[HPforGrownups] Re: Where JKR really stole her ideas from/(not completely OT)

[heidi]

No: HPFGUIDX 9449

I'm rereading Secret Garden right now, and wanted to share some passages
describing Colin Craven (who I am now convinced was at least a sliver of
JKR's inspiration for Draco's looks & personality AND Colin Creevy's
name):

The boy had a sharp, delicate face the color of ivory
and he seemed to have eyes too big for it.  He had
also a lot of hair which tumbled over his forehead
in heavy locks and made his thin face seem smaller.
He looked like a boy who had been ill, but he was crying
more as if he were tired and cross than as if he were in pain.
Mary stood near the door with her candle in her hand,
holding her breath.  Then she crept across the room, and,
as she drew nearer, the light attracted the boy's attention
and he turned his head on his pillow and stared at her,
his gray eyes opening so wide that they seemed immense.
"Who are you?" he said at last in a half-frightened whisper.
"Are you a ghost?"
"No, I am not," Mary answered, her own whisper sounding
half frightened.  "Are you one?"
He stared and stared and stared.  Mary could not help
noticing what strange eyes he had.  They were agate
gray and they looked too big for his face because they
had black lashes all round them.
...
Though his father rarely saw him when he was awake, he was
given all sorts of wonderful things to amuse himself with.
He never seemed to have been amused, however.  He could have
anything he asked for and was never made to do anything he did
not like to do.  "Everyone is obliged to do what pleases me,"
he said indifferently.  "It makes me ill to be angry..."
...
"This is the first one," said Mary, seating herself on the
big stool.  "Once in India I saw a boy who was a Rajah.
He had rubies and emeralds and diamonds stuck all over him.
He spoke to his people just as you spoke to Martha.
Everybody had to do everything he told them--in a minute.
I think they would have been killed if they hadn't."
...