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(#1) Arthur Weasley Died During The Vicious Attack From Voldemort's Snake
J.K. Rowling killed off so many characters throughout the Harry Potter series. She planned all the deaths years in advance, and refused to budge on their grim fates, except for when it came to certain Weasleys. When J.K. Rowling was penning her fifth installment, Order of the Phoenix, she originally intended to kill off Ron Weasley's beloved father.
As it's written, Arthur Weasley narrowly survives his battle with Voldemort's snake Nagini. However, in earlier drafts, Nagini came away victorious. Rowling ended up sparing Arthur's life, as she felt that Harry Potter doesn't feature many doting fathers.
“If there's one character I couldn't bear to part with, it's Arthur Weasley,” she told TODAY. “I think part of the reason for that is there were very few good fathers in the book. In fact, you could make a very good case for Arthur Weasley being the only good father in the whole series.”
The Weasley family is hit particularly hard when Fred is killed in the Battle of Hogwarts (which Rowling allegedly knew would happen when she decided to let Arthur live). With tragedy on the horizon for the family, it would've been too much to kill off the only good father in the entire series.
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(#2) The Sorting Hat Was Almost A Game Of Eeny Meeny Miny Mo
The idea of Hogwarts without a Sorting Hat is incomprehensible, but it was almost a reality. Though Rowling knew she wanted the students in Hogwarts to be sorted into four different houses that each had unique qualities, the Sorting Hat had a couple lackluster early incarnations.
Originally, Rowling wanted the Sorting Hat to be a machine that "did all kinds of magical things before reaching a decision." Rowling herself admitted that this idea was "too easy."
Next, she thought kids should be sorted by the ghosts of the four founders. The ghosts would exist inside statues that came alive in the entrance hall, picking children for their houses one-by-one.
After that, Rowling grappled with a few basic ideas including drawing straws, being picked by a team captain, and pulling names from a hat. The final idea is what stuck, but instead of housing a collection of names, the hat ended up getting to decide the students' fate.
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(#3) Ron Weasley Was Supposed To Die Midway Through The Series
Ron Weasley is the misfit hero the series needs; his lovable dorkiness perfectly foils Harry Potter's scandalous fame. Weasley and Potter teach the reader important lessons about friendship, so why the heck did J.K. Rowling think it was a good idea to kill him off?
Rowling admitted that she "wasn't in a very happy place" when she started to think about Ron Weasley's tragic demise.
"Funnily enough, I planned from the start that none of them would die. Then midway through, which I think was a reflection that I wasn't in a very happy place, I started thinking I might punish one of them off. Out of sheer spite... But I think in my absolute heart of heart of hearts, although I did seriously consider killing Ron, [I wouldn't have done it]."
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(#4) Hermione's Dad Saved Harry Potter
Hermione's parents are pretty absent throughout the whole series. We know they love their daughter, but they lead a quiet, non-magical life. The only real glimpse the reader gets comes in the gut-wrenching scene where Hermione has to painstakingly remove their memories of her in order to protect them from Voldemort.
In the first draft of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the Grangers actually knew Harry's parents. Lily and James Potter lived on an island, and the Grangers lived just off-shore on the mainland. One fateful night, the Grangers hear an explosion, prompting Mr. Granger to sail his boat over to the island to see what's wrong. That's where he finds baby Harry sitting in the wreckage of his house.
Wisely, Rowling later transferred this role to Hagrid, who then becomes a mentor to Harry, setting him apart from the other students. If Harry and Hermione knew each other throughout childhood, Harry's entire shtick as an outsider would've been debunked, and the inclusion of a normal father figure would've made his character lose some edge.
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(#5) Draco Malfoy's Name Was Actually Draco Spungen
With white, slicked-back hair and that oh-so evil name, Draco Malfoy is a born villain. As it turns out, he may not have been so suave had J.K. Rowling gone with his original surname.
Draco Malfoy was originally supposed to be called Draco Spungen. The writer also considered Draco Smart and Draco Spinks, none of which have quite the same ring. Draco's decided surname is actually pretty apt. It's derived from "mal foi," the French words for "bad faith."
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(#6) Draco Malfoy Wasn't The Baddest Bully In Hogwarts
Draco Malfoy may be bad to the bone, but the original Harry Potter was supposed to have an even badder bully. Rowling intended for Theodore Nott, another pureblood son of a Death Eater, to be Draco's equal. If you don't remember Nott, he is briefly mentioned during the Sorting Hat ceremony in the first book, and mentioned again in the fifth book as a "stringy Slytherin boy" standing behind Draco.
“…We rarely see Draco talking to anybody he considers a real equal, and he is forced to see Theodore as such because Theodore is just as pure-blooded as he is, and somewhat cleverer,” Rowling said. “Together these two Death Eaters’ sons discuss Dumbledore’s regime at Hogwarts and Harry Potter, with all sorts of stories that the Death Eaters tell about how this baby boy survived the Dark Lord’s attack."
