In many ways, Jo was a lot like Harry’s brainy friend, Hermione Granger. Jo once told a group of students at a school in Montclair, New Jersey, that she herself was “never as clever or as annoying” as Hermione. Yet she could be a know-it-all on the outside while inside she was very insecure. She also got good grades in school like Hermione did.
Then she discovered a new favorite writer: Jane Austen. Jo loved the way Austen put clues in her books about what was going to happen that the reader didn’t notice until the end. It made her want to read the books over and over again. She tried to learn how to do the same thing in her own stories.
JANE AUSTEN
JANE AUSTEN WAS WRITING BOOKS ALMOST TWO HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE J. K. ROWLING STARTED WRITING ABOUT HARRY POTTER. JANE AUSTEN WROTE SIX NOVELS: SENSE & SENSIBILITY, PRIDE & PREJUDICE, MANSFIELD PARK, EMMA, PERSUASION, AND NORTHANGER ABBEY. ALL SIX HAVE BECOME CLASSICS AND HAVE BEEN MADE INTO MOVIES—SOME MORE THAN ONCE.
JANE AUSTEN WAS JO’S FAVORITE AUTHOR. JO’S FAVORITE BOOK WAS EMMA, WHICH SHE CALLED “THE MOST SKILLFULLY MANAGED MYSTERY I’VE EVER READ.” IT WAS THE SAME KIND OF MYSTERY THAT JO WOULD LATER WRITE HERSELF, A STORY WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER COMES TO REALIZE THAT SHE HAS THE WRONG IDEA ABOUT EVERYTHING. THE MAIN CHARACTER—AND THE READER—MUST GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING IN ORDER TO SEE THINGS THE WAY THEY REALLY ARE. HARRY DOES THE SAME THING IN HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE. HE COMES TO UNDERSTAND THAT PROFESSOR SNAPE WAS NOT HURTING HIM BUT ACTUALLY PROTECTING HIM.
ONE OF JO’S CHARACTERS—FILCH’S CAT, MRS. NORRIS—IS NAMED AFTER A BUSYBODY IN JANE AUSTEN’S MANSFIELD PARK.
At fifteen, Jo was still imagining exciting adventures in faraway places. Her own life in Tutshill went on the same as always. Then everything changed. Her mother was sick. Anne had multiple sclerosis, or MS, a disease that damages nerves. There is no cure for MS. Jo’s mother got weaker every day. It was hard seeing her so sick. Jo was especially close to her mother. Her father was often at work so Jo depended on her mother.
Some people didn’t want to be around her mother because of her illness. Years later, Jo would create a character with an incurable illness in her books. She wanted to show how thoughtless people could be around someone who was very sick.
Even when Jo was feeling very sad about her mother, she had one friend who could always make her laugh. His name was Seán Harris, and he was the real-life inspiration for Ron Weasley. Besides being loyal and fun, Seán was the first one of Jo’s friends to get a driver’s license. He had a car—a turquoise Ford Anglia. When Jo was feeling down, they would zoom off into the countryside. Jo told Seán about her dreams of being a writer, a secret she had never shared with anyone else. He believed she would be a success.
Years later, when Jo wrote her second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, she gave Seán’s car a starring role. The car rescues Harry just as it had rescued Jo—only in Jo’s imagination the car could fly.
If Seán was the inspiration for Ron Weasley, Jo’s teacher John Nettleship was the person who inspired the character of Severus Snape. Mr. Nettleship was strict like Jo’s old teacher Mrs. Morgan. He was also lanky with long, black hair and a sharp tongue, just like Harry’s professor. His chemistry class was full of “bangs and smells,” and it was far from Jo’s favorite. On a report card, he described Jo as “a daydreamer who never answered questions about science and hated taking part in experiments.” Jo much preferred her classes in English and foreign languages to chemistry.
In her last year at Wyedean, Jo was chosen by her teachers to be Head Girl. This was the highest honor a student could have. The Head Boy and Girl represented the school at events, sometimes making speeches. When teachers were called out of the classroom, the Head Boy and Girl were in charge of keeping other students under control.
After leaving Wyedean in 1983, Jo attended the University of Exeter. Her favorite subject had always been English literature. But she thought knowing French might lead to a better job after college. So Jo studied French, Latin, and Greek. She even spent a year in Paris as a teaching assistant. But secretly Jo only wanted to write. Her favorite thing about studying languages was learning new words and thinking up names for the characters in her stories, like Voldemort and Malfoy. In French, mort means death, mal means bad, and foy comes from foi which means faith.
YOU CAN TELL A LOT ABOUT THE HARRY POTTER CHARACTERS FROM THEIR NAMES.
THE WEASLEY FAMILY—HARRY’S FAVORITE FAMILY IS NAMED AFTER ONE OF JO’S FAVORITE ANIMALS, THE WEASEL.
REMUS LUPIN—REMUS SHARES HIS FIRST NAME WITH ONE OF TWO MYTHICAL BROTHERS (ROMULUS AND REMUS) WHO WERE RAISED BY A WOLF AND FOUNDED ROME. HIS LAST NAME COMES FROM LUPINE, WHICH MEANS WOLFLIKE.
FENRIR GREYBACK—THE SERIES’ SECOND WEREWOLF GETS HIS NAME FROM FENRISÚLFR (FENRIS WOLF), A NORSE WOLF GOD.
SIRIUS BLACK—SIRIUS IS NAMED AFTER THE DOG STAR. VERY FITTING FOR A MAN WHO CAN TURN INTO A DOG!
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE—ALBUS COMES FROM THE LATIN WORD FOR WHITE. DUMBLEDORE IS AN OLD ENGLISH WORD MEANING BUMBLEBEE. JO NAMED HIM THAT BECAUSE SHE IMAGINED THE OLD HEADMASTER HUMMING TO HIMSELF LIKE A BEE.
RITA SKEETER—HARRY IS OFTEN ANNOYED BY REPORTER RITA SKEETER. NOT SURPRISING, SINCE SKEETER IS A SLANG WORD FOR MOSQUITO.
PEEVES—PEEVES THE POLTERGEIST LOVES PLAYING PRANKS AT HOGWARTS. HE’S LIVING UP TO HIS NAME, WHICH MEANS TO IRRITATE.