Harry Potter Dates and Quotes

A collection of quotes from JK Rowling concerning her books.

• 1965
  • July 31, 1965 - Joanne Rowling born.
  
  
  
• 1990
  • Summer, 1990 - Idea for Harry Potter conceived on a train.
  
  
  
• 1993
  • July 27, 1993 - Jessica Isabel Rowling born.
  
  
  
• 1995
  • 1995 - Philosopher's Stone finished.
  
  
  
• 1996
  • August, 1996 - Bloomsbury buys the rights to publish Harry Potter.
  
  
  
• 1997
  • Spring, 1997 - Scholastic buys the rights to publish Harry Potter in the U.S.

  • June 30, 1997: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone published. [Amazon.uk] {17 chapters, 223 pages, 78,000 words - 1500 printed (UK)}

  • June 30, 1997: Philosopher's Stone paperback published. [Amazon.uk] {17 chapters, 190 pages, 78,000 words}
  
  
  
• 1998

  • July 2, 1998: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets published. [Amazon.uk] {18 chapters, 256 pages, 86,000 words}

  • September 1, 1998: Sorcerer's Stone published (US edition). [Amazon] {17 chapters, 309 pages, 78,000 words - 50,000 printed}.
  • Irish Times - October, 1998
    • "The moral heart of the first book, that had an awful lot to do with my coping with my mother's death. Though I didn't realise it until I wrote the second draft."
  • October, 1998: Warner Brothers buys the film rights for the first two books.
  • AP News Wire - November 23, 1998
    • "I have a very visual imagination. I see it, then I try to describe what is in my mind's eye"
    • "I have boxes and boxes of stuff on Harry -- wizard laws, notebooks, bits of ideas. There is great depth to this world."
  • The Herald - December 7, 1998
    • "I've never wanted to be a witch, but an alchemist, now that's a different matter. To invent this wizard world, I've learned a ridiculous amount about alchemy. Perhaps much of it I'll never use in the books, but I have to know in detail what magic can and cannot do in order to set the parameters and establish the stories' internal logic."
    • "I think the books do explore the misuse of power, and there's an attempt to make some sense of death."
    • Charm vs. Transfiguration: "With a charm you add properties to something. With a transfiguration you change its nature completely; the molecular structure alters."
  
  
  
• 1999
  • Amazon
    • "The names of the Hogwarts Houses were created on the back of an aeroplane sick bag. Yes, it was empty."
  • The Independent - January 29, 1999
    • "It's a more dramatic ending. Philosopher's Stone has a more linear plot leading to one peak. Chamber of Secrets has several false summits before Harry finally works out what he's meant to do."
  • The Guardian - February 16, 1999
    • "but Harry HAD to be an orphan -- so that he's a free agent, with no fear of letting down his parents, disappointing them? and Hogwarts HAS to be a boarding school -- half the important stuff happens at night! Then there's the security. Having a child of my own reinforces my belief that children above all want security, and that's what Hogwarts offers Harry."
  • February, 1999: Chamber of Secrets paperback published. [Amazon.uk] {18 chapters, 256 pages, 86,000 words}
  • Barnes and Noble - March, 1999
    • "Nobody knows where magic comes from. It is like any other talent. Sometimes it seems to be inherited, but others are the only ones in their family who have the ability."
    • "In my books, magic almost always shows itself in a person before age 11; however, there is a character who does manage in desperate circumstances to do magic quite late in life, but that is very rare in the world I am writing about."
  • June 2, 1999: Chamber of Secrets published (US edition). [Amazon] {18 chapters, 341 pages, 86,000 words - 250,000 printed}.
  • CBS News - June 28, 1999
    • "Yes, they`re all plotted. I`ve actually got the final chapter of book seven written; just for my own satisfaction so I know where I`m going."

  • July 8, 1999: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban published. [Amazon.uk] {22 chapters, 317 pages, 106,000 words}

  • Book Links - July, 1999
    • "The final chapter of the seventh book is written. That's for my own satisfaction, so that I know where I'm going as I write the other books. And that last chapter deals with what happens to the survivors afterward. Because there will be deaths."
    • "That was a bit of a shock to me because I'd been writing for adults before and the manuscripts were never publishable. Then, I write what I think is a child's story -- although really I wrote it for me, primarily for me."
  • School Library Journal - September 1, 1999
    • "I had the idea for Harry on a train in the summer of 1990.... I was sitting on the train. I was staring out the window. As far as I can remember, I was staring at some cows. Not the most inspiring subject. [Although cartoonist] Gary Larsen would disagree, now that I think of it. [The idea] just came. I can not tell you why or what triggered it -- if indeed anything triggered it. I saw Harry incredibly clearly. The idea basically at that point was wizard school and I saw Harry very, very plainly."
    • "Hermione is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was 11, which I'm not particularly proud of. She's quite annoying in a lot of ways. I like her as a character, but I'm very aware that some people wouldn't.
      "I've met a lot of girls who say they recognize themselves in Hermione. I think it's a very female way of coping, to try and be the best. Hermione is a character I understand really, really well. I consciously try to make it clear that underneath the aggravating surface is someone who is actually quite insecure, hence her constant struggle to be the best. I think boy readers can grudgingly see the point of Hermione. Girls tend to identify with her a lot more. It probably is a particularly female characteristic for young girls to cover up their insecurities about feeling plain, or whatever inadequacy, by trying to get the best marks."
  • September 8, 1999: Prisoner of Azkaban published (US edition). [Amazon] {22 chapters, 435 pages, 106,000 words - 500,000 printed}.
  • September 8, 1999: Sorcerer's Stone paperback published (US edition). [Amazon] {17 chapters, 309 pages, 78,000 words}.
  • Barnes and Noble - September 8, 1999
    • How long did it take you to write the books?: "THE SORCERER'S STONE took five years to finish, but during that time I was working full-time as a teacher, and I was also planning the whole series of Harry books. CHAMBER OF SECRETS took two years, and AZKABAN took one year. They're getting faster to write because of a kind of snowball effect. I know the characters very well by now. And the plots are fully worked out."
    • There will be deaths in Book 4 -- for the first time.
    • She'll write something else after Book 7.
    • Harry's middle name is James.
    • I'd like to ask if there would be a lot of romances between the characters in the upcoming books? "Good question. I'm having so much fun writing Book 4 because for the first time Harry, Ron, and Hermione are starting to recognize boys and girls as boys and girls. Everyone is in love with the wrong people. Let no one say my books lack realism."
    • Aragog will return in future books.
    • Mr. Weasley's car will return.
    • Hogwarts is located in Scotland.
    • "So you're convinced I'm not going to kill Harry??!! I try never to say never, because it seems that every time I do I end up by doing the thing I've forsworn. So, there is a remote possibility that there will another Harry book, but at the present time I am planning only seven."
  • Time Magazine - September 20, 1999
    • [children] "are always most worried I'm going to kill Ron. It shows how sharp they are. They've watched so many movies where the hero's best friend gets killed."
  • NPR - October, 1999
    • [Harry's] "name has been down at this amazing school for witchcraft and wizardry, since birth -- but he doesn't know this"
  • The Connection - October 12, 1999
    • "But it is a lot of work to create an entire world and it was about 5 years to finish the first book, to plot the remaining 6 books, because they were already plotted before the first book was published and Book 2 was started before Book 1 was finished. Yeah, so I spent an awful lot of time thinking about the details of the world and working it out in depth."
    • "Yeah, but each time I hit a new book, I will find that there's other stuff I want to do, so you know, I have a basic structure for each book, but sometimes I'll decide we'll play around with that middle section because I don't much like it as much as I did back in 1992 when I originally found it."
    • What about Snape?: "Snape is a very sadistic teacher, loosely based on a teacher I myself had, I have to say. I think children are very aware and we are kidding ourselves if we don't think that they are, that teachers do sometimes abuse their power and this particular teacher does abuse his power. He's not a particularly pleasant person at all. However, everyone should keep their eye on Snape, I'll just say that because there is more to him than meets the eye and you will find out part of what I am talking about if you read Book 4. No, I'm not trying to drum up more sales, go to the library and get it out. I'd rather people read it."
    • One of our internet correspondents wondered if Snape is going to fall in love: "(JKR laughs) Who on earth would want Snape in love with them? That's a very horrible idea."
    • There's an important kind of redemptive pattern to Snape: "There's so much I wish I could say to you, and I can't because it'd ruin ... I promise you, whoever asked that question, can I just say to you that I'm slightly stunned that you've said that and you'll find out why I'm so stunned if you read Book 7. That's all I'm going to say."
    • "Hagrid's sort of West Country, Yocal"
    • Why male protagonist, not female?: "He was too real to me by then to turn him into a girl. He was a boy in my head and I already had Hermione and I had Ron and I was too fond of them by then to want to tamper with them"
    • Hagrid will be in all the books.
    • "Oh, good, I'm glad, because, do you know what? From the moment I started writing Book 1, I've been looking forward to writing Book 3 because of Professor Lupin, because I knew that's [when] he made his first appearance."
    • People on the internet want to know if Gilderoy Lockhart is going to come back.
      "Gilderoy Lockhart, bless him, is currently residing in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries and his memory is still gone. So at the moment, he's in no fit state to go anywhere. Which I think serves him right."
      You didn't quite answer the question as to whether he will be back or not.
      "Yeah, well, you know, you've got to sometimes dodge these things."
    • "one of Harry's classmates, though it's not Harry himself, does end up a teacher at Hogwarts. But, it is not, maybe the one you think, hint, hint, hint. Yeah, one of them does end up staying at Hogwarts, but ---- No, it's not Ron. I can't see Ron as a teacher. No way."
    • Lily: "OK, in Book 3 you're absolutely right. You find out a lot about Harry's father. Now the important thing about Harry's mother, the really, really significant thing, you're going to find out in 2 parts. You'll find out a lot more about her in Book 5, or you'll find out something very significant about her in Book 5, then you'll find out something incredibly important about her in Book 7. But I can't tell you what those things are so I'm sorry, but yes, you will find out more about her because both of them are very important in what Harry ends up having to do."
  • Star Ledger - October 16, 1999
    • Future books will show why Voldemort is who he is.
  • Boston Globe - October 18, 1999
    • "I really don't know where the idea came from. It came into my mind when I was on a train to London. Harry as a character came fully formed, as did the idea for his sidekicks, the characters of Ron and Hermione. It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head. It was an excitement I'd never known before. The characters arrived in 1990, but it took me six years to write the book."
    • "But he has his mother's eyes and that's very important in a future book."
  • Press Club - October 20, 1999
    • "No, Harry's not in training to be an animagus"
    • "There is something very important about Harry's mother that he hasn't yet discovered, that he's not going to find out in the next book. It's too important for book 4, he finds it out later in the series."
    • "Oh, I like this one… do Harry and Hermione have a date? [laughter] No. They are -- they're very platonic friends. But I won't answer for anyone else, nudge, nudge, wink, wink."
  • Atanta Journal and Constitution - October 22, 1999
    • "I was six months into creating Harry (in 1990) before I asked myself why I wasn't making him a heroine, since I obviously am female. But by then I was so fond of Harry, and believed in him so strongly, that I wasn't about to send him out in a dress. It's funny, when I was teaching (French), I was placed in charge of all-boy classes because it was considered my forte. Just recently, someone asked me why I don't have stronger female characters and I was offended, because I consider Hermione (Harry's goody- goody, but fearless, sidekick) quite strong. Hermione's a kind of caricature of me at 11, but then, there's a lot of me in Harry, too."
  • Columbus Dispatch - October 28, 1999
    • "Harry was always a boy, and he was always Harry, but he wasn't always Potter; he had two other surnames. I won't tell you what they were, partly because I'm about to use one of them for another character in book four."
    • Will Harry find romance in book four?: "He tries, but he doesn't get very far. They're all kind of after the wrong people, as in life. Hermione gets the first date, and it's quite a cool one because I thought I owed her a bit of fun."
  • San Francisco Chronicle - October 30, 1999
    • In the fourth book, due out in July, Harry will develop his first crush. "Careful readers of book three will already know who the girl is," Rowling said, smiling mysteriously.
    • 12 uses of dragon's blood: "I have a very good reason for not telling you -- the movie script writer wants me to give him that information for the film. But I can say that the 12th use is oven cleaner."
    • Why does Harry have to go back to the Dursleys every summer? Why can't he just go and spend the summer holidays with the Weasleys?: "You'll find out in book five."
  • November 1, 1999: Sorcerer's Stone large print edition published (US edition). [Amazon] {17 chapters, 422 pages, 78,000 words}.
  • Diane Rehm Show, Washington - December 24, 1999
    • "Children often, often ask me how much of the magic is -- in inverted commas -- "real" in the books in the sense that did anyone ever believe in this? I would say -- a rough proportion -- about a third of the stuff that crops up is stuff that people genuinely used to believe in Britain. Two thirds of it, though, is my invention."
    • "... I wanted a word that began with 'Q' -- on a total whim -- and I filled about, I don't know, 5 pages of a notebook with different 'Q'-words until I hit 'quidditch' and I knew that was the perfect one -- when I finally hit 'quidditch.'"
    • "I totally appreciate that people feel a very personal interest in these characters. But I still have to be able to write them the way I always planned to write them. You know, they've been plotted very carefully since 1992. The larger plot has been in place."
    • You had all 7 books plotted out -- the outlines?: "I did, yeah. ... I always planned that we would see Harry from starting at Hogwarts to finishing at Hogwarts, which is... In my world wizards come of age at 17 -- age 17. So in book 7 you'll see Harry come of age, which means he's allowed to use magic outside school, and you'll see the end of that school year. So it will be 7 years in his life."
  • People Magazine - December 31, 1999
    • "I constantly rewrite," she says. "At the moment, the last word is 'scar.'"
  
  
  
• 2000
  • February 1, 2000: Chamber of Secrets large print edition published (US edition). [Amazon] {18 chapters, 464 pages, 86,000 words}.
  • Scholastic - February, 2000
    • What makes a ghost: "You don't really find that out until Book VII, but I can say that the happiest people do not become ghosts. As you might guess, Moaning Myrtle!"
    • Potters' careers: "I'm sorry to keep saying this, but I can't tell you because it's important to a later plot. But you will find out later!"
    • Marcus Flint: "He had to do a year again! :-)"
    • "No, there's no University for Wizards. At the moment I'm only planning to write seven Harry Potter books. I won't say "never," but I have no plans to write an eighth book."
    • Is Harry Potter ever going to fall in love with Hermione or is he going to fall in love with Ginny Weasley?: "In Book IV Harry does decide he likes a girl, but it's not Hermione or Ginny. However, he's only 14, so there's plenty of time for him to change his mind. ;-)"
    • Hogwarts: "I haven't drawn it, because it would be difficult for the most skilled architect to draw, owing to the fact that the staircases and the rooms keep moving. However, I have a very vivid mental image of what it looks like."
    • "It's the same as two black-haired people producing a redheaded child. Sometimes these things just happen, and no one really knows why! The Ministry of Magic doesn't find out which children are magic. In Hogwarts there's a magical quill which detects the birth of a magical child, and writes his or her name down in a large parchment book. Every year Professor McGonagall checks the book, and sends owls to the people who are turning 11."
    • Where is Azkaban: "In the north of the North Sea. A very cold sea."
    • Why a lightning bolt: "Just because I decided that it would be an interesting and distinctive mark."
    • Hogwarts: "A huge, rambling, quite scary-looking castle, with a jumble of towers and battlements. Like the Weasley's house, it isn't a building that Muggles could build, because it is supported by magic."
  • AP - March 27, 2000
    • "Last time you met him, he was 13," Rowling said at a news conference at the British Library. "He's 14 now and he's started to realize girls are quite interesting," she said. "I tend to think that if someone is sufficiently engaged in one of the books, he's not going to be too disappointed if, at some point, his hero holds hands with a little girl."
    • "There's no way I'm ever going to be able to write anything as popular as this again," she said, referring to the Potter series. "My comfort is that I never meant to write anything as popular as this."
  • April 1, 2000: Prisoner of Azkaban paperback published. [Amazon.uk] {22 chapters, 317 pages, 106,000 words}
  • May 1, 2000: Prisoner of Azkaban large print edition published (US edition). [Amazon] {22 chapters, 592 pages, 106,000 words}.
  • The Sunday Herald - May 21, 2000
    • "I have always been drawn to the idea of large families, even as a child The Harry Potter books were my chance to create my own, ideal big family, and my hero is never happier than when holidaying with the seven Weasleys."
    • And in a poem which the author dedicates to her six-year-old daughter Jessica, the author cherishes laughter and friendship above all else.
  • AOL Chat - May, 2000
    • "'Chamber of Secrets' was called something different until I had almost finished, too."
    • "Yep, definitely. I always said there would be seven. If there's ever an eighth, it will be because ten years down the line I had a burning desire to do just one more, but I don't presently think that will happen. However, I think I might write a kind of Harry Potter Encyclopedia and give the royalties to charity, so ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!"
    • As Harry matures, does a love interest develop between him and Hermione?: "Harry & Hermione... d'you really think they're suited?"
    • Why a lightning bolt?: "It had to be something that suggested the intensity of the pain that Voldemort was trying to inflict upon him, but a simple and plausible shape for a scar."
  • Newsweek - July 1, 2000
    • "Seven's going to be like the Encyclopaedia Britannica, because I'm going to want to say goodbye."
  • AP - July 6, 2000
    • GoF: "I had to be sure that that book was right because it's the central book of the seven and it's very important in plot terms."

