HOL

For all of the characters we have official birthdates for - whether from the main books (e.g. James Potter's gravestone shows 27 Mar 1960) or other direct statements from JKR/her websites (e.g. Quirinus Quirrell - born 26 Sep from Pottermore, but unknown year) there are many characters whose birthdays we do not know.

Have any of you tried to determine birthdays of those other characters? And if so, what was your reasoning? Cool numbers? Matching someone you know/another character? Making them old/young for their school year? Astrological features (at least sun sign)? Significance of the day?

I'll give two examples that I *just* decided: Slytherins whose birthday, but not birthyear, is unknown.

I) Bellatrix Lestrange - 5 November 1951
1951 is from the Black family tree; it makes a lot of sense - both symbologically and astrologically - to place her birthday on Bonfire Night. (Yes, I had used a slightly different birthday for her for over a decade, but the Bonfire Night associations are too strong to ignore!)

2) Regulus Black - 11 November 1961
Again, 1961 is from the Black family tree, and this makes him 40 years older, to the day, than Prof. Will Lestrange (22.5 years older than the Muggle playing him). Feels right to have that strong association with one of the characters I most strongly identify with. Plus, if you time his birth right (say, 5:35 AM local), you can give him a Katy Perry-tier intense Scorpio chart!

Note that these two cousins have very similar birthdays (and Sirius Black's isn't far off at 3 Nov 1959 thanks to JKR spilling the beans), and this makes them among the oldest in their year in school.

Anyone else been thinking of this in a similar way?

I've been thinking about this on and off for a while because so many characters I like don't have birthdays given by JKR. Lucius and Narcissa don't have birthdays given just a year for Narcissa and then an estimation of what year for Lucius based on an article in one of the books where they give his age (I cannot for the life of me remember which book or what the age was right now).

For a fic I'm perpetually working on, I'm half tempted to give them my parents birth months at least. So Lucius would be in October and Narcissa would be in November, which would really fit in well with the birthdays you've given Bellatrix and Regulus as well as Sirius' canon birthday.

Which means that Andromeda should also have a birthday in November. Is this too many birthdays in one month? Not in my mind. Four family members and a close friend all have birthdays in March (and only one of them isn't in the same week as the rest lol).

Interesting! I have thoughts on others in the generation as well (wrote Bellatrix/Rodolphus fic in a past life) and used the following as dates, for good and bad reasons:

Rodolphus Lestrange - 12 May 1954 (2.5 years younger than Bellatrix, one year overlap with Marauders, and exactly matches a specific OOC birthday with one digit changed)
Lucius Malfoy - 11 Jun 1954 (OOTP chapter 15 he was given as 41 in September 1995 interview, and - similar birthday to his son as well as matching my own dad)
Andromeda Tonks - 1 Nov 1954 (older than Narcissa, younger than Bellatrix, and... I wanted to make her seem exactly like a younger Bellatrix in school days, enough so that Rodolphus would mistake Andromeda for Bellatrix after Bellatrix graduated which ONLY works if Andromeda is in a younger year than Rodolphus!)
Narcissa Malfoy - 1 Dec 1955 which is NOT the best choice! I just like the idea of pairing couples with opposite star signs (even if there's no other reason Sagittarius could conceivably fit for her), and I also wanted her to be as close in age to the Marauders as possible while keeping the 1955 birthyear from the family tree; this allows three years of overlap with the Marauders in school

And yeah, it does make sense that a family like that might time all their birthdays close together like that!