10 Oldest Characters In The Harry Potter Universe

6. Griselda Marchbanks

harry potter and the order of the phoenix O.W.L. exams
Warner Bros

Age: 147+

Professor Griselda Marchbanks has a unique claim to fame in that she actually invigilated both Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore's Hogwarts exams.

In the Order Of The Phoenix novel - while presiding over Harry's O.W.L. tests - she mentioned that she personally oversaw Dumbledore during his Charms and Transfiguration N.E.W.T. exams. Dumbledore sat these when he was 17 or 18 years of age, meaning that Professor Marchbanks has to be around 10-plus years older than him in order to be qualified and experienced enough to be a full-time invigilator.

So, with a birth year around 1871 or earlier and no record of her having died, Marchbanks could still be alive today, putting her at the ripe old age of 147 or more. Is there a wizarding retirement home somewhere?

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!