  • July 8, 2000: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire published. [Amazon.uk, Amazon] {37 chapters, 734 pages (650 UK), 191,000 words - 3.8 million printed (US)}

  • Second Half, 2000 -- Goblet of Fire quietly revised and re-released to correct James/Lily wand error. [CNN: GoF error discovery] [CNN: GoF error correction]
  • The Guardian - July 8, 2000
    • "We've had petrified people, and we've had what would have been fatal injuries, but once you're dead you're dead. No magic power can resurrect a truly dead person."
  • South West News Service - July 8, 2000
    • "There is legislation about what you can conjure and what you can't. Something that you conjure out of thin air will not last."
    • "The five years I spent on HP and the Philosopher's Stone were spent constructing The Rules. I had to lay down all my parameters. The most important thing to decide when you're creating a fantasy world is what the characters CAN'T do."
  • Steven Fry on Hogwarts Express - July 8, 2000
    • "The funny thing is that I did always think that, if it ever did get published, it was a book for obsessives. I'm quite an obsessive person. I think you can probably tell. ... And I did think if people liked it they would probably like it obsessively. I just never…. but I thought that it would be an obsessive few -- I never guessed it would be an obsessive many, as has happened."
    • Slytherin. Almost everyone to do with it has a name that is snakelike and slithery. This extraordinary thing of talking to snakes -- is that something that you came up with, people who can talk to snakes?
      "Yes, 'parselmouth' is actually an old word for someone with -- it was actually a deformity of the mouth, so I've actually appropriated that word and turned it into something else."
      Right, and it seems to have a great power. You somehow feel that it's an ancient myth.
      "There is something about that ... There are so many legends attached to the snake."
      All the way back to Adam.
      "Absolutely. And you find them in all cultures, bizarrely. It fascinates me. But I can't go on about that too long. Because, as people who watch me interviewed will know, I very boringly end up saying 'you've got to wait for Book 7'. I can't say too much about that."
  • The Herald - July 8, 2000
    • "Halfway through writing Four, I realised there was a serious fault with the plot and that had never happened to me before. The problem I'd given Harry was completely solvable and if I solved it then, I couldn't reach the end I needed to get to. I've had some of my blackest moments with this book. At Christmas I sank to the depths: 'Can I do this?' I asked myself. In the end it was just persistence, sheer bloody mindedness. It took months. I had to unpick lots of what I'd written and take a different route to the ending. One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it can spot which one or know the pain it caused me."
    • "I knew this book [Goblet of Fire] would be longer than Azkaban but I didn't know how much. That's how many words I needed to tell the story. Always I have this problem. Until all seven books have been published, I'm not free to discuss why I had to put particular things in particular books." (Five and Six will be shorter, she says, but Seven may be as long as Four.)
    • "The most important thing for me is that I keep writing the story I've set out to write. When I write Book Seven, even if everyone says, 'Well, she went completely off the rails after Book Three,' I'll know that I've stayed true to what I'd planned."
    • "Harry is vulnerable. He's suffered. He's damaged in some ways. These books are about why he continues to struggle against evil. Why doesn't he give in when it would be easier for him to go to bed and let someone else sort it out? You'll find out my answer."
    • One of her fundamentals is that you can't reverse death: "That's a given. Without it the plot would fall apart, though in Book Seven you'll see just how close you can get to the dead. You can be brought back from being petrified and from injuries that in the real world are mortal, depending on the degree of skill that a particular wizard possesses. You can't go to any wizard and say 'Will you cure my terminally ill relative?' It's a mirror image of the real world in that sense."
    • Snape is a compendium of all the bullying teachers she ever encountered.
    • "I've got a broad outline for each book but I leave myself wide latitude to find different ways of doing things. Otherwise half the pleasure would be gone. I've got bits of Six and Seven written in old notebooks. Sometimes they get used verbatim, sometimes not at all. Sometimes something I've discarded crops up later. In Philosopher's Stone I had a game of chess between Harry and Ron which Ron won by using a particularly violent bishop. My editor made me take it out. He didn't want me to have a bad bishop. Well, he's back, I have a different editor now."
    • I'd like them to make [the films] while I'm alive and can have my say rather than wait till I snuff it, only for Hogwarts to turn into Hogwarts High. I'm having a massive amount of input ... I was very enthusiastic about the first draft."
  • The Mirror - July 11, 2000
    • "Book Four nearly caused me a nervous breakdown," she said. "I sailed straight into the writing of it, having just finished Azkaban. I had written what I thought at the time was half the book -- it turns out now to have been about a third. And I realised there was this big hole in the middle of the plot and I had to go back and unpick and redo. That's part of the reason it's longer than I thought it was going to be."
  • Solomon - July, 2000
    • "Yeah, Voldemort. In the second book, Chamber of Secrets, in fact he's exactly what I've said before. He takes what he perceives to be a defect in himself, in other words the non-purity of his blood, and he projects it onto others. It's like Hitler and the Aryan ideal, to which he did not conform at all, himself. And so Voldemort is doing this also. He takes his own inferiority, and turns it back on other people and attempts to exterminate in them what he hates in himself."
  • CBBC Newsround - July 2000
    • "For people who don't know, Scabbers is a rat who turns out not to be a rat at all; and I found it quite spooky that he'd homed in on that, because I'd known from the first book that he wasn't a rat."
    • "Only once have I sat down, written something end to end, and let it stand. That was the chapter in Philosopher's Stone when Harry learns to fly."
    • "He [Harry] finds out that he is a half-blood: to a wizard like Lucius Malfoy, he will never be a true wizard, because his mother was of Muggle parentage. It's a very important theme."
    • Voldemort's a half-blood too: "Like Hitler! See! I think it's the case that the biggest bully takes their own defects and they put them on someone else, and they try to destroy them. And that's what he Voldemort does. That was very conscious -- I wanted to create a villain where you could understand the workings of his mind, not just have a 2-D baddie, dressed up in black, and I wanted to explore that and see where that came from. Harry in Book Four is starting to come to terms with what makes a person turn that way. Because they took wrong choices and he Voldemort took wrong choices from an early age."
    • Name of place where Harry was born (Godric's Hollow) is same as Godric Gryffindor's.
  • Entertainment Weekly - August 4, 2000
    • "The title thing was for a much more prosaic reason: I changed my mind twice on what it was. The working title had got out -- Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament. Then I changed Doomspell to Triwizard Tournament. Then I was teetering between Goblet of Fire and Triwizard Tournament. In the end, I preferred Goblet of Fire because it's got that kind of "cup of destiny" feel about it, which is the theme of the book."
    • "I had to pull a character. There you go: "the phantom character of Harry Potter." She was a Weasley cousin [related to Ron Weasley, Harry's best friend]. She served the same function that Rita Skeeter [a sleazy investigative journalist] now serves. Rita was always going to be in the book, but I built her up, because I needed a kind of conduit for information outside the school. Originally, this girl fulfilled this purpose."
  • Daily Telegraph - August 14, 2000
    • She said that in her latest book, she had so many doubts that she wrote 13 versions of chapter nine [GoF: The Dark Mark].
  • August 15, 2000: Chamber of Secrets paperback published (US edition). [Amazon] {18 chapters, 341 pages, 86,000 words}.
  • NBC Katie Couric Interview - October, 2000
    • Writing Harry in adult life: "I'm intrigued because everyone seems very confident I'm not going to kill him."
    • Title of Book 5: "It's probably going to be called 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'."
  • Scholastic Chat - October 16, 2000
    • "I've only suffered writer's block badly once, and that was during the writing of Chamber of Secrets. I had my first burst of publicity about the first book and it paralysed me. I was scared the second book wouldn't measure up, but I got through it!"
    • "I always knew the Chamber was there. I don't know what first gave me the idea; I just liked the thought that Slytherin had left something of himself behind."
    • Lily Potter: "Her maiden name was Evans, and she was in Gryffindor (naturally)."
    • Is there something more to the cats appearing in the books than first meets the eye? (i.e. Mrs. Figg's cats, Crookshanks, Prof. McGonagall as a cat, etc.): "Ooooo, another good question. Let's see what I can tell you without giving anything away....erm....no, can't do it, sorry."
    • Explaining Dudley's tail: "They went to a private hospital where the staff was very discreet, and said that a wart had got out of control."
    • Why Lupin transformed only when he saw the moon: "The moon wasn't up when he entered the Shrieking Shack."
    • "There are about a thousand students at Hogwarts."
    • "Dumbledore is a hundred and fifty, and Professor McGonagall is a sprightly seventy. Wizards have a much longer life expectancy than Muggles. (Harry hasn't found out about that yet.)"
    • "Most of the magic is made up. Occasionally I will use something that people used to believe was true -- for example, the "Hand of Glory" which Draco gets from Borgin and Burkes in Chamber of Secrets."
    • "Well, the Ministry of Magic keeps tabs on people apparating. That's why you have to have a license to do it, and the moment you abuse it you can find yourself in serious trouble (or Azkaban!)."
    • "James was Chaser."
    • "During the first five years that I was writing the series, I made plans and wrote small pieces of all the books. I concentrate on one book at a time, though occasionally I will get an idea for a future book and scribble it down for future reference."
  • AOL Chat - October 19, 2000
    • "Well, I can't go into too much detail, because you're going to find out in future books. But James inherited plenty of money, so he didn't need a well-paid profession. You'll find out more about both Harry's parents later."
    • Animagus transformation is guided by your personality.
    • "Hermione's birthday is September 19th."
    • Gleam (look of triumph) in Dumbledore's eye in GoF: "Good question... excellent question, in fact, and like all the best questions I get asked, I can't answer it! Because it would give too much away. However, well-spotted. Have fun guessing... someone's bound to get it right!"
    • I think the color of Harry's eyes will matter in the books to come. Yes?: "Hmmmm... maybe!"
    • James' Invisibility Cloak: "That was inherited from his own father -- a family heirloom!"
    • Writing more of Harry after his 7th year: "I notice you're very confident that he's not going to die!"
    • Will Harry time-travel again?: "Not telling!"
  • Yahooligans (Barnes and Noble) - October 20, 2000
    • "Harry's own children? Are you sure he's going to survive to have children?!"
    • "Does Hagrid get a wife? You think anyone would want to live with a man who breeds Blast-Ended Skrewts?"
    • Will Harry and Draco get together and fight evil?: "Don't believe everything you read on the net! I saw that rumour too... but it is just a rumour"
    • "Susan Bones' grandparents were killed by Voldemort!"
    • Was Hagrid really raising werewolves under his bed?: "no... Riddle was telling lies about Hagrid, just slandering him"
    • Is there something going on between Ron and Hermione in GoF?: "yes, something's 'going on'... but Ron doesn't realise it yet... typical boy"
    • Padfoot's description: "I see him more as a large, bear-like mongrel"
    • "Dumbledore believes there are all sorts of lessons in life... horrible teachers like Snape are one of them!"
    • "Hagrid was in Gryffindor, naturally!"
    • "You'll be seeing Mrs. Figg in book five and you'll find out all about her."
    • "the head of Ravenclaw is good old Professor Flitwick!"
    • Is Sirius Black ever going to be cleared?: "Can't tell you, that's too important a bit of information!"
    • "Yes, [book] five is going to be shorter than [book] four. I always knew four would be the longest so far but even I didn't expect it to be that long"
    • "I'm sure you won't be surprised that i'm not going to explain why Dumbledore looked [triumphant in book 4]"
    • Were the Weasley twins inspired by anyone you know?: "Yes, they were but I don't want to say who, because they'll be persecuted."
    • Will Ron ever get a girlfriend?: "I'm laughing again... why wouldn't he?! Though he's not doing too well at the moment, is he? But then, Fleur Delacour was really aiming a bit high."
    • "you will find out more about Snape in future books"
    • "No, I didn't have any input on [the drawings done for the books]"
    • "Between having the idea for Harry and the first book being published was five years but during that time I was also doing day jobs and planning the whole series so I'm not as lazy as that might make me sound!"
  • Oregonian - October 22, 2000
    • "I think these are very moral books and I think it's a very short-sighted thing. Short-sighted in the sense that if you try hard to portray goodness without showing that the reverse is evil and without showing how great it is to resist that . . . well, that's always been my feeling about literature.
      "You find magic, witchcraft and wizardry in all sorts of classic children's books. Where do you start? Are you going to start with 'The Wizard of Oz?' These people are trying to protect children from their own imagination."
    • Hints about the future: "There's stuff coming with the Dursleys that people might not expect, but I'm not going to give too much away there if that's OK. . . . Finally, I gave you something. Ginny (Weasley) does have a bigger role in Book Five."
  • Pittsburgh Post Gazette - October 23, 2000
    • "I took a rest after Book 4, and I hope you understand," she told her disappointed fans. "But, I am writing it now and am really loving it."
    • Rowling declined to get into specifics about her next book. But she did give one hint: Ginny Weasley, the younger sister of Harry's best friend, Ron Weasley, will play a major role in Book 5.
  • Vancouver Sun - October 26, 2000
    • "Yes, I am [a Christian]," she says. "Which seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said yes, because I do, but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that, and I have to say that does suit me, because if I talk too freely about that I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what's coming in the books."
  • Canadian Press - October 25, 2000
    • Dementors: "These evil creatures don't, by the way, breed but grow like a fungus where there is decay."
  • Time Pacific - October 30, 2000
    • Cedric's death: "It's the first time I cried during the writing of a book, because I didn't want to kill him."
  • Dateline - November 16, 2000
    • "You should keep an eye on Dudley. It's probably too late for Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon."
  • December 1, 2000: Goblet of Fire large print edition published (US edition). [Amazon] {37 chapters, 936 pages, 191,000 words}.
  • Reader's Digest - December, 2000
    • "I love a good whodunnit and my passion is plot construction. Readers loved to be tricked, but not conned," Rowling says, warming to her theme. "The best twist ever in literature is in Jane Austen's Emma. To me she is the target of perfection at which we shoot in vain."
    • She's ... outraged that an Italian dust jacket shows Harry minus his glasses. "Don't they understand that they are the clue to his vulnerability?"
  • Time Pacific - December 25, 2000
    • "And what about Ginny [Ron's younger sister]? Poor Ginny, languishing in love for Harry, and he's merrily asking out other girls right under her nose! But that's just a boy thing."
  
