![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
In this case, since Albus is speaking to an almost 16 year old about a prophecy made before his birth, it means sometime during the year before your birth. Nothing in Albus' speech implies that it was close to exactly 16 years ago. Only that it took place sometime 16 years ago.
I didn't mean June 1980. My suggestion of "splitting the difference" lands somewhere like February or March, which is halfway around the year from September when Sybill gives her quote of her tenure. Not "barely 15", but 15 and 6 months, or a little more.
It is also difficult to see how Albus could add a class with 3/4 of the school year already passed.
He speaks of "continuing" with the subject, not picking it up again after a hiatus, so I expect there was an outgoing current instructor he was looking to replace (or perhaps let the subject drop if he found no one suitable). Teachers apparently can and do switch during the year: McGonagall says she began teaching during a December. (Or perhaps Trelawney was some sort of assistant to an outgoing retiree for a little while, not that we see any evidence of such an arrangement in other subjects.)
I didn't mean June 1980. My suggestion of "splitting the difference" lands somewhere like February or March, which is halfway around the year from September when Sybill gives her quote of her tenure. Not "barely 15", but 15 and 6 months, or a little more.
It is also difficult to see how Albus could add a class with 3/4 of the school year already passed.
He speaks of "continuing" with the subject, not picking it up again after a hiatus, so I expect there was an outgoing current instructor he was looking to replace (or perhaps let the subject drop if he found no one suitable). Teachers apparently can and do switch during the year: McGonagall says she began teaching during a December. (Or perhaps Trelawney was some sort of assistant to an outgoing retiree for a little while, not that we see any evidence of such an arrangement in other subjects.)