Somehow, Rowling ended up allowing us a speck of sympathy for Draco, so adding in this element would have made him either egregiously unlikable or far too sympathetic.
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(#7) The Weasleys Had A Nasty Slytherin Cousin In "The Goblet of Fire"
The Weasleys are an especially earnest bunch of wizards. They're known for their red-haired kindness, but it turns out not every Weasley was supposed to be so sweet.
The clan originally had a second cousin named Mafalda Weasley who was a notoriously bad egg. She was supposed to be Hermione's rival in The Goblet of Fire, much like how Draco Malfoy adversely mirrors Harry throughout the series.
Mafalda was in Slytherin, a show-off, and a massive eavesdropper; the kind who might accidentally spill enemy secrets to Harry while trying to impress the gang. Instead, her shoes were filled by Rita Skeeter.
"I had to pull a character [in Goblet Of Fire]. There you go: the phantom character of Harry Potter. She was a Weasley cousin. She served the same function that Rita Skeeter now serves," Rowling admitted in a 2000 EW interview. "Rita was always going to be in the book, but I built her up, because I needed a kind of conduit for information outside the school. Originally, this girl fulfilled this purpose."
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(#8) Hermione Had A Sister
Hermione's an only child, a detail that perfectly underscores her bookishness and tendency to be found reading in solitude. Given how well this all plays, it's surprising that J.K. Rowling originally intended to give Hermione a sister.
In a 2004 BBC interview, the writer admitted, "I always planned that Hermione would have a younger sister but she's never made an appearance and somehow it feels like it might be too late now."
She decided that Hermione's quiet, muggle background perfectly contrasted Ron's hectic family life.
"You see so much of Ron’s family... so I thought that I would keep Hermione’s family, by contrast, quite ordinary. They are dentists, as you know. They are a bit bemused by their odd daughter but quite proud of her all the same."
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(#9) Hogwarts Had A Vampire Professor
Thankfully, J.K. Rowling never delved too deeply into the world of vampires (pretty sure Twilight has that covered). Though vampires are mentioned in the series, they're not actually shown (though admittedly Snape is pretty suspect).
At one point, Rowling wanted to delve even deeper into the idea of a non-human professor. We get a glimpse with the werewolf-professor Remus Lupin, but we never got to see Rowling's vampire teacher. This bloodsucking instructor was originally named Professor Trocar, after a sharp medical tool used to drain blood. Thankfully, Rowling did away with the idea, since the concept of vampires has basically been beaten to death.
“The vampire myth is so rich, and has been exploited so many times in literature and on film, I felt there was little I could add to the tradition," she wrote on Pottermore.
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(#10) An Ice Cream Man Was Nearly The Most Important Character In The Series
The Florean Fortescue we know was a humble ice cream parlor owner who died at the hands of Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. You may not actually recall him, seeing as he's not super memorable or useful. However, it turns out Fortescue was supposed to have a much bigger role before in the overarching story.
Fortescue was originally supposed to give Harry, Hermione, and Ron clues about the Elder Wand and Ravenclaw diadem (two of Voldemort's Horcruxes). In an early draft, he gets kidnapped, only to be saved by the three heroes.
If this had happened, Fortescue would have been one of the single most important leads in the trio's quest to destroy Voldemort. Instead, J.K. Rowling did away with Florean's character after his tragic death, and transferred his secret-telling duties to more significant characters like Aberforth Dumbledore, Xenophilius Lovegood, Griphook, Phineas Nigellus Black, and the Grey Lady.
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(#11) Helga Hufflepuff's Horcrux Was Originally A Clunky Cauldron
Cauldrons are rather typical in folklore about witches and wizards, and they're definitely prominent throughout the Harry Potter books. Unlike traditional folklore, the cauldrons in Harry Potter are almost always practical, rather than magical, but one almost held a slightly more important role.
Rowling's original thought was to make Helga Hufflepuff's Horcrux a cauldron, which would have been a real problem for our favorite trio, and way too typical for a story about witchcraft.
Ultimately, Rowling decided that a cauldron was just too clunky to be an effective Horcrux.
"I did consider making Helga Hufflepuff's hallow a cauldron, but there was something slightly comical and incongruous about having such a large and heavy Horcrux; I wanted the objects Harry had to find to be smaller and more portable."
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(#13) Nearly Headless Nick Had A Song That Described His Failed Beheading
Nearly Headless Nick's botched beheading is a major insecurity for the ghost, though we never find out why his execution was so unsuccessful.
The unlucky spirit's backstory was nixed from Chamber of Secrets, where it would have been described in a rhyme. His song went: "'This may sting a bit’ said the cack-handed twit, as he swung the axe up in the air, but oh the blunt blade! No difference it made, my head was still definitely there."
According to Rowling, the song was cut because it was "superfluous to requirements;" a good call considering the book was already 368 pages long and Nearly Headless Nick is a minor character.
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