#'October came; rainy and covered in mist; dragging in its trail the rumblings of dead leaves;

[romnianistan]

It's a bit hard to articulate it because it's just a hunch that I have. The thing with Jane Eyre is that the main character (it's a first-person pov) is a painter and she has these very vivid descriptions when it comes to nature and the passing of time. For example this is how she describes summer:

"It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: the haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky, though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its blue- where blue was visible- was mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam chilled it- it seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of apertures shone a golden redness." (chapter 22)

and this is how she describes the winter/spring transition:

"Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April ..." (beginning of chapter 9)

those descriptions can be characterized by these three features:

personification of nature, emphasis on the agency of nature (nature is not passive in any sense)

description of nature and time is used to bring attention to the narrative and to the mental/physical state of the character

description of nature and time often happens at the start of the chapter, to set the scene

those 3 features are pretty specific to jane eyre; i haven't read all of 19th c british literature but those descriptions are really representative of charlotte bronte's style compared to, say, charles dickens for example (another writer jkr has obviously read and drawn inspiration from)

and those 3 features also characterize the way JKR uses descriptions of nature/passing of time in HP. this quote has it all:

"October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces. The skies and the ceiling of the Great Hall turned a pale, pearly gray, the mountains around Hogwarts became snowcapped, and the temperature in the castle dropped so far that many students wore their thick protective dragon skin gloves in the corridors between lessons."

but that's just how she generally describes the passing of time, even when she uses less words. for example: "As a dull March blurred into a squally April, his life seemed to have become one long series of worries and problems again." (that quote goes so hard) (both of them are from ootp)

both jkr and bronte use descriptions of nature work as a narrative device in the exact same way. i don't think it's too far-fetched to assume bronte influenced her writing style as i'm convinced jkr has read jane eyre (it's jkr, come on, ofc she's read it) (i'm also convinced jkr has read wuthering heights and you can see this in hbp. i should re-read wuthering heights but in english this time cause maybe there is some stylistic influence too idk)

Descent.