We have some fun trivia to celebrate J.K. Rowling, who wrote Harry Potter, and her main character. They both celebrate their birthdays today. So Potterheads took it to Twitter and got Harry Potter trending again.
The Boy Who Lived turns 41 years old today. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who used many of her personal stories as inspiration for the book, also celebrates her birthday today. She turns 56.
The last Harry Potter movie premiered a decade ago, on July 15, 2011. However, the beloved franchise is far from being forgotten.
While, luckily, there is no spin-off or reboot in sight. However, fans have the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise to look forward to. Two movies out of the planned five have been released. But word is there are some issues with Fantastic Beasts 3.
As a Potterhead, sure, I know it doesn’t even come close to the original franchise. But, for me, it’s better than nothing.
Coming back to Harry, he turns 41 today. That’s three decades after he first arrived at Hogwarts, and met Ron and Hermione, and all his adventures started. Played by Daniel Radcliffe, he totally did him justice. Especially in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
According to *almost canon* script Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Harry Potter is still married to Ginny Weasley, with whom he shares three children, James Sirius Potter, Albus Severus Potter, Lily Luna Potter.
Here’s five fun things you may not know about Harry James Potter:
- You surely know Harry Potter became an Auror after the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But what you may not know is that he now owns Hagrid’s bike. Which was, originally, Sirius’.
- In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Professor Trelawney asks Harry whether he was born mid-winter. He laughs if off, sharing he was born in July. However, since Voldemort has given him a part of himself, Trelawney might have seen just the part of him that was Voldemort’s (Voldemort’s birthday is December 31st).
- Related to Voldemort, according to J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter was never an actual Horcrux. When Voldemort destroyed the fragment of his soul that Harry contained, Harry lost his ability to speak Parseltongue.
- Harry and Hermione were almost canon. There’s a lot of Harmony shippers out there (myself included), and J.K Rowling herself confirmed they made sense together. “I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron. I know, I’m sorry, I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.”
- Harry Potter and his friends (Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger) all appear on Chocolate Frog cards.
Here’s five things you may not know about J.K. Rowling:
- Her inspiration for a lot of the spells, and names, come from Latin: “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. “I take great liberties with the language for spells. I see it as a kind of mutation that the wizards are using.”
- J.K. Rowling’s inspiration for Dementors came from her own struggle with depression. She left an abusive relationship, and became a single mom, with no income.
- After being on Forbes’ richest lists, in 2012 Forbes removed Rowling from their rich list, claiming that her US$160 million in charitable donations and the high tax rate in the UK meant she was no longer a billionaire.
- Her name is Joanne Rowling, and borrowed the “K” from her grandmother, Kathleen, from her paternal grandmother. The publishers thought, in late 1990s, that boys would less like read a story a woman wrote.
- Rowling’s inspiration for Professor Snape was her own chemistry teacher, John Nettleship, whom she recalled as a very unlikeable fellow.
Happy birthday Harry James Potter and JK Rowling!