  
  
• 2001

  • March 1, 2001: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them published. [Amazon.uk, Amazon] {1 chapter, 42 pages (42 UK), 14,000 words}

  • March 1, 2001: Quidditch Through the Ages published. [Amazon.uk, Amazon] {10 chapters, 56 pages (56 UK), 12,000 words}

  • March 5, 2001: Philosopher's Stone large print edition published. [Amazon.uk] {17 chapters, 456 pages, 78,000 words}
  • Comic Relief - March, 2001
    • "Dumbledore's about 150 years old... wizards have a longer life expectancy than us Muggles, Snape's 35 or 36."
    • "You can do unfocused and uncontrolled magic without a wand (for instance when Harry blows up Aunt Marge), but to do really good spells, yes, you need a wand."
    • Galleon: "About five pounds, though the exchange rate varies!"
    • "Gilderoy Lockhart was loads of fun, but he was a bit of a one-joke character, and I think I did as much as I could with him."
    • Ron's birthday: "First of March"
    • Hogwarts professors married?: "yes, a few of them but that information is sort of restricted -- you'll find out why."
    • Will Harry ever notice the long-suffering Ginny Weasley?: "You'll see... poor Ginny, eh?"
    • Does Hermione like Ron as more than a friend?: "The answer to that is in Goblet of Fire!"
  • Blue Peter Interview - March 12, 2001
    • "Well, basically anything that is dangerous is released to the forest, so that's where fluffy is now, roaming the forest."
    • What accent is Hagrid supposed to speak?: "West Country where I come from."
  • March 12, 2001: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them paperback published. [Amazon.uk] {1 chapter, 42 pages, ? words}
  • March 12, 2001: Quidditch Through the Ages paperback published. [Amazon.uk] {10 chapters, 56 pages, ? words}
  • Detroit News - March 19, 2001
    • "I chose the lightning bolt because it was the most plausible shape for a distinctive scar. As you know, the scar has certain powers, and it gives Harry warnings. I can't say more than that, but there is more to say."
  • June 1, 2001: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them hardcover published (US edition). [Amazon] {1 chapter, 42 pages, ? words}
  • June 1, 2001: Quidditch Through the Ages hardcover published (US edition). [Amazon] {10 chapters, 56 pages, ? words}
  • July 6, 2001: Goblet of Fire paperback published. [Amazon.uk] {37 chapters, 650 pages, 191,000 words}
  • September 11, 2001: Prisoner of Azkaban paperback published (US edition). [Amazon] {22 chapters, 435 pages, 106,000 words}.
  • BBC Interview - July, 2001
    • "I'd known from the first book that Scabbers wasn't really a rat."
    • "And it's a shock to him like to everyone else and he finds out that he's a half person within the confines of the world. To a wizard like Lucius Malfoy, Harry will never be a true wizard because his mother was of muggle parentage."
    • "And Harry, as you know, from book four, is starting to come to terms with what makes a person turn that way. Because they took wrong choices, and Voldemort took wrong choices from a very early age -- he decided young what he wanted to be."
    • Will we see the missing Weasley?: "It's possible, I really like her as a character but with my plot being quite intricate in the context of what I'm dealing with I'm not sure that she'll fit anywhere else, so she'll be the character that might have been."
    • "I tried to put Rita first in Philosopher's Stone. When Harry walked into the Leaky Cauldron for the first time and everyone said -- Oh Mr Potter you're back -- I wanted to put a journalist in there -- she wasn't called Rita then though but she was a woman."
    • "I think Ron's more like that isn't he -- Ron's more Kevinish. Harry's got so many worries, he needs his friends, he can't afford to alienate them. He's more your sensitive hero isn't he. Yeah more of that stuff happens."
    • What was the original working title of Chamber of Secrets? "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I quite liked that title, unfortunately the story bore no relation whatsoever to the title by the time I'd finished."
  • Sydney Morning Herald - October 28, 2001
    • " What I'm working towards here is the fact that our choices rather than our abilities show us what we truly are. That's brought out in the difference between Harry and his arch enemy, Tom Riddle."
  • November 1, 2001: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages hardcover box set published (US edition). [Amazon] {1 chapter, 42 pages, ? words} and {10 chapters, 56 pages, ? words}
  • CBBC Newsround - November 1, 2001
    • "I did give certain information to Robbie Coltrane, the background story about Hagrid and I gave Alan Rickman a little bit on Snape,"
  • Toronto Star - November 3, 2001
    • "My real name is Joanne Rowling. My publishers wanted another initial, so I gave myself my favourite grandmother's name as a middle name, which was Kathleen."
    • "It took me a long, hard five years to complete The Philosopher's Stone. The reason so much time slipped by was because, from that very first idea, I envisaged a series of seven books -- each one charting a year of Harry's life whilst he is a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And I wanted to fully sketch the plots of all the stories and get the essential characteristics of my principal characters before I actually started writing the books in detail."
    • "Fortunately, I found an agent who believed in me and was prepared to get publishers to sit up and take notice, and finally, in 1996, Bloomsbury Publishing, bless them, took their fate in their hands and signed me up after much bigger publishers had said no -- citing such reasons as my first story was too long and complex for the children's market."

  • November 16, 2001: Philosopher's / Sorcerer's Stone Movie

  • Ananova - December, 2001
    • "I'm not going to say I'll never write anything to do with the world of Hogwarts ever again. Because I have often thought that (if I wrote) book eight, I think it would be right and proper that it should be a book whose royalties go to charity entirely. It could be the encyclopaedia of the world (of Hogwarts) and then I could rid myself of every last lurking details, but no not a novel."
  • Harry Potter and Me BBC Special - December 25, 2001
    • Discarded chapters of Book 1. "There are fifteen. They all gave too much away. If you put all fifteen together it would give the whole story away."
    • She shows us a book with history of Dementors in it. "Now I say book. It's probably about 150 pages all about the Dementors."
    • She drew a print of Diagon Alley and lost it before filming started on the movie. "The major difference is that the entrance to the alley swirled open rather than all the bricks coming in and going out and reshaping into an archway."
    • "There's at least one death that's going to be horrible to write."
    • "Originally Rita Skeeter turned up in book one. Harry enters the Leaky Cauldron, which is the place where he gets his very first taste of how famous he is. For the first time it hits him. And there's a very early draft of that chapter, in which Rita made a beeline for him. But this gutter journalist fits better in book four, which is when the pain of fame starts to drag at Harry."
    • "This is the thing that I was very dubious about showing you, and I don't really know why because what does this give away? [It's a big folder] But this is the Final Chapter of book seven. Um ... [laughs] which I'm still dubious about showing you, I don't know what I feel like, the camera's gonna be able to see through the folder. So this is it, and I'm not opening it for obvious reasons. This is really where I wrap everything up, it's the Epilogue, and I basically say what happens to everyone after they leave school -- those who survive, because there are deaths, more deaths, coming. It was a way of saying to myself, Well, 'you will get here, you will get to book seven, one day. And ... then you'll need this!' So I'd just like to remind all the children I know who come round my house and start sneaking into cupboards that it's not there, anymore. I don't keep it at home any more for very very very obvious reasons. So there it is."
  • December 26, 2001 - Married Neil Murray.
  
  
  
• 2002
  • May 28, 2002 - Sorcerer's Stone DVD.
  • July 31, 2002: Goblet of Fire paperback published (US edition). [Amazon] {37 chapters, 734 pages, 191,000 words}
  • August 5, 2002: Chamber of Secrets large print edition published. [Amazon.uk] {18 chapters, 544 pages, 86,000 words}
  • August 5, 2002: Prisoner of Azkaban large print edition published. [Amazon.uk] {22 chapters, 672 pages, 106,000 words}
  • August 5, 2002: Goblet of Fire large print edition published. [Amazon.uk] {37 chapters, 1312 pages, 191,000 words}

  • November 15, 2002: Chamber of Secrets Movie

  • Scotsman - November, 2002
    • "I didn't know then that it was going to be a book for children -- I just knew that I had this boy. Harry. During that journey I also discovered Ron, Nearly Headless Nick, Hagrid and Peeves. But with the idea of my life careening round my head, I didn't have a pen that worked! And I never went anywhere without my pen and notebook. So, rather than trying to write it, I had to think it. And I think that was a very good thing. I was besieged by a mass of detail and if it didn't survive that journey it probably wasn't worth remembering."
  • Film Force - November 13, 2002
    • "They always say the second novel is the hardest to write. And it was very hard to write. But I -- I was quite proud of it when I'd finished. And I'm also aware, as no one else can be, how important it is -- the overall plot of all seven books. I mean, key things happen in book two. No one knows how important those things are... yet." (1:05 - 1:27)
    • "There's a lot in there. And I know how difficult it was to get it all in there without it looking as though it was -- without drawing too much attention to the clues. So, yeah, I was concerned to see that all the important stuff got into the film and it has done, it has." (1:27 - 1:44)
    • "Well, the first story where Harry is buffeted around by circumstance a little more. This time he makes conscious choices to go. Moreso, I would say, than in the first film and book, to go looking for trouble, really." (1:44 - 1:58)
  
  
  
• 2003
  • January 15, 2003 - Order of the Phoenix announced. [Bloomsbury]
  • CBBC Newsround (quotes from CoS DVD) - February, 2003
    • Steve Kloves said: "There's one thing in Chamber, actually, that Jo indicated will play later in the series."
    • In this movie we've seen the kids develop from the first film, can you tell us about the relationship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione and how that is developing film by film?: "Well I think it is developing in the films as it does in the books, which is to say that they are, they're much stronger together than apart. They're much more aware, in the second film, of their particular strengths. So they're more effective, the children are able to do more complex things, for example the Polyjuice Potion. And also Chris in the second film has kind of foreshadowed what I don't do until the fourth book, which is that you get hints of certain feelings between the three of them, that belong to a sort of slightly more mature person."
    • "Absolutely right, I find that all the time in the book, if you need to tell your readers something just put it in her. There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue. One is Hermione, the other is Dumbledore. In both cases you accept, it's plausible that they have, well Dumbledore knows pretty much everything anyway, but that Hermione has read it somewhere. So, she's handy."
    • "Dumbledore often speaks for me."
  • March 23, 2003 - David Gordon Rowling Murray born.
    • "I started writing Harry Potter Six before my son David was born, but then took a bit of a break during the serious sleep-deprivation phase of his babyhood."
  • April 11, 2003 - Chamber of Secrets DVD.
  • Amazon.com - April, 2003
    • Page count of 896 for Order of the Phoenix (Scholastic version) released, but this number is derived from the number of 32-page signatures; the real page count is 870.
  • BBC Jeremy Paxman Interview - June 19, 2003
    • Unlikely pairings? Not Hermione and Draco Malfoy or anything like that?: "I don't really want to say as it will ruin all the fan sites. They have such fun with their theories -- and it is fun, it is fun. And some of them even get quite close. No-one has ever -- I have gone and looked at some of it and no-one's ever... There is one thing that if anyone guessed I would be really annoyed as it is kind of the heart of it all. And it kind of explains everything and no-one's quite got there but a couple of people have skirted it. So you know, I would be pretty miffed after 13 or 14 years of writing the books if someone just came along and said I think this will happen in book seven. Because it is too late, I couldn't divert now, everything has been building up to it, and I've laid all my clues."
    • Are we going to discover anything more about Snape?
      "Yes."
      And Harry's mother? Did he have a crush on Harry's mother or unrequited love or anything like that?
      "Hence his animosity to Harry?"
      Yes.
      "You speculate?"
      I speculate, yes, I'm just asking whether you can tell us.
      "No I can't tell you. But you do find out a lot more about Snape and quite a lot more about him actually."
    • "Well I had re-written the death, re-written it and that was it. It was definitive. And the person was definitely dead. And I walked into the kitchen crying and Neil said to me, "What on earth is wrong?" and I said, "Well, I've just killed the person"."
    • "But some of it has backstory in it like this -- in here is the history of the Death Eaters and I don't know that I'll ever actually need it -- but at some point -- which were once called something different -- they were called the Knights of Walpurgis."
    • "Yes, the one that's about to come out. And there was speculation that I was finding the pressure ...well, it was funny because literally on consecutive days, either you'd have, either I was feeling the pressure too much and I was cracking up -- or I was too happy being married. And that was stopping me writing. And you kind of couldn't have both. But in fact, the Order of the Phoenix never gave me any trouble. It was quite a docile book to write. And then a lot of fun to write. Chamber of Secrets, I really did have writer's block. Briefly, I think. It wasn't a very serious case, it was only about five weeks. And compared to some people, what's five weeks? Goblet of Fire, I was very unhappy towards the end of writing Goblet, and at the point where I realised I was fantasising that I would break an arm and therefore not be able to... I really mean this. I mean I was just a little way away from actually thinking "How can I break my arm so I can tell my publishers that I can't physically do it?" and then that would give me more time. Because I committed to a totally unrealistic deadline. And I made the deadline But I really did make it by working round the clock really. I was so unhappy."
    • "Well it hasn't. The book didn't take that long. I decided... What happened was, so Goblet of Fire, I was really in quite a state by the time that book was finished, and I mean at that point I really did feel a lot of things came together with Goblet of Fire. I mean the press attention had reached an hitherto unknown level, and I couldn't work outside the house anymore, and just a hell of a lot of stuff was going on, you know. It was the fame thing. Do I still feel like that? No. But that's because I took the time off. And I was still writing during those three years because I never stop writing. But I didn't want to be published again. That was the big difference. So when I finished Goblet of Fire, I said to -- there were only two publishers who had bought the next book -- and I said to both of them, I want to repay my advance. And both of them, you could almost hear them having cardiac arrest on the end of the phone. "Why do you want to repay your advance?" And I said, because I don't want to publish next year. I want to write this book in a more leisurely way and I want to take some time off. Because I had had ... I finished Philosopher's Stone, I literally started Chamber of Secrets that afternoon. I finished Chamber of Secrets, I started Prisoner of Azkaban the next day. And I finished Azkaban and I'd already started Goblet of Fire because they overlapped -- so there was absolutely no let-up. And I knew I couldn't do it. I just knew I couldn't do it; my brain was going to short circuit if I tried to do that again. So they said "Well, how about we do still get the book when you finish it, but we don't have a deadline?" So I said okay. So that's how we worked it. So there was no deadline. So, just once and for all, and for the record, I didn't miss the deadline. Because there was no deadline."
    • "No, actually it wasn't. It's about the size -- originally I thought it would be slightly shorter than Goblet of Fire -- and what is the phrase? The tale grew in the telling. It did. The thing is, I've got so much now, so much backstory to tell, but I really mean it this time. Six will not need to be that long. I had to move them around a lot in there, there's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in there."
    • "No, I think that will be long because I won't want to let go. I'll just keep writing. I'll probably just start a completely new plot in book seven. It's going to be very difficult to leave it. I mean, I do look forward to a post-Harry era in my life, because some of the things that go along with this are not that much fun, but at the same time, I dread leaving Harry... because I've been working on it over what I sincerely hope will prove to have been the most turbulent part of my life and that was the constant, and I worked on it so hard for so long -- then it will be over and I think it's going to leave a massive gap."
  • Katie Couric - June 20, 2003
    • Any snogging with Hermione?: "Hermione and Harry! [surprised look] Do you think so?" ... "Ron and Hermione, I would say, have -- there's more tension there." [Video clip]

  • June 21, 2003: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix published. [Amazon.uk, Amazon] {38 chapters, 870 pages (766 UK), 255,000 words - 6.8 million printed (US)}

  • Albert Hall with Steven Fry - June 26, 2003
    • Most characters like Snape are hard to love but there is a sort of ambiguity -- you can't quite decide -- something sad about him -- lonely and it's fascinating when you think he's going to be the evil one a party from Voldemort obviously in the first book then slowly you get this idea he's not so bad after all.: "Yes but you shouldn't think him too nice. It is worth keeping an eye on old Severus definitely!"
    • "Dumbledore, um, I don't want to say too much on this because you may find that it gives too much away but Dumbledore is a very wise man who firstly knows that Harry is going to have to learn a few hard lessons to prepare him for what may be coming in his life so he allows Harry to do an awful lot of things he maybe wouldn't allow another pupil to do and he also unwillingly permits Harry to confront a lot of things rather than protect him from but as people who have finished Order of the Phoenix will know Dumbledore has had to step back a little bit from Harry in an effort to teach him some of life's harder lessons"
    • "Professor Snape said, 'I'd like to teach defence against the darks arts please', and Professor Dumbledore felt that that might bring out the worst in Professor Snape"
    • Hermione's parents: "Well we've seen them briefly but they're dentists so they're not that interesting"
    • "I do I think that um what I was trying to do with the death in this book was show haw very arbitrary and sudden death is. This is a death where you didn't get a death bed scene it happens almost accidentally and that is one of the very cruel things about death. And of course they are now in a war situation where that really does happen where one minute you're talking to your friend and next minute he's gone. And it's so shocking and so inexplicable -- but where did they go? I found it upsetting to write because I knew what it would mean to Harry --"
    • Didn't see thestrals until OotP: "you had to have seen the death and allowed it to sink in a little bit before slowly these creatures became solid in front of you so that's how I'm going to sneak past that one"
  • September 1, 2003: Order of the Phoenix large print edition published. [Amazon.uk] {38 chapters, 1232 pages, 255,000 words}
  • September 1, 2003: Order of the Phoenix large print edition published (US edition). [Amazon] {38 chapters, 1093 pages, 255,000 words}
  
  
  
