fly/Apparate. Just a thought.

And maybe international Apparation is sort of frowned upon, similar to the way Dumbledore didn't Apparate directly into Slughorn's hideout? More of a nicety than anything. I would imagine that there are customs wizards for travel between countries similar to Muggle customs, wouldn't you? I seem to remember some mention of that when Arthur was talking about the guy who wanted to market flying carpets in the UK.

My mind is slightly boggling at the "need to do some extensive testing". Remember, to be valid, your experimental data needs to exclude statistical anomaly and the simplest way to do that is to have multiple data sets! I do think your timelines are incredible. A wonderful piece of work.

Now, the cave. Tom was in that orphanage pre WW2. That means trips would have been by train, and the "holiday" was most likely a day trip. The orphange might have had trouble paying for anything longer. Yorkshire isn't impossible, but a long journey once changes are included. More likely would be somewhere in the south-east, like Kent. So, further from Hogwarts than London. Yeah, stick with maximum 500 miles - but within national boundaries.

I agree with the convention, as well, that you don't just turn up in another country, but these people would have been refugees. Having said that, didn't Harry tell somebody in the Ministry to get out, and get abroad? The one Ron polyjuiced? So maybe some did go whilst others chose to stay - like Ted Tonks and the others, waiting for a chance to fight back.

Incidentally, when I had Hermione and Ron going to Australia they took the plane, on the basis the Ministry had better things to do than organise portkeys. If in doubt - cheat!

My first thought was a south east coast resort but the problem is that then Voldemort is nearer to Malfoy Manor than Dumbledore and Harry are to Scotland yet they apparated in one while he could not. I've not checked precisely but even if Hogwarts is south east Scotland and Malfoy Manor is far west of Wiltshire I'd still like to see the cave further up the coast.

National boundaries is good - makes sense - though in my own story I had a caveat that magical scientists, cartographers, magi-zoologists, etc. are permitted to portkey into countries without too much fuss whereas several dozen Aurors had to fill in the paperwork first! That was a story device so the cavalry didn't turn up too soon!

Regarding the query about the time taken for the dragon to reach Scotland - I think I've found the answer: a long time! Most of the day actually. In my timeline I said originally...

20:25 Sunset London time. Harry, Ron, Hermione already escaping from Gringotts on dragon en route to Scotland

...which is correct but if one re-reads it carefully it doesn't actually say when they left Gringotts - only that they were at least en route by sunset.

Now, I'm re-reading the Gringotts chapter and with a sudden shock remember they get up around dawn to set off! I'd forgotten that. They Apparate from Shell Cottage so that won't take long to get to Diagon Alley. Even allowing an hour for messing around in the garden and walking up to the bank I'm astonished now that the bank is open that early! British high street banks tend to open later than normal retail shops. Clearly goblins are more efficient.

Anyway, you can see where this is leading. How long where they in the bank? Could be as little as 30 minutes or as long as say two hours? How long does that rail ride take? Then there's the scene in the vault and finally the dragon climbing up to escape. Hard to believe the whole thing could be more than an hour really but one would have to put the actual escape out of Gringott's no later than 8am or 9am and I would go with 8am.

So, the dragon flew all day to reach Scotland around sunset. Although it does not affect the battle times, I'll add this to the timeline.

I've also now adjusted the sunset time to 20:52 Scotland time rather than London. This now works much better with the time one hour later when it's getting 'very dark' because dusk lasts roughly an hour.

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