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Accio Harry Potter secrets! 🪄
Harry Potter is a made-up character in a fictional world, but still… don’t you want to know some secrets about his story? 🧐 In this blog I’ll reveal inside scoop the author of the Harry Potter books has divulged over the years.
Reading Harry Potter sparked ✨ the inspiration and wonder I needed to write my young adult fantasy series called The Anchoress. It is by far my favorite book series and is undoubtedly one of the most popular book and movie franchises in the world.
Just in case there are some people who don't know our beloved Harry, let's begin with an overview. The seven book Harry Potter fantasy series written ✍️ by British author J. K. Rowling chronicles the adventures of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 🧙♀️ Scholastic published the first book in the series in 1997, the last published in 2007.
The Harry Potter series remains a global phenomenon to this day. The series has been translated into over 70 languages and is published in over 200 countries.
The books have won multiple awards and have been made into eight blockbuster films. However, the series has also generated considerable controversy, with some critics arguing the stories present a negative image of the British class system and its boarding schools.
Here are some secrets revealed over the years by J. K. Rowling, either during interviews, on the Wizarding World website, or on her Twitter account:
J. K. Rowling designed the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Her inspiration came from visiting the hall of Christ Church at Oxford University. Wizards enchanted the ceiling to look like a blue sky with moving clouds, but it also shows weather effects, such as lightning and rain, when it’s actually raining outside.
Hogwarts is in Scotland, so Hogsmeade is also in Scotland.
J. K. Rowling originally wrote the books as a way for her to cope with her mother’s death.
J. K. originally titled the first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The publisher changed the title to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to appeal the US market.
J. K. wrote the first book in coffee cafes because she couldn’t afford an office and lived in low income housing.
The first sentence of the first book in J. K. Rowling’s original draft was “Mr. Dursley was a very ordinary man.”
The long-standing tradition of democracy in the wizarding world was one J. K. borrowed from the real world.
Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the movies, admitted he almost quit after filming the Goblet of Fire. He thought working as an actor was a drag and worried about losing his anonymity.
J.K. based the abrasive, bigoted character Dolores Umbridge on a cross between one of her real life teachers and one of her office mates. Umbridge had a muggle mother and her brother was a squib.
J. K. originally planned to kill off the character of Arthur Wesley during Nagini’s attack in the Ministry of Magic in Order of the Phoenix. She gave Mr. Weasley a reprieve because there were “very few good fathers in the book.” Instead, she killed off the character of Remus Lupin.
J.K. considered making a vampire-teacher character named Trocar. But she didn’t care for him and he disappeared early in her notes.
Harry and Voldemort are secretly related. They’re connected not only through the Horcruxes but also through their family trees! Harry is a descendant of Ignotus Peverell, the man who passed his invisibility cloak through the generations, finally reaching Harry. Ignotus’s granddaughter, Lolanthe, married Hardwin Potter. From here, Harry descended as part of the Potter family. As for Voldemort, his mother, Merope, was born to the House of Gaunt. She descended from both Cadmus (the Gaunts’ signet ring housed the Resurrection Stone) and Salazar Slytherin. So Harry and Voldemort’s ancestors were brothers, making them very distant cousins.
Dumbledore could see Harry under the invisibility cloak by using homenum revelio, the Human-Presence-Revealing Spell . Dumbledore was such a powerful wizard he could perform spells without saying them out loud.
J. K.’s mother had given her a book on Native American culture when she was a child. This inspired J.K. to write the Muggle-Repelling Charm, repello muggletum. This spell prevented muggles from seeing or entering an area. Also, the Room of Requirement came from this experience, a room on the seventh floor of Hogwarts Castle that appears when someone is in very great need of it, and contains what that individual needs at that time.
Well, there you have it! I hope you enjoyed learning more about Harry Potter. 🙂
Check back Oct 1 when I'll reveal secrets about the Wizarding World at Universal Orlando!
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