• 2004
  • JKR World Book Day - March 4, 2004
    • "Middle names: Ginny is Molly, of course, Hermione 'Jane' and Ron, poor boy, is Bilius."
    • What houses were Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, James Potter and Remus Lupin in?: "Gryffindor"
    • So... will Harry be receiving a second kiss in his last two years at Hogwarts?: "He might well be receiving another kiss (or two) but I'm not saying who the kisser's going to be."
    • Will Harry and Hermione be together?: "lol Not saying... but you've had enough clues by now, surely?!"
    • What does the "J" in Remus J Lupin stand for?: "John"
    • Where's Sirius' motorbike?: "Ah, good question. You'll find out, but the real sleuths among you might be able to guess."
    • Redeem Wormtail?: "There's always hope, of course. You'll find out more about our rat-like friend in book six."
    • Harry's grandparents: "They're all dead and not particularly important to the story, although you will find out a little bit more."
    • Will the two way mirror Sirius gave Harry ever show up again?: "Ooooo good question. There's your answer."
    • Regulus Black: "Well, he's dead, so he's pretty quiet these days."
    • If we ever see Sirius again, what form will he be in?: "I couldn't possibly answer that for fear of incriminating myself."
    • "Harry will tell his nearest and dearest about the prophecy when he's ready. He needs time to digest the news himself first."
    • House-elves apparating in Hogwarts: "He's a house-elf, they've got powers wizards haven't got (but wizards have also got powers that house-elves haven't)."
    • Will Harry fall for another girl in book six, or will he be too busy for romance?: "He'll be busy, but what's life without a little romance?"
    • Write books about Harry after school?: "Probably not, but I'll never say never because every time I do I immediately break the vow!"
    • Publish her notebooks: "I don't think I'll ever publish my notebooks. Too many revealing doodlings!"
    • Future background books: "Possibly. If I do them, it will be for charity like the first two."
    • Is Harry related to Godric Gryffindor?: "People are always wondering who Harry might be related to. Maybe he is ;)"
    • Muggle and Magical worlds rejoined?: "No, the breach was final, although as book six shows, the Muggles are noticing more and more odd happenings now that Voldemort's back."
    • "I always planned that Hermione would have a younger sister but she's never made an appearance and somehow it feels like it might be too late now."
    • Voldemort: "I don't believe that anybody was born evil. You will find out more about the circumstances of his birth in the next book."
    • Hagrid's powers: "Not great! He can do magic to a fairly basic standard and occasionally surprises everyone (himself included) by bringing off more impressive bits of magic. Of course, he is somewhat hampered by the fact that his wand is broken and disguised as an umbrella."
    • "Tonks is hanging around. I really like her, too."
    • We will see more Moaning Myrtle.
    • How did Harry get Marauder's Map back?: "Loads of people have asked me this, I knew I should have shown Harry nipping into Moody's empty office and getting it back, but I assumed you'd all know that's what he did. Sorry!"
    • Trelawney's middle name: "Patricia."
    • "The shape is not the most significant aspect of that scar, and that's all I'm going to say!"
    • "Not all summer, no. In fact, he has the shortest stay in Privet Drive so far."
    • Does Wormtail's debt carry over to Voldemort?: "No. Can't say any more than that!"
    • Was Percy acting of his own accord?: "I'm afraid so."
    • We will see more Narcissa Malfoy.
    • Choosing Animagus form: "No, you can't choose. You become the animal that suits you best. Imagine the humiliation when you finally transform after years of study and find that you most closely resemble a warthog."
    • We will find out what Dudley saw from dementors.
    • "I've got plans for all my characters. Actually, this is a really good place to answer a question about Draco and Hermione, which a certain Ms. Radcliffe is desperate to have answered. Will they end up together in book six/seven? NO! The trouble is, of course, that girls fancy Tom Felton, but Draco is NOT Tom Felton! (My daughter likes TF very much too, because he taught her how to use a diablo"
    • "In the case of Muggle parents, special messengers are sent to explain everything to them. But don't forget that they will have noticed that there's something strange about their child for the previous ten years, so it won't come as a complete bolt from the blue."
    • What happened between Hermione and Viktor Krum during the summer?: "Ron would like to know that, too."
    • What form will Snape's Boggart and Patronus take?: "Well, I'm not going to tell you Ernie, but that's because it would give so much away. I wonder whether Ernie is your real name? (It was my grandfather's)."
    • "You will see Krum again, though not soon."
    • "Oh dear, maths. Let me think. Bill is two years older than Charlie, who is two years older than Percy."
    • Why did Sirius send Snape to meet a werewolf?: "Because Sirius loathed Snape (and the feeling was entirely mutual). You'll find out more about this in due course."
    • Wizarding schooling before Hogwarts: "They can either go to a Muggle primary school or they are educated at home. The Weasleys were taught by Mrs. Weasley."
    • 12 O.W.L.s is maximum.
    • Remus is a half-blood.
    • Ron on Quidditch team?: "The question is, whether the new Quidditch Captain will allow him to stay!"
    • Draco is an only child.
    • Why does Dumbledore trust Snape?: "I shall merely say that Snape has given Dumbledore his story and Dumbledore believes it."
    • Why did Voldemort pick Harry over Neville?: "Dumbledore explains this in 'Order of the Phoenix'. Voldemort identified more with the half-blood boy and therefore decided he must be the greater risk."
    • Is there a link between Snape and vampires?: "Erm... I don't think so."
    • Voldemort's kids: "No. Voldemort as a father... now that's not a nice thought."
    • Why did Harry have to split up with Cho Chang?: "That's life, I'm afraid. They were never going to be happy, it was better that it ended early!"
    • "One of these days -- once seven is finished -- I'll revise all seven books."
    • Who is the 'one that never will return' deatheater?: "You have to work it out, but a lot of fansites have got it right."
    • Grawp: "You'll find out in book six. Luckily he's become a little more controllable."
    • There will be a new Minister of Magic.
    • "No, no prequels here. You won't need them by the time I've finished, you'll have all the back story you'll need!"
  • May 3, 2004: Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them relaunched in school satchel design. [Bloomsbury]
  • JKR's NEW website - May 15, 2004
    • "Book six is well underway, hooray, though I am still at the stage where I have a large and complicated chart propped on the desk in front of me to remind me what happens where, how, to whom and which bits of crucial information need to be slipped into which innocent-looking chapters. I started writing Harry Potter Six before my son David (who has just turned one) was born, but then took a bit of a break during the serious sleep-deprivation phase of his babyhood. I am really enjoying writing this book, though for the first time I am conscious that I am approaching the end of the series. So much of what happens in book six relates to book seven that I feel almost as though they are two halves of the same novel. Regular visitors to this site will find information about what's in book six if they can work out where to look. Patience is the key."
    • There will NOT be someone named 'Icicle' in the books.
    • "If Dumbledore had been Harry's grandfather, why on earth would he have been sent to live with the Dursleys?"
    • Voldemort is NOT Harry's father; James is.
    • Book 6 will NOT be called 'Harry Potter and the Green Flame Torch' or 'Harry Potter and the Mountain of Fantasy'. And Book 7 will NOT be called 'Harry Potter and the Fortress of Shadows' or 'Harry Potter and the Forest of Shadows'.
    • Dean Thomas' father was a wizard (even though Dean believes he is Muggle-born) and was killed by Death Eaters, but this plot was nixed.
    • Mafalda is the Muggle-born daughter of the Weasley second cousin (an accountant) who was mentioned in SS.
    • Theodore Nott is a pureblood and his father a Death Eater, but he doesn't join Malfoy's gang.
    • Crookshanks is half-kneazle.
    • Molly's maiden name is Prewett, and she was related to Fabian and Gideon, who were members of the Order and were killed by Death Eaters.
    • Arthur is one of three brothers.
    • Ginny's first name is Ginevra, and she's the first girl born into the Weasley clan for several generations.
    • Fred/George's birthday is April Fool's Day.
    • Prefects can't take points from houses.
    • Does Hermione love Ron or Harry?: "I can't believe that some of you haven't worked this one out yet, but I'm not going to answer because that would spoil the arguments, which I enjoy."
    • Is every book going to be bigger than the previous one?: "No, definitely not, or book seven would be around the weight of a baby hippopotamus. According to the plan for book six, it will be quite a bit shorter than 'Order of the Phoenix'. I am not going to swear on my children's lives that that is going to be the case, but I am 99% certain of it."
    • "There were many different versions of the first chapter of 'Philosopher's Stone' and the one I finally settled on is not the most popular thing I've ever written; lots of people have told me they found it hard work compared with the rest of the book. The trouble with that chapter was (as so often in a Harry Potter book) I had to give a lot of information yet conceal even more. There were various versions of scenes in which you actually saw Voldemort entering Godric's Hollow and killing the Potters and in early drafts of these, a Muggle betrayed their whereabouts. As the story evolved, however, and Pettigrew became the traitor, this horrible Muggle vanished."
    • The opening Chapter of Book Six: "I have come close to using a chapter very like this in 'Philosopher's Stone' (it was one of the discarded first chapters), 'Prisoner of Azkaban' and 'Order of the Phoenix' but here, finally, it works, so it's staying. And that's all I'm going to say, but when you read it, just know that it's been about thirteen years in the brewing."
  • USA Today - May 27, 2004
    • "I really got goose bumps when I saw a couple of those things, and I thought, people are going to look back on the film and think that those were put in deliberately as clues."
      Cuaron, for his part, says "in a way, it was intuition, but everything is so emotionally eloquent, the book gives you all the hints."
  • CBBC Newsround - May 28, 2004
    • Graveyard at Hogwarts will appear in Book 6 or 7.
    • Hogwarts was built on an ancient Celtic site.
  • JKR website - June 1, 2004
    • "At the launch of Goblet of Fire at King's Cross, London, I shook hands with a woman who leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, 'Sirius Black is sexy, right?' And yes, of course she was right, as the Immeritus club know. The best-looking, most rebellious, most dangerous of the four marauders... and to answer one burning question on the discussion boards, his eyes are grey."
    • Hufflepuff common room is more cellar than dungeon.
  • JKR website - June 2, 2004
    • "Watching Harry Potter fans spread the news about this site, work out all the riddles in about ten minutes, collect all the prizes, then proceed to hack the site apart looking for more clues... well, I must say I never dreamed that sitting in front of a computer could be so much fun. I can see that this site is going to be a great source of entertainment and amusement to me.
      "I would like to make two points: firstly, as I said in a recent interview, if there is ever a time when I am not doing updates, it is because I am writing hard."

