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Professor Marchbanks was the witch in the council which has visited Hogwarts in the OOtP for the OWL tests.

She was once quoted saying:

... not if Dumbledore doesn't want to be found! I should know....

Examined him personally in his Transfiguration and Charms when he did NEWTs ......

So, she was one of the examiners back when Dumbledore was giving his NEWTs.

And owing to the fact that Dumbledore is considerably old by the time Order of the Phoenix happened, I guess she must have been at a pretty impressive age for a human being.

So, is there any close-to-accurate calculation on how much her age can be?

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  • I would like to note that Professor Tofty is described as the oldest of the OWL committee examining Harry, so he is probably older than Professor Marchbanks.
    – b_jonas
    Commented May 12, 2016 at 10:38
  • @b_jonas Damn, he must be atleast 140+ then!
    – Dawny33
    Commented May 12, 2016 at 10:43

1 Answer 1

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She was born before 1881, the year of Dumbledore's birth, as she must be 1 school year older the Dumbledore at least. At the time of Harrys OWLs, she was at the very least 115 years old, as Dumbledore would have been 114 that year.

She was probably born a few years before that, as her job was to test 17 year old wizards on varying different magical topics she herself needed to at least be above your average 17 year old wizards ability to accurately grade them.

Dumbledores Date of birth is referenced here on Pottermore

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  • 1
    (+1) Nice analysis. But, why did you assume just +1 year? Don't they need to be atleast 25+(<-- lower bound) in order to be eligible for invigilating in the OWL's?
    – Dawny33
    Commented May 11, 2016 at 6:03
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    @Dawny33 as far as ive read theres no official age for newt testers nor do we know if theres aditional schooling to work on that magical testing organization
    – Himarm
    Commented May 11, 2016 at 11:44
  • According to Harry Potter Wikia, she was born no later than the 1870s, I.e. 1879 or earlier. However I'm not entirely sure how accurate Harry Potter wikia is. It would , in my opinion, make sense for her to be more than one year older than Dumbledore as she says "he did N.E.W.T.s… Did things with a wand I'd never seen before.", giving the impression she had already been doing the job a few years, otherwise you would expect her to see new things all the time anyway. I hope that made sense.
    – Becca
    Commented May 12, 2016 at 6:55
  • @Becca i agree it makes her appear to have at least have more then 1 newts testing before dumbledore, however, since we dont know for sure i left it at just at least 1 year older. she most likely is some 10-20 years older then Dumbledore.
    – Himarm
    Commented May 12, 2016 at 12:31
  • @HimArm: On the other hand, do we know for sure that Dumbledore took the OWL exam when he was only 17 years old? I thought he might have been a bit late with schooling because of some family trouble.
    – b_jonas
    Commented May 12, 2016 at 14:13

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