The following is a transcription of “Page of doodlings (page 2) “, one of the Potterania extras stored in your Scrapbook.
Certificate reads:
“This is a page of doodlings from which the Sorting Hat emerged. In the top part of the page are all the possible ways of ‘sorting’ people I considered… a panel of ghosts or prefects, a magical gateway through which each person would have to pass and so on. I also thought of drawing names out of a hat, which became the sorting hat, and at the bottom right corner you see my first drawing of the Sorting Hat, with the first four lines of its first ever song”.
New! The faint shadow of backwards handwritten words can be seen if you zoom in and look closely. This is written on the back of the sheet of paper and showing through due to the process used in making the image. Secca from Potterskeys.com has transcribed what it might say. I’ve posted a copy of his work at the bottom of this page. Thanks Secca!
The writing on the Page of doodlings is transcribed below:
(the M and N most likely refer to Magical – Non-magical, ways of sorting)
(Ghost) Court N
Hat M Question or Riddle M
Arbitrary List M
Gateway M
Statues N
Selection Committee MN
(Prefects/ Hs of H etc)
Forget Song,
Just put on Hat.
__________________
Dumbledore
Does Scar have to happen at feast
|
Forest
Quidditch Trials
Corridor
~Snape~
Dumbledore & Snape
Peeves
Oh I ### (might) not be that (look too) pretty
But don’t judge on what you see
I’ll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat than me
Golri 2
Below is a transcription of the shadowed text from the reverse side of the paper, painstakingly deciphered by Secca from Potterskeys. Thanks Secca!
This was apparently an early idea for introducing the character of Nearly Headless Nick and Harry’s first exposure to ghosts, another interesting peek into Jo’s thought process as she constructs the stories.
Symbols used below:
strikeout – Something Jo crossed out in her original.
(text) – Something Jo added later into a sentence (usually written above).
### – Something unreadable or covered.
[text] – Potter’s Key’s guesses or notes.
* Gary was eventually changed to Dean
Harry woke up next morning because somebody had just
“Time to [wake] up, gentlemen, breakfast will be
served in half an hour.”
Harry #### (looked around (up)) at the red velvet curtains drawn around his
four-poster. I’m at Hogwart’s was His first ### (happy) thought was “I’m at Hogwarts;”
his second, after he had thrown back the curtains and
found his slippers was “I’m hungry.” The third thing he
had never was something he had never thought (needed to think) before. (It)
His thought was “That man’s completely transparent.”
After he had thought this, his mind went completely
blank. He sat frozen, staring at the man in the middle
of his dormitory who had just woken them all up.
There was no doubt about it. This was (He was seeing) (There was) a ghost at the foot of his bed.
“Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service,”
said the ghost, sweeping (off) his broad-brimmed (hat) and
bowing to them all – for Ron, Seamus, [Gary]*, and Neville
were also staring open mouthed at him, “Resident
Ghost of Gryfinndor Tower.”
JKR.com: Page of Doodlings p2
