Seventh year

File:Percyweasley.jpg

Percy Weasley - Gryffindor Head Boy in 1993.

A Seventh Year is a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who is in their seventh, and last and final year of formal magical education. Seventh Years are always seventeen to eighteen years of age because British schools do not require students to repeat years.

The Seventh Year contains the most important exams given at Hogwarts — the N.E.W.T.s. Students conclude their N.E.W.T. level studies in the seventh year, at the end of which they sit the N.E.W.T. exam pertaining to each of their subjects. A student in the Seventh Year would have the same schedule he or she had in the Sixth Year, and would sit only those classes in which they received O.W.L.s meeting the minimum requirement of the professor for that subject. However, not all students take N.E.W.T.s as some occupations require only O.W.L.s.

Every year, a male and female Seventh Year Prefect are appointed Head Boy and Head Girl respectively. It is possible that Headmaster (or Headmistress) selects the Head students from among the Seventh Year [prefects] each year, though sometimes they may not have been Prefects, as in the case of James Potter.

Behind the scenes

• J. K. Rowling said in an interview that there is some form of graduation ceremony for Seventh Years that includes riding the Hogwarts boats back across the lake as they leave, but that she chose not to include it in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as "to have a graduation scene on top of what just happened would've been an absurd bit of anti-climax."
• J. K. Rowling also stated in the same interview that although Harry, Ron, and Hermione skipped their seventh year to hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes, Hermione went back to Hogwarts to get her N.E.W.T.s and properly graduate. Harry and Ron, however, did not return, and instead worked with Kingsley Shacklebolt to round up stray Death Eaters.

Appearances

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows