Dean is Gary?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 105160

Julie wrote:
If my memory is correct, I read on a post several days ago that JKR
said that Dean's name really is Gary?  Is this true?  If so, would
someone point me in the right direction to read about it?

Alina responded:
All the information is on her website at http://www.jkrowling.co.uk.
No, Dean's real isn't Gary, Gary is the name he was given in one of
the earlier drafts of the story. He does however have a more
complicated background than the story discloses, because Rowling said
she didn't find an opportunity to insert it into the books. He is a
half-blood rather than a muggle-born, and Rowling lists this
information as taken out of her initial draft of book 2.


Carol adds:
Since JKR changed Dean's name, she may well have changed or eliminated
the backstory, too. In other words, Dean may be the Muggleborn he is
thought to be in CoS rather than a Half-blood who thinks he's a
Muggleborn. (Consider the other ideas she's discarded, like having
Hermione's father discover the Potters' bodies and Mafalda, the
Slytherin Weasley. Those incidents and characters aren't canon;
they're just trivia for HP fans.) IMO, until and unless she includes
Dean's discarded backstory in the books, we should consider the CoS
description of him as canon. ("My folks are Muggles, mate," as he says
in OoP. Quoting from memory, but it relates to his parents not reading
the Daily Prophet.)

Carol, who will be very surprised if Dean is the HBP