“I always knew-and this was from really early on-that I was working toward the point where Hagrid carried Harry, alive but supposedly dead, out of the forest, always. Rowling calls the idea that she had the first chapter of Deathly Hallows written and locked away in the safe “rubbish.” But there was a small element of truth to it: “I had, very early on-but not the first day or anything, probably within the first year of writing-I wrote a sketch for what I thought the final chapter would be,” she told Daniel Radcliffe, who played Potter on the big screen, in an interview for the Deathly Hallows Part 2 DVD extra features. Rowling wrote a sketch of the final chapter of the final book. Incendio, which lights a fire, comes from incendiarius, or “fire-raising.” And Hogwarts’s motto is Draco Dormiens Numquam Titillandus-“Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon.” 4. I see it as a kind of mutation that the wizards are using.” Expelliarmus, for example, combines expellere, meaning “drive out” or “expel,” with arma, meaning “weapon,” and knocks weapons from an enemy’s hands. “I take great liberties with the language for spells.

“It just amused me, the idea that wizards would still be using Latin as a living language, although it is, as scholars of Latin will know,” she said in 2000. Rowling’s education came in handy for writing the Harry Potter books.Īt university, she minored in classics, and she put that education to good use, peppering the books with Latin. I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.” 3. When one student asked her, “What made you think of the people’s names and dormitories at Hogwarts?” Rowling responded, “I invented the names of the Houses on the back of an airplane sick bag! This is true. the opportunity to ask Rowling questions about Harry Potter. In 2000, Scholastic gave schoolchildren across the U.S.

Rowling invented the names of the Hogwarts houses on the back of a barf bag.

Plus, both Dumbledore and Rowling like sherbet lemons (Rowling has said that the wizard’s “got good taste”). And that’s not the only influence Rowling had on her characters: She’s said that Hermione is a bit like her when she was younger, and her favorite animal is an otter-which is, of course, Hermione’s patronus. Rowling and Harry Potter share a birthday. Read on for what you need to know about the Harry Potter books and films. Think you know all there is to know about the Boy Who Lived? Think again.

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