It only makes sense that if you save the Wizarding World, you get your face on a chocolate frog card. Hence, Harry, Ron and Hermione all have their own chocolate frog cards. Here’s the description on each of their cards:

Harry: “The first and only known wizard to survive the Killing Curse, most famous for the defeat of the most dangerous dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort.”

Hermione: “The brightest witch of her age, who eradicated pro-pureblood laws and campaigned for the rights of non-human beings such as house-elves.”

Ron: “Destroying the Horcruxes and subsequent defeat of Voldemort and revolutionizing the Ministry of Magic.”

When she started writing the series, J.K. Rowling made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t kill off any of the “Golden Trio.” Apparently, she almost broke this promise when she was in a bad place personally and considered offing Ron. Thank goodness she didn’t follow through with this, because I don’t know if our hearts could have handled saying goodbye to Ron.

Speaking of offing Weasleys, there was another Weasley Rowling considered killing — Arthur. The father of the Weasley clan almost died after the vicious snake attack in Order of the Phoenix, but Rowling decided to save him because “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.” 

Yet another connection between Harry and Voldemort — their family tree. Both Harry and Voldemort are distantly related to Ignotus Peverell, which is why they each had one of the hallows — Harry had the Invisibility Cloak and Voldemort had the Resurrection Stone. (We definitely know who the bad apple in that family was.) 

Rowling confirmed this theory in 2007 when she was speaking in front of an audience at Carnegie Hall. She also told the audience that Dumbledore had been in love with his friend Gellert Grindelwald. So how did the audience react to this revelation? With a standing ovation, of course!

Rowling then said, “If I’d known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!”

Why must you hurt us so, Jo? The famed author admitted that she wrote the Ron-Hermione love story as a form of “wish fulfillment,” and that she often regretted it down the road. 

Of course Hermione graduated, even after all of the madness of the war. Even less surprising, Ron and Harry didn’t feel the need to graduate. After all, they already had their own chocolate frog cards.

Rowling took the name Tom Riddle from a real gravestone in the Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh. One of the gravestones in the cemetery reads “Thomas Riddell,” which inspired the name of Voldemort (before he became known as Lord Voldemort, of course).

The fourth Harry Potter book was almost named something very different than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Other potential names for the book included Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament, Harry Potter and the Triwizard Tournament, Harry Potter and the Three Champions and Harry Potter and the Death Eaters.

Remember Hermione’s extendable handbag in the Deathly Hallows? Apparently, it was against the law, but the Ministry had bigger fish to fry at the time. Good thing too, because without that handbag, our beloved trio may not have actually defeated the Dark Lord.  

In 2011, Alan Rickman revealed that Rowling shared a very important detail with him so he knew how to best play Snape in the movies.

“She gave me one little piece of information, which I always said I would never share with anybody and never have, and never will,” Rickman said.

Well, Rowling finally revealed what she told Rickman — the meaning behind the word “Always.”