  • June 4, 2004: Prisoner of Azkaban Movie

  • JKR website - June 28, 2004
    • The title of Book 6 is: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
    • Will you write more Harry Potter books after the seventh?: "If you mean more novels, then I think it highly unlikely. I've got enough story for seven books and I never planned to carry the story beyond the end of book seven. I might do an eighth book for charity, a kind of encyclopaedia of the world so that I could use all the extra material that's not in the books... we'll see!"
    • Why did Harry forget the mirror in OotP -- "The mirror might not have helped as much as you think, but on the other hand, will help more than you think. You'll have to read the final books to understand that!"
    • "Harry didn't see his parents die. He was in his cot at the time (he was just over a year old) and, as I say in 'Philosopher's Stone', all he saw was a flash of green light."
    • In 'Chamber of Secrets', what would have happened if Ginny had died and Tom Riddle had escaped the diary?: "I can't answer that fully until all seven books are finished, but it would have strengthened the present-day Voldemort considerably."
    • Professor Flitwick is head of Ravenclaw House.
  • JKR website - June 29, 2004
    • "Information you take directly from this site will be truthful and accurate (I might occasionally joke, but as time goes on, you'll learn to tell when I'm joking). Do not trust anybody else claiming to have found information on this site that you cannot access, however seemingly convincing the images they provide to support their story."
    • "I was delighted to see that a hard core of super-bright fans knew that the real title was once, in the long distant past, a possibility for 'Chamber of Secrets', and from that deduced that it was genuine. Certain crucial pieces of information in book six were originally planned for 'Chamber of Secrets', but very early on (first draft of Chamber) I realised that this information's proper home was book six. I have said before now that 'Chamber' holds some very important clues to the ultimate end of the series. Not as many as six, obviously, but there is a link.
      "Anyway: if you continue to exercise patience, you will find that the Do Not Disturb Door opens again… and again… giving you further hints about book six. But as a little bonus, and compensation for having been messed around by Mr. or Ms. Storgé, I shall tell you one thing without making you shift any bricks at all: the HBP is neither Harry nor Voldemort. And that's all I'm saying on THAT subject until the book's published."
  • July 1, 2004 - Amazon.com sets up mailing list for notification of when Half-Blood Prince will be released.
  • July 8, 2004: Adult versions of the first four books published. [Bloomsbury]
  • July 10, 2004: Order of the Phoenix paperback published. [Amazon.uk] {38 chapters, 766 pages, 255,000 words}
  • JKR website - July 24, 2004 - Jo announces she is pregnant for the third time.
    • "I am really delighted to say that I am expecting a third baby, who is due next year. I always wanted three children, so I could not be happier.
      Now, I know that many Harry Potter fans' first reaction will be what does this mean for the timing of book six? (I'm not maligning you… I'm sure you're happy for me… but I know you really want that book!) So let me reassure you that book six remains well on track and, fingers crossed of course, I don't foresee any baby-related interruptions or delays. I still can't say for sure when it will be finished, but I have written a lot and I really like it (a reckless challenge to fate, that; I bet the next chapter goes horribly wrong now)."
  • JKR website - July 26, 2004
    • Will Arthur Weasley be the new Minister for Magic?: "Alas, no."
    • Why are some people in the wizarding world (e.g., Harry) called 'half-blood' even though both their parents were magical?: "The expressions 'pure-blood', 'half-blood' and 'Muggle-born' have been coined by people to whom these distinctions matter, and express their originators' prejudices. As far as somebody like Lucius Malfoy is concerned, for instance, a Muggle-born is as 'bad' as a Muggle. Therefore Harry would be considered only 'half' wizard, because of his mother's grandparents.
      "If you think this is far-fetched, look at some of the real charts the Nazis used to show what constituted 'Aryan' or 'Jewish' blood. I saw one in the Holocaust Museum in Washington when I had already devised the 'pure-blood', 'half-blood' and 'Muggle-born' definitions, and was chilled to see that the Nazis used precisely the same warped logic as the Death Eaters. A single Jewish grandparent 'polluted' the blood, according to their propaganda."
    • Is Tom Riddle the Half-Blood Prince?: "Well, as Tom Riddle is the same person as Voldemort, and Voldemort is NOT the Half-Blood Prince… do I really need to answer this?"
    • In what way is 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' related to 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'?: "I have been engulfed by an avalanche of questions on the subject of 'Prince' having once been a title of 'Chamber'. I am therefore attempting to answer most of them under this heading, which I think just about covers all the answerable variations (the unanswerable ones include questions such as 'who's the Half-Blood Prince?' 'what happens in the Half-Blood Prince?' and 'what does Half-Blood Prince mean?')
      "The plot of 'Prince' bears no resemblance whatsoever to the plot of 'Chamber', nor is it an off-cut of 'Chamber'. The story of 'Prince' takes off where 'Phoenix' ended and does not hark back to four years previously. True, mention is made to events that happened in 'Chamber,' but of course, mention is also made of events that happened in 'Stone', 'Azkaban', 'Goblet' and 'Phoenix'.
      "'The Half-Blood Prince' might be described as a strand of the overall plot. That strand could be used in a whole variety of ways and back in 1997 I considered weaving it into the story of 'Chamber'. It really didn't fit there, though; it was not part of the story of the basilisk and Riddle's diary, and before long I accepted that it would be better to do it justice in book six. I clung to the title for a while, even though all trace of the 'Prince' storyline had disappeared, because I liked it so much (yes, I really like this title!). I re-christened book two 'Chamber of Secrets' when I started the second draft.
      "The link I mentioned between books two and six does not, in fact, relate to the 'Half-Blood Prince' (because there is no trace left of the HBP storyline in 'Chamber'.) Rather, it relates to a discovery Harry made in 'Chamber' that foreshadows something that he finds out in 'Prince'."
  • July 30, 2004 - Neville Longbottom's birthday. [JKR website]
  • July 31, 2004 - Harry Potter's birthday. [JKR website]
  • August 10, 2004: Order of the Phoenix paperback published (US edition). [Amazon] {38 chapters, 870 pages, 255,000 words}
  • August 11, 2004 - Ginny Weasley's birthday. [JKR website]
  • Edinburgh Book Reading - August 15, 2004
    • "Usually when I am just over halfway I normally love it, but by the time I finish it I completely despise it and think it is worthless rubbish. At the moment, I really like how the sixth book is going. A lot happens in the sixth book and a lot of questions are answered. I really have a sense that we are nearly there and it is time for answers, not more questions and clues, although obviously there are a few clues as I am not quite finished yet."
    • Portraits: "They are all of dead people; they are not as fully realised as ghosts, as you have probably noticed. The place where you see them really talk is in Dumbledore's office, primarily; the idea is that the previous headmasters and headmistresses leave behind a faint imprint of themselves. They leave their aura, almost, in the office and they can give some counsel to the present occupant, but it is not like being a ghost. They repeat catchphrases, almost. The portrait of Sirius' mother is not a very 3D personality; she is not very fully realised. She repeats catchphrases that she had when she was alive. If Harry had a portrait of his parents it would not help him a great deal. If he could meet them as ghosts, that would be a much more meaningful interaction, but as Nick explained at the end of Phoenix -- I am straying into dangerous territory, but I think you probably know what he explained -- there are some people who would not come back as ghosts because they are unafraid, or less afraid, of death."
    • Is Aunt Petunia a Squib?: "Good question. No, she is not, but -- [Laughter]. No, she is not a Squib. She is a Muggle, but -- [Laughter]. You will have to read the other books. You might have got the impression that there is a little bit more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye, and you will find out what it is. She is not a squib, although that is a very good guess. Oh, I am giving a lot away here. I am being shockingly indiscreet."
    • "There is a [McLaggen] in book six because I thought that it is a surname that is too good to waste."
    • In your stories, will Harry Potter ever grow up as a wizard?: "Well, I don't think it is giving too much away to say that he will survive to book seven, mainly because I do not want to be strangled by you lot, but I am not going to say whether he grows any older than that because I have never said that. You are good at putting me on the spot!"
    • "The only character who is deliberately based on a real person is Gilderoy Lockhart. [Laughter]. Maybe he is not the one that you would think of, but I have to say that the living model was worse. [Laughter]. He was a shocker! The lies that he told about adventures that he'd had, things he'd done and impressive acts that he had committed… He was a shocking man."
    • Dumbledore's Patronus is a phoenix.
    • Why is the barman of the Hog's Head vaguely familiar to Harry? Is he Dumbledore's brother?: "Ooh -- you are getting good. Why do you think that it is Aberforth?" [Audience member: Various clues. He smells of goats and he looks a bit like Dumbledore]. "I was quite proud of that clue. That is all that I am going to say. [Laughter]. Well yes, obviously. I like the goat clue -- I sniggered to myself about that one."
    • Names for potions?: "Sometimes invention gives out. I was writing the latest chapter of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and I needed to come up with another name for another potion. I sat for ten minutes at the keyboard then I just typed "X". I thought, "I'll go back and fill that in later." Sometimes you really want to get on with the story. Sometimes names just come to you, which is a great feeling, but sometimes it is difficult and you have to batter your brain for a while. Sometimes it comes to you while you are washing up or on the loo or something. My husband is quite used to me saying, "Wait!" then running up stairs and writing something down."
    • Who was the first character that you invented?: "Harry. He really is the whole story. The whole plot is contained in Harry Potter; his past, present and future -- that is the story. Harry came to me first and everything radiated out from him. I gave him his parents, then his past, then Hogwarts, and the wizarding world got bigger and bigger. He was the starting point."
    • Does Hermione have any brothers or sisters?: "No, she doesn't. When I first made up Hermione I gave her a younger sister, but she was very hard to work in. The younger sister was not supposed to go to Hogwarts. She was supposed to remain a Muggle. It was a sideline that didn't work very well and it did not have a big place in the story. I have deliberately kept Hermione's family in the background. You see so much of Ron's family so I thought that I would keep Hermione's family, by contrast, quite ordinary. They are dentists, as you know. They are a bit bemused by their odd daughter but quite proud of her all the same."
    • Does Harry have a godmother? If so, will she make an appearance in future books?: "No, he doesn't. I have thought this through. If Sirius had married… Sirius was too busy being a big rebel to get married. When Harry was born, it was at the very height of Voldemort fever last time so his christening was a very hurried, quiet affair with just Sirius, just the best friend. At that point it looked as if the Potters would have to go into hiding so obviously they could not do the big christening thing and invite lots of people. Sirius is the only one, unfortunately. I have got to be careful what I say there, haven't I?"
    • Will Ron and Hermione ever get together?: "Well -- [Laughter.] What do you think? [Audience member: I think they will]. I'm not going to say. I can't say, can I? I think that, by now, I've given quite a lot of clues on the subject. That is all I'm going to say. You will have to read between the lines on that one."
    • Can you tell me more about Rita Skeeter?: "I love Rita. You know when Harry walks into the Leaky Cauldron for the first time, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone? Everyone says, "You're back" and he realises for the first time that he is famous. In a very early draft, Rita, a journalist, was there and she ran up to him. For some reason she was called Bridget -- I forget why. Anyway, she detained him too long in the Leaky Cauldron and I really needed to get him moving, so I thought that I would not put her there. As I was writing book one, I was planning the rest, and book four was supposed to be where Harry's fame became a burden to him. It really starts to weigh on him when he is exposed to the wider wizarding world so I thought that that would be the perfect place for Rita to come in. She was still called Bridget at the time. I didn't realise that by the time I wrote book four I would have met quite a lot of Ritas and people would assume that I was writing Rita in response to what had happened to me, which was not in fact the truth. However, I am not going to deny that writing Rita was a lot more fun having met a few people I had met. I actually quite like Rita. She is loathsome -- morally, she's horrible -- but I can't help admiring her toughness. She is very determined to do the job and there is something quite engaging about that. There is more to come on Rita. It is really enjoyable to write her and Hermione because they are such very different people. The scene in which I had Hermione, Rita and Luna together in the pub was really fun to write because they are three very different women with very different points of view. You have this very cynical journalist, you have Hermione, who is very logical, upright and good, and you have Luna, who is completely out to lunch but fantastic. I really like Luna. You have these three people who are not on each other's wavelengths making a deal. It was fun to write."
    • "I thought that I would give you something though, rather than get to the end of today and think that I have not given you a lot. There are two questions that I have never been asked but that I should have been asked, if you know what I mean. If you want to speculate on anything, you should speculate on these two things, which will point you in the right direction. The first question that I have never been asked -- it has probably been asked in a chatroom but no one has ever asked me -- is, "Why didn't Voldemort die?" Not, "Why did Harry live?" but, "Why didn't Voldemort die?" The killing curse rebounded, so he should have died. Why didn't he? At the end of Goblet of Fire he says that one or more of the steps that he took enabled him to survive. You should be wondering what he did to make sure that he did not die -- I will put it that way. I don't think that it is guessable. It may be -- someone could guess it -- but you should be asking yourself that question, particularly now that you know about the prophesy. I'd better stop there or I will really incriminate myself. The other question that I am surprised no one has asked me since Phoenix came out -- I thought that people would -- is why Dumbledore did not kill or try to kill Voldemort in the scene in the ministry. I know that I am giving a lot away to people who have not read the book. Although Dumbledore gives a kind of reason to Voldemort, it is not the real reason. When I mentioned that question to my husband -- I told Neil that I was going to mention it to you -- he said that it was because Voldemort knows that there are two more books to come. As you can see, we are on the same literary wavelength. [Laughter]. That is not the answer; Dumbledore knows something slightly more profound than that. If you want to wonder about anything, I would advise you to concentrate on those two questions. That might take you a little bit further."
    • Will Hagrid ever succeed with his plans for his brother?: "In a limited way, yes. Grawp is obviously the very stupidest thing that Hagrid ever brought home. In his long line of bringing home stupid things -- Aragog, the Blast-Ended Skrewts -- Grawp is the one that should have finished him off, but ironically it might be the one time that a monstrous something came good. By the next book, Grawp is a little bit more controllable. I think you got a clue to that at the end of Phoenix, because Grawp was starting to speak and to be a little bit more amenable to human contact."
    • How did Dumbledore get his scar in the London Underground?: "You may find out one day. I am very fond of that scar."
    • "Sometimes it was really easy and the title came naturally out of the plot. Sometimes it was a bit of a struggle. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets had different titles. In fact, as everyone now knows, it was once called Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, but then I removed a whole storyline that did not work at all. It gave too much information too early, so I pulled it out and it became a major part, but not the only part, of book six. There is no trace of that storyline left in Chamber of Secrets. People have been speculating that book six is a spinoff of book two, but it is not."
    • Blaise Zabini is a boy and we'll see more of him in the next books.
    • Will we see more of Snape?: "You always see a lot of Snape, because he is a gift of a character."
    • "Everyone has said to me that Harry saw people die before could see the Thestrals. Just to clear this up once and for all, this was not a mistake. I would be the first to say that I have made mistakes in the books, but this was not a mistake. I really thought this one through. Harry did not see his parents die. He was one year old and in a cot at the time. Although you never see that scene, I wrote it and then cut it. He didn't see it; he was too young to appreciate it. When you find out about the Thestrals, you find that you can see them only when you really understand death in a broader sense, when you really know what it means. Someone said that Harry saw Quirrell die, but that is not true. He was unconscious when Quirrell died, in Philosopher's Stone. He did not know until he came around that Quirrell had died when Voldemort left his body. Then you have Cedric. With Cedric, fair point. Harry had just seen Cedric die when he got back into the carriages to go back to Hogsmeade station. I thought about that at the end of Goblet, because I have known from the word go what was drawing the carriages. From Chamber of Secrets, in which there are carriages drawn by invisible things, I have known what was there. I decided that it would be an odd thing to do right at the end of a book. Anyone who has suffered a bereavement knows that there is the immediate shock but that it takes a little while to appreciate fully that you will never see that person again. Until that had happened, I did not think that Harry could see the Thestrals. That means that when he goes back, he saw these spooky things. It set the tone for Phoenix, which is a much darker book."
    • Apart from Harry, Snape is my favourite character because he is so complex and I just love him. Can he see the Thestrals, and if so, why? Also, is he a pure blood wizard?: "Snape's ancestry is hinted at. He was a Death Eater, so clearly he is no Muggle born, because Muggle borns are not allowed to be Death Eaters, except in rare circumstances. You have some information about his ancestry there. He can see Thestrals, but in my imagination most of the older people at Hogwarts would be able to see them because, obviously, as you go through life you do lose people and understand what death is. But you must not forget that Snape was a Death Eater. He will have seen things that… Why do you love him? Why do people love Snape? I do not understand this. Again, it's bad boy syndrome, isn't it? It's very depressing. [Laughter]. One of my best friends watched the film and she said, "You know who's really attractive?" I said, "Who?" She said, "Lucius Malfoy!""
    • Is there more to Dudley than meets the eye?: "No. [Laughter]. What you see is what you get. I am happy to say that he is definitely a character without much back story. He is just Dudley. The next book, Half Blood Prince, is the least that you see of the Dursleys. You see them quite briefly. You see them a bit more in the final book, but you don't get a lot of Dudley in book six -- very few lines. I am sorry if there are Dudley fans out there, but I think you need to look at your priorities if it is Dudley that you are looking forward to. [Laughter]."
    • Has your original plan for the seven books changed along the way?: "It has changed, but only in details. In all important respects, it has stayed the same, and the ending will be exactly what I planned before 1997. The story has taken little twists and turns that I maybe didn't expect, but we are still on track. Each book has broadly done what it was supposed to do in taking you towards the final conclusion."
    • "Does anyone know where avada kedavra came from? It is an ancient spell in Aramaic, and it is the original of abracadabra, which means "let the thing be destroyed". Originally, it was used to cure illness and the "thing" was the illness, but I decided to make it the "thing" as in the person standing in front of me. I take a lot of liberties with things like that. I twist them round and make them mine."
    • Will there be a book about Harry's Mum and Dad, about how they became friends and how they died?: "So it would be "Harry Potter: Episode One". [Laughter]. No, but a lot of people have asked that. It is all George Lucas's fault. You won't need a prequel; by the time I am finished, you will know enough. I think it would be shamelessly exploitative to do that. I am sure that Mr Lucas is doing it only for artistic reasons, but in my case I think that by the time you have had the seven books you will know everything you need to know for the story."
    • Has Voldemort or Tom Riddle ever cared for or loved anyone?: "Now, that's a cracking question to end with -- very good. No, never. [Laughter.] If he had, he couldn't possibly be what he is. You will find out a lot more about that. It is a good question, because it leads us rather neatly to Half Blood Prince, although I repeat for the millionth time that Voldemort is not the half blood prince, which is what a lot of people thought. He is definitely, definitely not."
  • JKR website - August 16, 2004
    • New text behind Do Not Disturb door: "(He) looked rather like an old lion. There were streaks of grey in his mane of tawny hair and his bushy eyebrows; he had keen yellowish eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and a certain rangy, loping grace even though he walked with a slight limp."
  • August 22, 2004 - Percy Weasley's birthday. [JKR website]
  • JKR website - September 16, 2004
    • Gilderoy Lockhart is based on JKR's first husband: "No, he most certainly is not. I have always been honest about the fact that Gilderoy Lockhart WAS inspired by a real man (see the 'Extras' section). For obvious reasons I am not going to identify the person in question -- however irritating he was, he does not deserve that -- but I can state categorically that I never married him. I do not lie about the inspiration for characters (although at times like these, I wonder why I don't refuse to answer these questions at all!)"
  • September 19, 2004 - Hermione Granger's birthday. [JKR website]
  • October 4, 2004 - Minerva McGonagall's birthday. [JKR website]
  • JKR website - October 4, 2004
    • What did Dumbledore's Howler to Aunt Petunia mean? ('Remember my last'?): "Well, it is a relief to move on after the Mark Evans fiasco. This time, two out of the three poll questions had interesting answers (or so I think) and thank goodness you chose one of them.
      "So: Dumbledore is referring to his last letter, which means, of course, the letter he left upon the Dursleys' doorstep when Harry was one year old. But why then (you may well ask) did he not just say 'remember my letter?' Why did he say my last letter? Why, obviously because there were letters before that...
      "Now let the speculation begin, and mind you type clearly, I'll be watching..."
    • James and Lupin did not switch bodies.
    • Sirius was about 22 when he was sent to Azkaban; Remus is the same age.
    • "[Sirius] loved James like a brother and he went on to transfer that attachment to Harry."
    • House ghosts and Heads of Houses were pupils in the houses they currently represent.
    • Charlie is three years older than Percy, not two, and Bill is two years above Charlie.
    • Marauder's Map: "Fred and George used the map for their own mischief-making, so they concentrated, naturally enough, on those portions of the map where they were planning their next misdeeds. And finally, you must not forget that hundreds of little dots are moving around this map at any given time…"
    • "Peeves isn't a ghost; he was never a living person. He is an indestructible spirit of chaos, and solid enough to unscrew chandeliers, throw walking sticks and, yes, chew gum."
    • Are you going to kill any more characters?: "Yes. Sorry."
    • Do you write every day?: "No; I write most days when I am working hard on a book (like now), but every day would be hard on my children! I like to spend time with them, too."
    • Do you believe in fate?: "No, I believe in hard work and luck, and that the first often leads to the second."
    • "Fred and George have red hair because Ron does; in other words, I created Ron as a character first, then invented his brothers and sister."
    • Apparating in Hogwarts: "House-elves are different from wizards; they have their own brand of magic, and the ability to appear and disappear within the castle is necessary to them if they are to go about their work unseen, as house-elves traditionally do."
    • Who is your favourite character?: "I love: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Hagrid, Dumbledore, Ginny, Fred, George and Lupin. I love writing (though would not necessarily want to meet) Snape. My favourite new character is Luna Lovegood."
    • Harry Potter based on JKR's cousin?: "Once more I put fingers to keyboard to state wearily that Harry is a completely imaginary character. He is not based on any of the men I have met during my lifetime who wore glasses, or any of the boys who had a scar somewhere on their face, or any of my friends who went to boarding school."
  • October 17, 2004 - Filius Flitwick's birthday. [JKR website]
  • October 30, 2004 - Molly Weasley's birthday. [JKR website]
  • JKR website - October 31, 2004
    • Chapter Two: SPINNERS END
    • Chapter Six: DRACO'S DETOUR
    • Chapter Fourteen: FELIX FELICIS
  • November 23, 2004 - Prisoner of Azkaban DVD.
    • "Alfonso has a very good intuition about what would and wouldn't work. He's put things in the film that -- without knowing it -- foreshadow things that are going to happen in the final two books. So I really got goosebumps when I saw a couple of those things. And I thought people are going to look back on the film and think that those things were put in deliberately as clues."
  • November 29, 2004 - Bill Weasley's birthday. [JKR website]
  • December 6, 2004 - Rubeus Hagrid's birthday. [JKR website]
  • JKR website - December 10, 2004
    • "I have nothing noteworthy to report, because I have been spending nearly all my time sitting in front of my computer writing, re-writing and taking the occasional break to bang my head off the desk in frustration or else rub my hands together in fiendish glee (I think the latter has happened once). Meanwhile, the distance between the keyboard and yours truly increases day by day as my third child races Harry's next adventure into the world. I will soon need extendable fingers to type."
    • Gideon and Fabian Prewett were Molly Weasley's brothers: "Yes, they were, but their history is not particularly significant in terms of the overall plot, except in so far as their deaths obviously explain and excuse some of Mrs. Weasley's fears and her arguably over-protective stance with regard to Harry."
    • The Order of the Phoenix communicates using chocolate frog cards: "This is such a great idea that I was in two minds whether to shoot it down; however, a chocolate frog card, or any object that would have to be remembered and carried on the person, would always be vulnerable to loss, destruction or trickery. The Order communicates in a way that requires nothing but a wand. You saw the Order's method of communication in use even before you knew about the existence of the Order; it was employed by an Order member."
    • The Lestranges were sent after Neville to kill him: "No, they weren't, they were very definitely [not] sent after Neville's parents. I can't say too much about this because it touches too closely on the prophecy and how many people knew about it, but the Lestranges were not in on the secret."
    • Luna and Neville will hook up in HP&THBP: "The Luna/Neville shippers are much less vehement and scary than the Harry/Hermione, Ron/Hermione tribes, so I hope I won't receive too much hate mail for quashing this rumour. I see Neville and Luna as very different kinds of people and while they share a certain isolation within Hogwarts, I don't think that's enough to foster true love -- friendship, perhaps, although I think that Neville would always find Luna's wilder flights of fancy alarming."
    • Harry stands trial again in HP&THBP: "This theory has been put forward to explain why Harry does not spend as long in Privet Drive during this book as previous ones, but I am happy to say that he leaves the Dursleys early for a much pleasanter reason than a court case."
    • SQUIBS: "I have been asked all sorts of questions about Squibs since I first introduced the concept in 'Chamber of Secrets'. A Squib is almost the opposite of a Muggle-born wizard: he or she is a non-magical person born to at least one magical parent. Squibs are rare; magic is a dominant and resilient gene.
      "Squibs would not be able to attend Hogwarts as students. They are often doomed to a rather sad kind of half-life (yes, you should be feeling sorry for Filch), as their parentage often means that they will be exposed to, if not immersed in, the wizarding community, but can never truly join it. Sometimes they find a way to fit in; Filch has carved himself a niche at Hogwarts and Arabella Figg operates as Dumbledore's liaison between the magical and Muggle worlds. Neither of these characters can perform magic (Filch's Kwikspell course never worked), but they still function within the wizarding world because they have access to certain magical objects and creatures that can help them (Arabella Figg does a roaring trade in cross-bred cats and Kneazles, and if you don't know what a Kneazle is yet, shame on you). Incidentally, Arabella Figg never saw the Dementors that attacked Harry and Neville, but she had enough magical knowledge to identify correctly the sensations they created in the alleyway."
    • WANDS: "I gave Harry a wand made of holly wood back in 1990, when I first drafted chapter six of 'Philosopher's Stone'. It was not an arbitrary decision: holly has certain connotations that were perfect for Harry, particularly when contrasted with the traditional associations of yew, from which Voldemort's wand is made. European tradition has it that the holly tree (the name comes from 'holy') repels evil, while yew, which can achieve astonishing longevity (there are British yew trees over two thousand years old), can symbolise both death and resurrection; the sap is also poisonous.
      "Some time after I had given Harry his holly-and-phoenix wand I came across a description of how the Celts had assigned trees to different parts of the year and discovered that, entirely by coincidence, I had assigned Harry the 'correct' wood for his day of birth. I therefore decided to give Ron and Hermione Celtic wand woods, too. Ron, who was born in the February 18 - March 17 period, was given an ash wand (I think I had originally marked him down for beech), and Hermione, who was born between September 2 and September 29, received a vine wood wand (I can't remember what I originally stipulated for Hermione; possibly I had not specified a wood for her at that stage).
      "I have only used the Celtic assignations for Ron and Hermione. Hagrid, for instance, has an oak wand though by this Celtic system he should have a wand made of elder; in Britain, the oak is 'King of the Forest' and symbolises strength, protection and fecundity; what other wood could 'choose' Hagrid? In any case, I liked having a hidden connection between Harry, Ron and Hermione's wands that only I knew about (until now, anyway)."
    • "Godric's Hollow is a village."
    • "James, Sirius, Remus and Peter dubbed themselves 'marauders', hence the way they titled the map."
    • Theodore Nott is the "stringy" Slytherin mentioned in the Thestral class scene; he is also described as 'rabbity' in appearance.
    • Hermione's wand core is a Dragon heartstring.
    • Hermione was nearly twelve when she entered Hogwarts; you must be at least eleven to attend Hogwarts.
    • "Everyone who shows magical ability before their eleventh birthday will automatically gain a place at Hogwarts; there is no question of not being 'magical enough'; you are either magical or you are not. There is no obligation to take up the place, however; a family might not want their child to attend Hogwarts."
  • December 12, 2004 - Charlie Weasley's birthday. [JKR website]
  • December 20, 2004 - Christmas message saying that Book 6 (Half-Blood Prince) is complete and has been sent off to her publisher. [JKR website]
  • December 21, 2004 - Half-Blood Prince announced. [Bloomsbury, Scholastic]
    • Harry Potter et le Prince au Sang-Mêlé (French title) - "Harry Potter and the Prince with Mixed Blood"
    • Harry Potter e il Principe Mezzosangue (Italian title) - "Harry Potter and the Prince who is Half-Blood"
  • JKR website - December 22, 2004
    • "the three questions [behind the Locked Door for Christmas -- Bristol, corned beef, and otter] relating to Harry, Ron and Hermione relate firmly to past, and not future, books -- nothing to do with the publication date, not an anagram, not a clue to the plot of HBP."
    • "As a spokesperson for Bloomsbury, my UK publisher, has already said, HBP is shorter than Order of the Phoenix, and I can tell you now that it has fewer than 38 chapters."
    • "I can't waste time denying each and every lunatic rumour, because I've got editing to do!"
  
