According to author J. K. Rowling, the idea for both the Harry Potter books and its eponymous protagonist came while waiting for a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. JK Rowling stated that in these hours, her idea for "this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me." While she fleshed out the ideas for her book, Rowling also decided to make Harry an orphan and to make him visit a boarding school which she called Hogwarts. She explained in a 1999 interview with The Guardian: "Harry HAD to be an orphan - so that he's a free agent, with no fear of letting down his parents, disappointing them … Hogwarts HAS to be a boarding school - half the important stuff happens at night! Then there's the security. Having a child of my own reinforces my belief that children above all want security, and that's what Hogwarts offers Harry."
Her own mother's tragic death on December 30, 1990 inspired Rowling to write Harry Potter as a boy longing for his dead parents, his anguish becoming "more deeper, more real" than in earlier drafts because she related to it herself. In a 2000 interview with The Guardian, Rowling also established that the character of Wart in T.H. White's novel The Sword In the Stone is "Harry's spiritual ancestor." In that book, a boy called Wart meets the mysterious sorcerer Merlyn, who grooms the hapless child into a noble, powerful warrior who later becomes King Arthur. Finally, she established that Harry was born on 31 July and thus shares his birthday with herself. However, she maintained, Harry is not directly based on any real-life character, "he came just out of a part of me".
in: wikipedia
