The lore of Harry Potter is a deep and endless place. When you think about how incredibly widespread and popular the franchise is, it’s not surprising that there’s a ton of trivia to learn about. A lot of time and effort went into building the rich mythology of the Harry Potter world and a lot of people contributed to it. There are a lot of things most fans don’t know about.
This includes real people referenced in the pages, dropped plot lines, failed spin-offs, bizarre connections and even secret ways the story was used to enact petty revenge. So let’s enter the chamber of Harry Potter secrets and bring some little known facts about the series to light.
One of the kids sorted into Gryffindor was a real person
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a girl named Natalie McDonald was sorted into Gryffindor. As it turns out, this was a tribute to a real, brave Natalie McDonald. Natalie was a nine-year-old girl from Toronto who was stricken with terminal leukemia. She was a huge Harry Potter fan, but she knew she wouldn’t live long enough to read the Goblet of Fire. So a family friend. Annie Kidder, went directly to Bloomsbury, the publisher of Harry Potter, and asked them to pass on a letter to J.K. Rowling requesting that Natalie be given sneak peak at what would happen in the Goblet of Fire a year before it was published.
Unfortunately, Rowling was away on vacation at the time and her receiving the request was delayed as a result. Nevertheless, as soon as she got it, she sent an email to Natalie, detailing what would happen in Goblet. Sadly, Natalie had passed away the day before the email was sent. However, her mother Valerie replied to the e-mail and she and Rowling struck up a friendship. Though Natalie did not live to read the Goblet of Fire, Rowling honored her in the pages of the book and included a line where her namesake was sorted into Gryffindor, the house for the courageous.
An eight-year-old girl was responsible for Harry Potter being published
Many people are aware that many major publishing companies turned down Harry Potter before Bloomsbury chose to publish it. What many are not aware of is that it was an eight-year-old girl named Alice Newton who actually convinced Bloomsbury to accept the Harry Potter manuscript. Nigel Newton was the chairman for Bloombury Publishing. When he was given a sample of Harry Potter to consider, he took it home and gave it to his young daughter Alice to read.
"She came down from her room an hour later glowing," Newton recalled, "saying, 'Dad, this is so much better than anything else.” He continued, “She nagged and nagged me in the following months, wanting to see what came next."
His daughter’s enthusiasm and intense desire to read the rest of the story convinced Newton to publish the book. It turns out this young girl was responsible for the wisest business decision Bloomsbury ever made- the Harry Potter series is one of the best selling of all time.
J.K. Rowling wasn't afraid to use her books to get a little petty revenge
Stephen Fry, who narrates the Harry Potter audiobooks, admitted on a comedy tour that he incurred J.K. Rowling’s wrath. When he was hired to narrate the first book, he had no idea this series was going to be a cultural phenomenon. He simply thought of it as a silly children’s book. So when he met J.K. Rowling and she told him she was writing a sequel, he replied “good for you” in what was, by his own account, a very condescending manner.
Years later, he was narrating The Prisoner of Azkaban and found himself struggling with reading out the phrase “Harry pocketed it”. No matter what he did, he ended up saying “pocketeded it” instead. After several bad takes, he called JKR and asked if he could simply say “Harry put it in his pocket” instead. According to him, Rowling “thought for a moment, then said “no” and hung up”. By amazing coincidence, the phrase “pocketed it” appeared in every single book after The Prisoner of Azkaban.
That’s a lesson to be careful who you patronize. Though it did at least give Fry an amusing anecdote for his tour, so he’s probably okay with it.
In addition to this, Rowling has admitted she based Professor Snape and his terrible teaching habits off a teacher she once had and that she based the empty-headed egoist Gilderoy Lockhart off a person she disliked as well. Whether this is literary revenge or just part of the creative process is up to you to decide.