  
  
• 2005
  • January 9, 2005 - Severus Snape's birthday. [JKR website]
  • January 23, 2005 - Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray born.
  • HPANA - January 24, 2005
    • Page count of 672 for Half-Blood Prince (Scholastic version) released, but this number is derived from the number of 32-page signatures; the real page count is 652.
  • JKR website - January 31, 2005
    • "The owls in the Harry Potter books, which deliver the mail by magical means, were never intended to portray the true behaviour or preferences of real owls."
  • February 6, 2005 - Arthur Weasley's birthday. [JKR website]
  • March 1, 2005 - Ron Weasley's birthday. [JKR website]
  • March 8, 2005 - Cover art for Half-Blood Prince revealed. [US Version, UK Version]
  • March 10, 2005 - Remus Lupin's birthday. [JKR website]
  • Tampa Tribune - March 17, 2005
    • From the time the manuscript arrives, [Mary] GrandPre has about two months to read the book, come up with a concept for the cover, get final approval from the book's art director and complete the finished works. That includes her pastel drawings for both covers and the inside flap, as well as the smaller charcoal sketches that start each chapter.
    • Although they've met, and the author sees GrandPre's sketches before they go to print, she and Rowling don't discuss the art directly.
    • GrandPre started giving each cover a distinct palette after deciding that the first three books looked too much alike. Book five was the blue book because of both the setting and the prevailing mood; the reason behind the new book's green hue remains to be seen.
  • April 1, 2005 - Fred and George Weasley's birthday. [JKR website]
  • JKR website - April 6, 2005
    • "I thought I'd reiterate here that there will be NO chapter called 'Lupin's Papers' in book six, nor will there be chapters entitled 'Pettigrew's Pamphlets', 'Sirius's Circulars' or 'the Pocket Crosswords of Severus Snape'."
    • Colin and Dennis Creevey will be the new Gryffindor Beaters: "Nice idea, but no. The new Gryffindor Beaters will be completely new finds of the new Captain's."
    • Nicolas Flamel will not be teaching potions.
    • Dumbledore is really Ron/Harry 'from the future': "Your inventiveness knows no bounds, and I do not mean that sarcastically; these theories open up exhilarating new vistas of possibility... but they're wrong. Could it be that by speculating that Harry/Ron becomes Dumbledore, you are seeking reassurance that neither dies young?
      I've also heard a whisper about Ron and Hermione's son time-travelling, so I shall go further and tell you that NONE of the characters in the books has returned from the future. As for the idea of Ron and Hermione having a son... (chuckles as the distant roars of a million shippers reach my ears, all cursing me to an eternity of unsatisfied curiosity)."
    • "I have just completed the very last tiny edits on 'Half-Blood Prince', so I'm now taking a few months off to concentrate on my new daughter (not to mention the old daughter and the not-so-old son!) I daresay my fingers will itch for a pen before long, they usually do, but I doubt I'll be doing any sustained writing on HP7 for many months yet."
    • "Flitwick has a background that I now realise will never see its way into the books because it is not relevant to the plot. He is human but with a dash of goblin ancestry."
    • "Yes, I wrote the information on the original Famous Wizard cards."
  • JKR website - May 13, 2005
    • "Mr. Lovegood, the editor of 'the Quibbler', really is Luna's father and Snape does not have a daughter."
    • Are all the pure-blood families going to die out? (We've lost the Blacks and the Crouches during the series): "Don't forget that, as Sirius revealed in 'Order of the Phoenix', none of these families is really 'pure' -- in other words, they merely cross Muggles and Squibs off the family tree and pretend that they didn't exist. But yes, the number of families claiming to be pure is diminishing. By refusing to marry Muggles or Muggle-borns, they are finding it increasingly difficult to perpetuate themselves. This subject is touched upon in 'Half-Blood Prince'."
    • Pre-Hogwarts kids are usually home-schooled.
    • "just like every other kind of magic within the books, Veritaserum is not infallible."
    • What are you going to write after Harry?: "There are things languishing in various drawers that I might return to, but I might write something completely different. I really don't know."
    • How do you remember everything from different books when you are still writing the HP series?: "As obsessive fans will tell you, I do slip up! Several classrooms move floors mysteriously between books and these are the least serious continuity errors! Most of the fansites will point you in the direction of my mistakes. But the essentials remain consistent from book to book because the story has been plotted for a long time and it is clear in my mind."
  • May 15, 2005 - Pomona Sprout's birthday. [JKR website]
  • JKR website - May 16, 2005
    • The Prophecy does not require Harry or Neville to kill each other.
    • In attacking Harry, Voldemort made a choice, which anointed Harry as the 'Chosen One' over Neville, and Voldemort chose correctly which boy would be the most likely to topple him. That choice inadvertently gave Harry "tools no other wizard possessed -- the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind."
    • "What would have happened if he had attacked Neville instead? Harry wonders this during the course of 'Half-Blood Prince' and concludes, rightly, that the answer hinges on whether or not one of Neville's parents would have been able, or prepared, to die for their son in the way that Lily died for Harry. If they hadn't, Neville would have been killed outright. Had Frank or Alice thrown themselves in front of Neville, however, the killing curse would have rebounded just as it did in Harry's case, and Neville would have been the one who survived with the lightning scar."
  • JKR Website - May 26, 2005
    • "Please remember that allegations of 'leaks' concerning deaths in 'Half-Blood Prince' are very easy to make. Any comment I make on such rumours would be a spoiler, so I'll just repeat: keep those barrels of salt handy. Speaking of which..."
    • "I never post on fan sites and it is important that you all know this, because the last thing I would want is for any of you to be misled or otherwise manipulated by somebody posing as me online. JKRowling.com is the only place I ever post."
    • JKR has said that 'Half-Blood Prince' is her best book yet?: "No, she hasn't. She is superstitious about saying things like that! What she said -- on this very website -- was that she had not been this happy with a book since she finished 'Prisoner of Azkaban'."
  • Book Expo America - June 3, 2005
    • Jim Dale, who narrates the audiobook versions of the Harry Potter books confided that he's been sworn to secrecy on the contents of the new one, out in July. "I do know who dies," he said, adding he thinks this one is J.K. Rowling's best.
  • Book Expo America - June 4, 2005
    • This one, he [Arthur Levine] said, "has more romance in general". And then he and marketing VP Jennifer Pasanen, who was sitting in, started humming, "Love is in the air". Well, it's a clue.
  • June 5, 2005 - Draco Malfoy's birthday. [JKR website]
  • Reuters - June 5, 2005
    • Barbara Marcus: "There's a new Minister of Magic, someone dies but it's not Harry or Voldemort, and the Half-Blood Prince is not Harry or Voldemort."
  • June 10, 2005 - Bloomsbury Half-Blood Prince book jacket released (sans summary text) [UK book jacket]
  • Scholastic HBP 30-Day Countdown - June 16, 2005
    • Arthur Levine: "But, you finally, there are a lot of, there are a lot of answers."
    • Arthur Levine: "I guess for me the most satisfying thing is to see the continuing emotional development of the characters. To see them, to actually see them growing up, which is something that, as in your children, you don't necessarily notice on an ongoing basis but you have moments when you say, 'Wow, you know? Harry is really growing up'. And it's not something you would have said three books ago or when he first got to Hogwarts. ... Or, gosh, Hermione. You know, 'You go, girl'."
  • June 27, 2005 - First shipments of Half-Blood Prince begin arriving at booksellers' warehouses. [Barnes and Noble]
  • June 28, 2005 - Dobby's birthday. [JKR website]
  • July 8, 2005 - Scholastic Half-Blood Prince back cover released. [US back cover]
  • July 13, 2005 - Scholastic Half-Blood Prince deluxe book jacket released. [US deluxe edition jacket]
    • "We are excited to release more artwork than ever before for this spectacular deluxe edition, where layers of suspense unfold as Harry and Dumbledore peer through wild branches, while a mysterious man creeps toward an unidentified home," said David Saylor, Vice President, Creative Director, Scholastic.
  • Baltimore Sun - July 13, 2005
    • Levine will allow, cautiously, that unlike other authors, Rowling doesn't run ideas past him while she's immersed in a draft. Nor will she send him early chapters to gauge his response.
      "Her process is to work very, very hard for a long time before she sends me the manuscript," he says. "At the point at which she's ready to send it to me, it's pretty polished. She's almost always aware of what she's doing and why. She rarely does anything unconsciously. She's a secure writer, very confident."
      After studying the manuscript, Levine and Emma Matthewson, Rowling's British editor, confer in person or over the phone. Then, they write a joint letter to Rowling outlining their responses. So considered and thoughtful is this letter that Levine describes it almost as though it were a gourmet meal that had been painstakingly planned over a period of weeks.
  • July 14, 2005 - Bloomsbury Half-Blood Prince back cover released (with summary text) [UK back cover]
  • JKR Website - July 15, 2005
    • "Members of the Order use their Patronuses to communicate with each other."

