![\"scooby-gang\"](\"http:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/scooby-gang.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n1. ROWLING AND HARRY SHARE A BIRTHDAY.<\/h4>\n
They both blow out candles on July 31 (happy birthday, JKR!). And that\u2019s not the only influence Rowling had on her characters: She\u2019s said that Hermione is a bit like her when she was younger, and her favorite animal is an otter\u2014which is, of course, Hermione\u2019s patronus. Plus, both Dumbledore and Rowling\u00a0like sherbet lemons<\/a>\u00a0(Rowling said that the wizard\u2019s \u201cgot good taste\u201d).<\/p>\n Rowling calls the idea that she had the first chapter of\u00a0Deathly Hallows<\/em>written and locked away in the safe \u201crubbish.\u201d But there was a small element of truth to it: \u201cI had, very early on\u2014but not the first day or anything, probably within the first year of writing\u2014I wrote a sketch for what I thought the final chapter would be,\u201d she told Harry Potter’s big screen portrayer, Daniel Radcliffe, in an\u00a0interview for the\u00a0Deathly Hallows Part 2\u00a0<\/em>DVD extra features<\/a>. \u201cI always knew\u2014and this was from really early on\u2014that I was working toward the point where Hagrid carried Harry, alive but supposedly dead, out of the forest, always. I knew we were always working towards a final battle at Hogwarts, I knew that Harry would walk to his death, I planned the ghosts\u2014for want of a better word\u2014coming back, that they would walk with him into the forest, \u00a0we would all believe he was walking to his death, and he would emerge in Hagrid\u2019s arms.\u201d<\/p>\n And that mental image is what kept Hagrid alive, despite the fact that he \u201cwould have been a natural to kill in some ways,\u201d Rowling said. \u201cBut because I always cleaved to this mental image of Hagrid being the one carrying Harry out \u2026 That was so perfect for me, because it was Hagrid who and took him into the world, and Hagrid who would bring him back \u2026 That\u2019s where we were always going. Hagrid was never in danger.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI used to collect names of plants that sounded witchy,\u201d\u00a0she told\u00a060 Minutes<\/em><\/a>, \u201cand then I found this,\u00a0Culpeper’s Complete Herbal<\/em>, and it was the answer to my every prayer: flax weed, toadflax, fleawort, Gout-wort, grommel, knotgrass, Mugwort.” The book was penned in the 17th century by English botanist and herbalist Nicholas Culpeper; you can read it\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rowling turned that down, saying,<\/p>\n according to American publisher Arthur Levine<\/a>, \u201cNo\u2014that doesn\u2019t feel right to me \u2026 What if we called it\u00a0the Sorcerer\u2019s Stone<\/em>?\u201d (The French edition, Levine points out in\u00a0J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography<\/em><\/a>, is called\u00a0Harry Potter a L’ecole Des Sorciers<\/em>.)<\/p>\n2. EARLY ON, ROWLING WROTE A SKETCH OF THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THE FINAL BOOK.<\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n3. THE WIZARDING WORLD\u2019S PLANTS COME FROM A REAL BOOK.<\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n4. A PROPOSED TITLE FOR THE AMERICAN VERSION OF\u00a0PHILOSOPHER\u2019S STONE<\/em>\u00a0WAS\u00a0HARRY POTTER AND THE SCHOOL OF MAGIC<\/em>.<\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n5. ROWLING MADE COMPLICATED OUTLINES FOR THE BOOKS.<\/h4>\n