Tom Riddle comes from a real gravestone
J.K. Rowling has said that the real name of Voldemort, Tom Riddle, was likely subconsciously inspired by a gravestone she saw in Edinburgh at Greyfriar's Kirkyard. This grave is for a man named Thomas Ridell, who died in 1806 at age 72. The grave is also for the man’s son, who was also called Thomas, and his daughters Christian and Maira Jane. Similar to the younger Thomas on the gravestone, Voldemort was named after his father, (which he deeply resents). In The Goblet of Fire, Voldemort actually ties Harry to the gravestone of the elder Tom Riddle, which is perhaps a reference to Rowling’s inspiration for his name.
There’s another possible gravestone Rowling took inspiration from right near Ridell’s- the stone for the poet William McGonagall may have led to Rowling’s naming of Professor McGonagall. There is a “Potter Trail” that gives a tour of parts of Edinburg related to the Harry Potter books and the Ridell gravestone is a stop on it. Apparently, many people leave notes on the grave thanking Thomas for his posthumous part of the story.
There were a number of alternate titles for the Harry Potter books
It’s not too surprising to learn that J.K. Rowling went through a lot of options when trying to decidewhat the titles of the various Harry Potter books would be. The first book came very close to being called Harry Potter and the School of Magic in America. Arthur Levine, the editor for the US editions of the books, suggested it because he felt the original title for the UK version, Harry Potter and the Philosipher’s Stone didn’t really convey the magical nature of the books to the children. Rowling vetoed that idea and they settled on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the US title.
Meanwhile, Rowling went through several titles for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. These included Harry Potter and the Death Eaters, Harry Potter and the Fire Goblet, and Harry Potter and the Three Champions.
The alternate title for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows include Harry Potter and the Elder Wand, Harry Potter and the Peverell Quest, and Harry Potter and the Hallows of Hogwarts.
Micheal Jackson almost made a Harry Potter musical
J.K. Rowling revealed on the Oprah Winfry Show that Micheal Jackson approached her about making a Harry Potter musical and she turned him down, convinced it wouldn’t be a success. “Michael Jackson wanted to do a musical. I said no to a lot of things. For me, I love the films, I love the books, and there's elements that I love around it… like the theme park. But I only wanted to do it because I knew it would be incredible."
That’s not the only time Jackson ever factored into Harry Potter. Any Harry Potter fan will tell you Inferi aren’t exactly zombies. While zombies are generally depicted as autonomous beings, inferi are reanimated corpses bought to life by a wizard and enchanted to do their bidding. Rowling said she didn’t make them zombies because she’s “part of the "Thriller" generation; to me, a zombie will always mean Michael Jackson in a bright red bomber jacket.
Crabbe's Actor Wasn't in the Deathly Hallows Movie because he got busted
In the original Deathly Hallows book, Malfoy’s former crony Vincent Crabbe created an out-of-control fire in an attempt to kill Harry and the gang and ended up being killed by the fire himself. In the movies, Crabbe is nowhere to be seen in this scene and is replaced with another character, Blaise Zabini. It turns out this was because Crabbe’s actor self-destructed in a different way than his character did. Jamie Waylett, who played the character, was arrested for possession of marijuana and a knife, which removed him from the Harry Potter cast. Then the year Deathly Hallows came out, he was arrested for violent conduct and looting while taking part in the 2011 London riots and sentenced to two years in prison. Well, that’s still better than the fate the character he played...
The flying Ford Anglia from the movies was stolen
The Ford Anglia used for the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was stolen in 2005. Police feared that it was either sold on the black market or sold for scrap, but it was found a year later at Carn Brea Castle, “a 14th-century stone twin-towered fortress overlooking St Ives, Cornwall.”. The place closely resembled Hogwarts castle. Therefore, the policeman who was tipped off about the car thinks it was likely left there as a joke. "We received an anonymous call from someone telling us its location," he said. "I'd love to think Harry himself had driven it there to take part in some adventure at the castle but the reality is probably a little less interesting."
Apparently the car had been left there by a group of five New Age travelers who had tried to sell it and claimed they’d found it. But they hadn’t been able to sell the car since it was missing its license plate. In a panic, they abandoned it at an apropos place.