  • July 16, 2005: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince published. [Amazon.uk, Amazon] {30 chapters, 652 pages (608 UK), 170,000 words - 10.8 million printed (US)}

  • July 16, 2005: Half-Blood Prince large print edition published. [Amazon.uk] {30 chapters, 1008 pages, 170,000 words}
  • Ireland On-Line - July 17, 2005
    • "I am dreading it in some ways. I do love writing the books and it is going to be a shock, a profound shock to me. Even though I have known it is coming for the past fifteen years, I have known that the series would end, I think it will still be a shock. Conversely, obviously there will be a sense of achievement... I suppose there will be some benefits to not writing Harry Potter books any more. So it is about fifty-fifty really."
    • When will she begin the next book?: "Not until the end of this year, beginning of next year. I have already done some work on it and I am still doing little bits and pieces, but realistically I have still got a very young baby, so I think probably next year I will do the proper writing of book seven."
    • "When people have finished reading this book, they will really know what to expect in book seven and I think I give very clear pointers as to what Harry will do next. There is plenty to guess at... at least one thing I think people will probably deduce, there is a mystery left at the end, but I think they might already know the answer if they think about it."
    • On leaked spoilers: "I find it upsetting and disquieting that some elements are so keen on spoilers because it seems such a mean spirited thing to do. This is not about money or anything other than the pleasure of reading for people who want to read it."
    • "My editor won't let any of the characters swear, which is sometimes difficult because Ron is definitely a boy who would swear. So you will have noticed I get round that by having him 'Ron used a word that made Hermione say, Oh Ron'. So I do have to do that quite a bit with Ron."
  • Time Magazine - July 17, 2005
    • "Because of the demands of the adventure that Harry is following, he has had less sexual experience than boys of his age might have had. But I really wanted my heroes to grow up. Ron's hormones get fuller play in book six. Basically it dawns on Ron that Hermione's had some action, Harry's had some action and he's never got close!"
    • "Harry goes off into this magical world, and is it any better than the world he's left? Only because he meets nicer people. Magic does not make his world better significantly. The relationships make his world better. Magic in many ways complicates his life."
    • "... in six Harry finds out a lot of Voldemort's history. Though he was never that nice a guy."
    • "As I look back over the five published books, I realize that it's kind of a litany of bad fathers. That's where evil seems to flourish, in places where people didn't get good fathering."
    • "I think Phoenix could have been shorter. I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end. In every single book, there's stuff I would go back and rewrite, but I think I really planned the hell out of this one. I took three months and just sat there and went over and over and over the plan, really fine-tuned it, looked at it from every angle. I had learnt, maybe, from past mistakes."
    • "I think I can say categorically that I will not write another fantasy after Harry. Wait, now I'm panicking. Oh, my God! Yes, I'm sure I can say that. I think I will have exhausted the possibilities of that. For me."
  • Katie Couric Interview - July 17, 2005
    • "Life was actually fuller because I had gotten married again and was pregnant for most of the writing of Phoenix. I was also pregnant, in fact, for all of the writing of Half-Blood Prince. ... I was also pregnant during the writing of Philosopher's Stone, so actually half of my novelistic output has been done while pregnant." You're at your most creative while pregnant: "No, really, Katie, I think we'll stop here; that's not a good enough reason!"
    • Does anybody know your ideas for Book 7?: "No. ... If I do get hit by a bus I would really hate to think someone else was going to take over. It's my baby."
    • "It's going to be really emotional to say goodbye. I'm going to find it very difficult. But it must be done, it must be done. It's been a fabulous ride, but you have to know when to get off, and I know when to get off. And it will be at the end of Book 7."
    • "Nothing is really protecting Aunt Petunia. ... There's more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye."
    • "The Sorting Hat isn't really alive. The four founders of the school have put certain of their own personality traits into the hat and that makes it able to choose people."
    • "The children [in the books] do challenge accepted authority; they do break rules. I think those are healthy things."
  • CBBC Newsround - July 18, 2005
    • Voldemort's boggart?: "The thing that Voldemort fears more than anything else is his own death. It is the quest of his life to cheat death, so we would have to see himself lying dead on the floor."
    • The basilisk and glasses?: "I had Justin protected by the camera lens, so I think I am open for criticism there, but the way I explained to myself he was looking through several lenses and wasn't actually seeing the thing directly, it wasn't through his eyeline, when you look through a camera you are looking through the lens, it is a little distorted. You can argue with me on that and I wouldn't blame you but that is how I explained it to my self at the time."
    • "I had the idea as I have said many a time before on the train, and I just loved the idea so much I couldn't wait to start writing it, which is the best. Iris Murdoch said writing was like getting married, you shouldn't commit yourself until you can't believe your luck. That is how I felt about Harry."
    • "There is a another book where I didn't start from Harry's point of view which is Goblet of Fire."
    • "There is already a chapter written in which you find out about the survivors post Hogwarts fates, so, I will have to re­write it when I get there, because that was written years ago."
    • "I really don't know what I will write after Harry Potter."
    • "I got the name Potter, which I have said before, from people who lived down the road from me in Winterbourne."
    • "I don't think I will write any more fantasy books. The reason for that, obviously I have now written a huge long fantasy which will be longer when it is finished and I think I have really put my best fantasy ideas into Harry Potter and if I try to write another fantasy I would feel it was second best. And I love the characters I have written in Harry Potter so much, maybe it will feel like a slight betrayal if I did a second fantasy."
    • "I do not yet know really how long the seventh book will be, although I have a plan, I have not yet plotted it out chapter by chapter, so I cannot really tell you. I do not think it will be as long as Order of the Phoenix, but I am going to reserve the right to make it as long as that if I want to. Am I going to finish Harry off? I cannot possibly tell you that, I'm sorry."
    • New characters in Book 7?: "There will be some characters who you don't know particularly well, and there may be a couple of new characters, but nobody really major. You know pretty much the cast list by now."
    • "I think you will realise why [Sirius] had to go in terms of plot when you read the seventh book. It wasn't arbitrary although part of the answer is the one I have given before. It is more satisfying I think for the reader if the hero has to go on alone and to give him too much support makes his job too easy, sorry."
    • "I don't really have much leeway to stray from my plot and once I reach book 7, there has to be no margin because I know exactly what I have to do now and I am going to go ahead and do it. But in the early days things did wander off and sometimes still characters want to go one way and I want them to go another way and sometimes the best thing to do is write that way out of your system and put it to one side and carry on. Hermione often goes wandering."
    • "Harry receives magical protection from his mother's sacrifice as long as he remains close to her blood. In other words, Aunt Petunia. That protection won't continue to hold once he is a man, once he turns 17."
    • Umbridge?: "She is in fact alive and well and working at the Ministry."
    • Bond between Harry and Voldemort?: "That is another one of those questions that goes right to the heart of the series. I can't answer. It touches way too closely on book 7. Sorry. Good question."
    • Petunia knows about dementors?: "She overheard a conversation, that is all I am going to say. She overheard conversation. The answer is in the beginning of Phoenix, she said she overheard Lily being told about them. ... The reason I am hesitant is because there is more to it than that. As I think you suspect. Correctly, but I don't want to say what else there is because it relates to book 7."
    • Hardest book to write?: "Goblet of Fire. ... Between Goblet of Fire and Chamber of Secrets, that was very hard."
    • "I did not have the name 'Auror' early in the books. I always wanted to be that, join the ministry and fight, with [Harry's] feelings at the moment possibly he will not have that ambition in book seven but..."
    • Fawkes' owner?: "I am not going to answer about the role in the next books, which probably gives you a big clue, and [Fawkes] has never been owned by anyone but Dumbledore."
    • Will Voldemort find out about the prophecy?: "That is one of those very good questions that I don't think I can answer."
    • "At one point there was a blind character who went by the name of Mopsus, and I will let you look him up because there is a mythological connection there, but he sort of ­­ that was a very early character and he had the power of second sight, in other words he was a bit like Professor Trelawney, he was a very, very early character, this was when I was drafting Philosopher's Stone, the reason I cut him was he was too good. As the story evolved, if there was somebody who really could do divination at the time that Harry was alive, it greatly diminished the drama of the story because someone out there knew what was going to happen. So that is why Mopsus went and I have never really replaced him, although I suppose Mad-Eye Moody, had some of Mopsus' characterisation. He has one magical eye because he lost an eye in a fight with a Death Eater, so good question."
    • "I absolutely loved writing Half-Blood Prince, it was an enjoyable experience from start to finish, I would say the two books I have enjoyed writing most, and I have been most relaxed in my life at the time, were Azkaban and Prince."
    • "I keep killing all my favourite members of the Order of the Phoenix, but there is one member of the Order of the Phoenix that you have not yet met properly and you will ­­ well, you know that they are a member, but you haven't really met them properly yet and you will meet them in seven, so I am looking forward to that."
    • Book 7?: "I am going to say now I think it will be at least another two year wait (groans). Sorry, I think it probably will be just being realistic. My plan is to start writing seriously at the end of the year because I still have a very young baby, although I am doing some work on it at the moment."
    • "I had glasses all through my childhood and I was sick and tired of the person in the books who wore the glasses was always the brainy one and it really irritated me and I wanted to read about a hero wearing glasses. ... It also has a symbolic function, Harry is the eyes on to the books in the sense that it is always Harry's point of view, so there was also that, you know, facet of him wearing glasses."
    • "During the writing of Chamber of Secrets, the story line of the Half-Blood Prince in this book was initially incorporated into the second book and I obviously do not want an elaborate on that in case people haven't finished the book and that is why the working title of Chamber of Secrets was the Half-Blood Prince, it became clear to me during the writing of that book that I had two major plots here that really did not work too well together side by side, so one had to be pulled out, it became clear immediately that."
  • The Leaky Cauldron 1 - July 18, 2005
    • How much backstory?: "It really is hard to say because I'm so disorganized, but yeah, there's boxes. It's mainly in notebooks because the backstory is so valuable, so I mainly need that in a format I can retrieve, because I lose stuff. So, it's harder to lose a book than it is a bit of paper."
    • "I don't see the Web site closing, like on the stroke of midnight when the seventh book's finished. No, definitely not. My feeling is, I couldn't possibly answer all the questions, because the novel is the wrong form in which to, for example, present a catalog of your characters' favorite colors. But people actually want to know -- it's that kind of detail, isn't it? So, I'm never going to answer everything that an obsessive fan would want to know in the novels, and the Web site is another way of doing that.
      "Also I think people will continue to theorize about the characters even at the end of book seven because some people are very interested in certain characters whose past lives are not germane to the plot, they're not central to the story, so there is big leeway there still for fanfiction."
    • Any more Harry Potter?: "The most likely thing I've said this a few times before, would be an encyclopedia in which I could have fun with the minor characters and I could give the definitive biography of all the characters."
    • OK, big big big book six question. Is Snape evil?
      "[Almost laughing] Well, you've read the book, what do you think?"
      She's trying to make you say it categorically.
      Well, there are conspiracy theorists, and there are people who will claim --
      "Cling to some desperate hope [laughter] --"
      Yes!
      Yes!
      Like certain shippers we know!
      [All laugh]
      "Well, okay, I'm obviously -- Harry-Snape is now as personal, if not more so, than Harry-Voldemort. I can't answer that question because it's a spoiler, isn't it, whatever I say, and obviously, it has such a huge impact on what will happen when they meet again that I can't. And let's face it, it's going to launch 10,000 theories and I'm going to get a big kick out of reading them so [laughs] I'm evil but I just like the theories, I love the theories."
    • Dumbledore too trusting?: "Well, there is information on that to come, in seven. But I would say that I think it has been demonstrated, particularly in books five and six that immense brainpower does not protect you from emotional mistakes and I think Dumbledore really exemplifies that."
    • Lily had a choice and chose to die for her son; James fought instead and was never given a clear choice to make.
    • Lily did not know the effect her choice would have.
    • "Harry and Sirius were very similar in the way that both of them were craving family connections with friends. So, Sirius with James wanted a brother, and Harry has nominated Ron and Hermione as his family."
  • The Leaky Cauldron 2 - July 20, 2005
    • Luna commentating: "Actually I really enjoyed doing that. ... I knew as I wrote it that it was the last time I was going to be doing a Quidditch match."
    • "Peeves is like dry rot. You can try and eradicate it. It comes with the building. You're stuck. If you've got Peeves you're stuck."
    • More Umbridge?: "Yeah, it's too much fun to torture her not to have another little bit more before I finish."
    • Voldemort's boggart is his death.
    • She won't answer about Dumbledore's boggart or what he would see in the Mirror of Erised.
    • The last word is still 'scar' for now.
    • Last chapter: "I haven't actually physically fiddled with it. There are definitely a couple of things that will need changing. They're not big deals but I always knew I would have to rewrite it."
    • The Sorting Hat has never been wrong.
    • Book 7 length?: "I still think it will be shorter than 'Phoenix'." ... "I have a plan for seven that's not yet so detailed that I could honestly gauge the length. I know what's going to happen, I know the story, but I haven't sat down and plotted it to the point where you think, 'We're really looking at 42 chapters,' or, 'We're looking at 31 chapters.' I don't know yet."
    • "I have no comment at all on [Sirius'] mirror. That mirror is not on the table."
    • "There are bits of all six books that I would go back and tighten up. My feeling is that Phoenix is overlong, but I challenge anyone to find the obvious place to cut. There are places that I would prune, now, looking back, but they wouldn't add up to a hugely reduced book, because my feeling is you need what's in there. You need what's in there if I'm going to play fair for the reader in the resolution in book seven. One of the reasons "Phoenix" is so long is that I had to move Harry around a lot, physically. There were places he had to go he had never been before, and that took time -- to get him there, to get him away. That was the longest non-Hogwarts stretch in any of the books, and that's really what bumps up the length. I'm trying to think of specifics, it's hard."
    • "You will know more about Dumbledore."
    • "Way before I finished 'Philosopher's Stone', when I was just amassing stuff for seven years, between having the idea and publishing the book, I sat down and I created 40 kids who enter Harry's year. I'm delighted I did it, [because] it was so useful. I got 40 pretty fleshed out characters. I never have to stop and invent someone. I know who's in the year, I know who's in which house, I know what their parentage is, and I have a few personal details on all of them. So there were 40. I never consciously thought, "That's it, that' s all the people in his year," but that's kind of how it's worked out. Then I've been asked a few times how many people and because numbers are not my strong point, one part of my brain knew 40, and another part of my brain said, "Oh, about 600 sounds right." Then people started working it out and saying, "Where are the other kids sleeping?" [Laughter.] We have a little bit of a dilemma there. I mean, obviously magic is very rare. I wouldn't want to say a precise ratio. But if you assume that all of the wizarding children are being sent to Hogwarts, then that's very few wizard-to-Muggle population, isn't it? There will be the odd kid whose parents don't want them to go to Hogwarts, but 600 out of the whole of Britain is tiny."
    • "I will say, that yes, I personally feel -- well it's going to be clear once people have read book six. I mean, that's it. It's done, isn't it? We know. Yes, we do now know that it's Ron and Hermione. I do feel that I have dropped heavy -- ANVIL-sized, actually, hints, prior to this point. I certainly think even if subtle clues hadn't been picked up by the end of 'Azkaban', that by the time we hit Krum in Goblet..."
    • "Ron up to this point has been quite immature compared to the other two and he kind of needed to make himself worthy of Hermione. Now, that didn't mean necessarily physical experience but he had to grow up emotionally and now he's taken a big step up. Because he's had the meaningless physical experience -- let's face it, his emotions were never deeply engaged with Lavender -- and he's realized that that is ultimately not what he wants, which takes him a huge emotional step forward."
    • "Well I think anyone who is still shipping Harry/Hermione after this book -- they need to go back and reread, I think."
    • "People have been waxing lyrical about Draco Malfoy, and I think that's the only time when it stopped amusing me and started almost worrying me. I'm trying to clearly distinguish between Tom Felton, who is a good looking young boy, and Draco, who, whatever he looks like, is not a nice man. It's a romantic, but unhealthy, and unfortunately all too common delusion of -- delusion, there you go -- of girls, and you will know this, that they are going to change someone. And that persists through many women's lives, till their death bed, and it is uncomfortable and unhealthy and it actually worried me a little bit, to see young girls swearing undying devotion to this really imperfect character, because there must be an element in there, that 'I'd be the one who [changes him].' I mean, I understand the psychology of it, but it is pretty unhealthy. So, a couple of times I have written back, possibly quite sharply, saying, 'You want to rethink your priorities here.'"
    • "I think Draco would be very gifted in Occlumency, unlike Harry. Harry's problem with it was always that his emotions were too near the surface and that he is in some ways too damaged. But he's also very in touch with his feelings about what's happened to him. He's not repressed, he's quite honest about facing them, and he couldn't suppress them, he couldn't suppress these memories. But I thought of Draco as someone who is very capable of compartmentalizing his life and his emotions, and always has done. So he's shut down his pity, enabling him to bully effectively. He's shut down compassion -- how else would you become a Death Eater? So he suppresses virtually all of the good side of himself. But then he's playing with the big boys, as the phrase has it, and suddenly, having talked the talk he's asked to walk it for the first time and it is absolutely terrifying. And I think that that is an accurate depiction of how some people fall into that kind of way of life and they realize what they're in for. I felt sorry for Draco. Well, I've always known this was coming for Draco, obviously, however nasty he was.
      "Harry is correct in believing that Draco would not have killed Dumbledore, which I think is clear when he starts to lower his wand, when the matter is taken out of his hands."
    • Was Dumbledore planning to die?: "Well, I don't want to shoot that one down. I have to give people hope."
      It goes back to the question of whether Snape is a double-double-double-triple-: "[JKR laughs] Double-double-quadruple-to-the-power-of -- yeah."
      "Obviously, there are lines of speculation I don't want to shut down. Generally speaking, I shut down those lines of speculation that are plain unprofitable. Even with the shippers. God bless them, but they had a lot of fun with it. It's when people get really off the wall -- it's when people devote hours of their time to proving that Snape is a vampire that I feel it's time to step in, because there's really nothing in the canon that supports that.
      "Yeah, it's after the 15th rereading when you have spots in front of your eyes that you start seeing clues about Snape being the Lord of Darkness. So, there are things I shut down just because I think, well, don't waste your time, there's better stuff to be debating, and even if it's wrong, it will probably lead you somewhere interesting."
    • "I was really hoping someone would ask me about R.A.B., and you did it." He wrote Voldemort a personal note: "That doesn't necessarily show that Voldemort killed him, personally, but Sirius himself suspected that Regulus got in a little too deep. Like Draco. He was attracted to it, but the reality of what it meant was way too much to handle."
  • The Leaky Cauldron 3 - July 23, 2005
    • Memories in the Pensieve are accurate.
    • It is not a coincidence that Grindelwald died in 1945.
    • Alice Longbottom isn't passing secrets messages to Neville through bubble gum wrappers. It's important as a character moment, but it doesn't really lead anywhere very interesting.
    • The veil is not an execution chamber. "The veil's been there as long as the Ministry of Magic has been there, and the Ministry of Magic has been there, not as long as Hogwarts, but a long time. We're talking hundreds of years. It's not particularly important to know exactly when, but centuries, definitely."
    • No comment on a return to the locked room within the Ministry.
    • Dumbledore is mostly self-taught.
    • Lily's parents died a normal Muggle death; James' died of a Wizarding illness. Neither are relevant to the story; Jo just needed for Harry to be alone.
    • "... almost always the hero must go on alone."
    • That sort of shuts down Heir of Gryffindor [theories], as well.: "Yeah. Well, there you go. See, I'm aware that 'Half-Blood Prince' will not delight everyone, because it does shoot down some theories."
    • "If you both chose to walk away, you could both live! That's the bottom line. If both of them decided, 'We're not playing,' and walked away… but, it's not going to happen, because as far as Voldemort's concerned, Harry's a threat. They must meet each other."
    • "Ron's eyes are blue. Have I never said that, ever? Blue. Harry's green, Ron's blue, and Hermione's are brown."
    • "Ron's Patronus is a small dog, like a Jack Russell, and that's a really sentimental choice, because we've got a Jack Russell. He's insane."
    • Ginny did send Harry the Valentine.
    • "... the plan was, which I really hope I fulfilled, is that the reader, like Harry, would gradually discover Ginny as pretty much the ideal girl for Harry. She's tough, not in an unpleasant way, but she's gutsy. He needs to be with someone who can stand the demands of being with Harry Potter, because he's a scary boyfriend in a lot of ways. He's a marked man. I think she's funny, and I think that she's very warm and compassionate. These are all things that Harry requires in his ideal woman. But, I felt -- and I'm talking years ago when all this was planned -- initially, she's terrified by his image. I mean, he's a bit of a rock god to her when she sees him first, at 10 or 11, and he's this famous boy. So Ginny had to go through a journey as well. And rather like with Ron, I didn't want Ginny to be the first girl that Harry ever kissed.
      "I feel that Ginny and Harry, in this book, they are total equals. They are worthy of each other. They've both gone through a big emotional journey, and they've really got over a lot of delusions, to use your word, together. So, I enjoyed writing that. I really like Ginny as a character."
    • "The backstory with Ginny was, she was the first girl to arrive in the Weasley family in generations, but there's that old tradition of the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and a seventh son of a seventh son, so that's why she's the seventh, because she is a gifted witch. I think you get hints of that, because she does some pretty impressive stuff here and there, and you'll see that again."
    • "You are seeing Slytherin house always from the perspective of Death Eaters' children. They are a small fraction of the total Slytherin population. I'm not saying all the other Slytherins are adorable, but they're certainly not Draco, they're certainly not, you know, Crabbe and Goyle." ... "You will have people connected with Death Eaters in the other houses, yeah, absolutely."
    • "I wanted them to correspond roughly to the four elements. So Gryffindor is fire, Ravenclaw is air, Hufflepuff is earth, and Slytherin is water, hence the fact that their common room is under the lake. So again, it was this idea of harmony and balance, that you had four necessary components and by integrating them you would make a very strong place. But they remain fragmented, as we know."
    • Was James the only one who had romantic feelings for Lily?: "No. [Pause.] She was like Ginny, she was a popular girl." ... "I can't answer, can I, really [about Snape or Lupin]?"
    • "I've never, to my knowledge, lied when posed a question about the books. To my knowledge. You can imagine, I've now been asked hundreds of questions; it's perfectly possible at some point I misspoke or I gave a misleading answer unintentionally, or I may have answered truthfully at the time and then changed my mind in a subsequent book. That makes me cagey about answering some questions in too much detail because I have to have some leeway to get there and do it my way, but never on a major plot point.
      "Lupin was very fond of Lily, we'll put it like that, but I wouldn't want anyone to run around thinking that he competed with James for her. She was a popular girl, and that is relevant. But I think you've seen that already. She was a bit of a catch."
    • Fred and George took a risk on the Quidditch World Cup match and won.
    • How did [Fred and George] figure out how to work the map?: "This is how I explained it to myself at the time, and this does sound glib. Don't you think it would be quite a Fred and Georgeish thing to say in jest, and then see this thing transform?"
    • Gleam of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes in GoF?: "That's still enormously significant. And let's face it, I haven't told you that much is enormously significant, so you can let your imaginations run free there." ... "Absolutely, that's for seven. That's for seven."
    • Harry's Horcrux journey is the entire rest of the story?: "Obviously it's not all of it, but still, that is the way to kill Voldemort. That's not to say it won't be an extremely torturous and winding journey, but that's what he's got to do. Harry now knows -- well he believe he knows -- what he's facing. Dumbledore's guesses are never very far wide of the mark. I don't want to give too much away here, but Dumbledore says, 'There are four out there, you've got to get rid of four, and then you go for Voldemort.' So that's where he is, and that's what he's got to do."
    • "I'm prepared to bet you now, that at least before the week is out, at least one of the Horcruxes will have been correctly identified by careful re-readers of the books."
    • The diary Horcrux: "Harry definitely destroyed that piece of soul, you saw it take shape, you saw it destroyed, it's gone. And Ginny is definitely in no way possessed by Voldemort."
    • Ginny can no longer speak Parseltongue.
    • No Godmother for Harry.
    • "At the time that they christened Harry, they were in hiding."
    • "You would have to go a very long way to find three better-adjusted people, given what they've been through, Rupert, Dan and Emma. They're incredible."
    • Harry and Ron will never read Hogwarts, A History.
    • Dobby does not know the prophecy.
    • Has Snape ever been loved by anyone?: "Yes, he has, which in some ways makes him more culpable even than Voldemort, who never has."
    • Was there anyone else present in Godric's Hollow the night Harry's parents were killed?: "No comment. I'm sorry!"
  • August 10, 2005: Half-Blood Prince large print edition published (US edition). [Amazon] {30 chapters, 831 pages, 170,000 words}
  • The Harry Potter Lexicon - August 29, 2005
    • Regulus' full name: Regulus Arcturus Black leaked to the Lexicon; the posting mysteriously vanishes the next day.
  • DC Velocity - September 2, 2005
    • But it also had another, more daunting responsibility: safeguarding those books between the time they were printed and the release date. The enormous number of books involved and the time it took to produce them increased that challenge. Scholastic's printers began producing the books in late May, a full month and a half before they went on sale, lengthening the period of exposure.
      The books could not linger for long within the binderies, which had little storage space. So the team had to come up with a different solution. Because the copies would move mostly in truckload quantities, the team decided to pre-position a lot of truckloads, using the trucks as rolling storage in Hunt's secure yards.
      But the books didn't stay there for long. Two or three days after the presses started up, shipments of books began to move out. At that point, keeping those shipments secure while positioning them for delivery became the carrier's responsibility. "We told them that security was job number one on this project," Yablin says. "There was an eight- to ten-week period where we had to keep this under wraps. We absolutely mandated that everything would stay on the trailers. I didn't want to take it off and put it in another facility."
    • "Every single delivery was pre-positioned out to the destination terminals by Wednesday night. It all happened on Thursday, and we were able to move everything by road. We did not use any air," Yablin says.
    • Most of Yellow's work took place on the weekend before the book's release, with shipments timed to reach destination terminals on Wednesday for the Thursday deliveries.
  • Bradenton Herald - September 25, 2005
    • When GrandPré receives a Rowling manuscript from Scholastic, she reads the book carefully and highlights scenes that "might make a good cover."
      "I am looking for a scene that shows excitement, that shows Harry and that has an intriguing atmosphere," she said.
      She reads for detail. Descriptions of characters and scenes are critical.
      "I have to be accurate," she said. "Kids will point it out if I make a mistake. They don't miss anything."
      She sketches a few ideas for cover art and sends them to Scholastic in New York.
      "They choose one and they're usually agreeable," she said. "I do the final art in color, in pastels. It takes about four weeks to get a final color cover and another four weeks to do the chapter headings, so the whole process is about two months."

