Jessica Williams's Story About Meeting J.K. Rowling Will Make You So Jealous

Muggles like me (and possibly you?) may never be able to wear the Sorting Hat, but The Incredible Jessica James star Jessica Williams got the next best thing: J.K. Rowling sorted Jessica Williams into her Hogwarts house. It turns out that both women are Gryffindors — which we totally could have guessed. But how did this incredible meeting even take place? It all started on Twitter, and this whole story is pretty adorable.

When Jessica Williams went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, she told the story of how this power friendship started. During Williams' second year on The Daily Show, where she was the youngest ever correspondent, J.K. Rowling started following her on Twitter — which already sounds like the coolest thing ever to happen to a person. ("OK, this is not a drill," Williams remembers thinking.) Williams then got Twitter stage-fright, because how are you supposed to think of anything good enough to tweet in front of J.K. Rowling, right?! But before she'd had time to come up with any witty tweets, something even more amazing happened: J.K. Rowling slid into Jessica Williams' DMs.

J.K. Rowling wanted to wish Jessica Williams a happy birthday, as they both share Harry Potter's birthday of July 31 — and so she wrote, "I was going to wish you a happy ‘our’ birthday, but I bloody forgot. Which is typical me. Anyway, I think that you are funny, brave and courageous and I always know it’s going to be a great Daily Show when you’re on."

"I was sobbing," recalled Williams to Stephen Colbert. "I was dead." Even that didn't help Williams get over her stage-fright, and it took her a full week to compose the perfect response. (Relatable.) After dismissing her initial ideas as "trash," Williams eventually wrote back to let J.K. Rowling know quite how much she meant to her, but was still too scared to get into the "big" questions — like, y'know, which Hogwarts house she belonged to.

But after some Felix Felicis — or, as us Muggles call it, alcohol — Williams gathered up the nerve to send "JoJo" another message, and the rest is history. J.K. invited Williams for cocktails in London, which Williams was worried would feel like a "bad Tinder date," but turned out to be the best date ever. They both play the Sims! And they're both Gryffindors!

Stephen Colbert was, understandably, a little jealous of this friendship, so he then composed to "JoJo" a DM of his own, asking "I know we just met, not to put you on the spot, but what house would I be in?" Until she replies, Stephen, you're just going to have to go on Pottermore like the rest of us.