  • November 18, 2005: Goblet of Fire Movie

  • BBC Radio 4, transcript - December 10, 2005
    • "It was essential for the plot that the children could be enclosed somewhere together overnight. This could not be a day-school because the adventure would fall down every second day if they went home and spoke to their parents and then had to break back into school every week."
    • "I've taken horrible liberties with folklore and mythology. But I'm quite unashamed about that because British folklore and British mythology is a totally bastard mythology. You know, we've been invaded by people; we've appropriated their Gods; we've taken their mythical creatures; and we've soldered them all together to make what I would say is one of the richest folklores in the world because it's so varied."
    • "In Phoenix, I would say -- in self-defense -- Harry had to, because of what I'm trying to say about Harry as a hero, because he's a very human hero, and obviously there's a contrast between him as a human hero and Voldemort who has deliberately de-humanized himself. Harry therefore did have to reach a point where he did almost break down and say he didn't want to play anymore; he didn't want to be the hero anymore, and he'd lost too much and he didn't want to lose anything else. And so Phoenix was the point at which I decided he would have his breakdown. And now he will rise from the ashes strengthened."
    • "Yes, I do know what's going to happen in the end. And occasionally I get cold shivers when someone guesses at something that's very close, and then I panic and I think 'Oh, is it very obvious?' and then someone says something that's so off the wall that I think 'No, it's clearly not that obvious!'. I always leave myself latitude to go off on a little stroll off the path, but the path is what I'm essentially following.
      "So much that happens in Six relates to what happens in Seven. And you really sort of skid off the end of Six straight into Seven. It's not the discrete adventure that the others have all been, even though they have the underlying theme of Harry versus Voldemort. In each case, as you know better than anyone, there has been an adventure that has resolved itself. Whereas in Six, although there is an ending that could be seen as definitive in one sense, you very strongly feel the plot is not over this time and it will continue. It's an odd feeling, for the first time I'm very aware that I'm finishing."
    • "There is another children's book that's sort of mouldering in a cupboard that I quite like which is for slightly younger children, I would say. But there are other things I'd like to write, too. But I think I'll need to find a good pseudonym and do it all secretly because I'm very frightened of the unbearable hype that would attend a post-Harry Potter book. I'm not sure I look forward to that at all."
  • JKR Website - December 25, 2005
    • "2006 will be the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series. I contemplate the task with mingled feelings of excitement and dread, because I can't wait to get started, to tell the final part of the story and, at last, to answer all the questions (will I ever answer all of the questions? Let's aim for most of the questions); and yet it will all be over at last and I can't quite imagine life without Harry.
      "However (clears throat in stern British manner) this is no time to get maudlin.
      "I have been fine-tuning the fine-tuned plan of seven during the past few weeks so that I can really set to work in January. Reading through the plan is like contemplating the map of an unknown country in which I will soon find myself. Sometimes, even at this stage, you can see trouble looming; nearly all of the six published books have had Chapters of Doom. The quintessential, never, I hope, to be beaten Chapter That Nearly Broke My Will To Go On was chapter nine, 'Goblet of Fire' (appropriately enough, 'The Dark Mark'.)"
    • The Sorting Hat is not a Horcrux.
    • Lupin will not come back to teach.
    • Harry is not a Metamorphmagus.
    • Mrs. Norris is not an Animagus.
    • Book 7 will not be called "Harry Potter and the Pyramids of Furmat".
    • Peter Pettigrew's silver hand will be used to kill Remus Lupin: "Nice idea, clearly predicated on the legend that only a silver bullet can kill a werewolf -- but incorrect."
    • "Aunt Petunia has never performed magic, nor will she ever be able to do so."
  
  
  
• 2006
  • Tatler - January 12, 2006
    • Death is the key to understanding J K Rowling. Her greatest fear -- and she is completely unhesitant about this -- is of someone she loves dying.: "My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry's parents. There is Voldemort's obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic.
      "I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We're all frightened of it." In the seventh and final Harry Potter book, there will be deaths of both goodies and baddies.
  • JKR Website - February 21, 2006
    • When a Secret Keeper dies, his secret dies with him.
  • JKR Website - February 28, 2006
    • "What I thought were going to be two chapters have now become four. I still don't think the book will be as long as 'Phoenix', but if that keeps happening... no, it won't. I'm looking at the plan, and it can't. Surely. Please."
  • March 7, 2006 - Goblet of Fire DVD.
  • JKR Website - April 5, 2006
    • "The book's still going well, I'm sure you're pleased to hear, lack of paper notwithstanding."
  • HPANA - May 25, 2006
    • Liz Calder (Bloomsbury publishing director): "The next 'Harry Potter' book is likely to come out in 2007. I hope so."
  • Girl Guiding Scotland
    • "I am very protective of my characters and the storyline; I stick fiercely to what I believe is right for them even if I know that it will make some fans unhappy (for instance, some of the romance in book six disappointed readers who were hoping for other pairings).
      "However, resisting this kind of pressure is not as difficult as you might think, because I did a lot of planning in the seven years between having the idea for the Potter books and the publication of 'Philosopher's Stone', so I have a kind of map to keep me on track."
  • June 23, 2006: Half-Blood Prince paperback published. [Amazon.uk] {30 chapters, 608 pages, 170,000 words}
  • Richard and Judy - June 26, 2006
    • "The last, the final chapter is hidden away although it's now changed very slightly. ... Yeah, one character got a reprieve. ... But I have to say two die that I didn't intend to die."
      Oh no, two much loved ones?
      "Well you know, a price has to be paid."
      Significant?
      "We are dealing with pure evil! So they don't target the extras, do they? They go straight for the main characters. Or I do."
    • "No the last book's not finished. But, I'm well into it now."
    • "Initially, in the first draft, I'd have been writing Harry for six months before she died. And in the first draft I really finished off his parents in quite a flippant way. And then mum died. And I just couldn't, I couldn't finish off his parents in that flippant way -- I couldn't. Not now knowing what it felt like to lose a parent."
    • "Yes, well I've always said that I might do a kind of an encyclopedia of the world for charity. ... It's not the same as the story."
    • "I was Head Girl."
  • July 25, 2006: Half-Blood Prince paperback published (US edition). [Amazon] {30 chapters, 652 pages, 170,000 words}
  • Radio City Music Hall Press Conference, Radio City Music Hall Readings, Questions and Answers - August 1, 2006
    • "I'm well into [Book 7], I'm well into the writing of it now. There's so much I could say. To an extent, the pressure's off, I suppose, because it's the last book, so I feel liberated. I can just resolve the story now, and it's fun."
    • "I don't always enjoy killing my characters. I didn't enjoy killing the character who died at the end of book six. I'm being discreet just in case anyone hasn't finished the book. I really didn't enjoy doing that, but I had been planning that for years. As John says it wasn't quite as poignant as you might imagine. I'd already done my grieving when I actually came to write it."
    • "In the genre in which I'm writing, you usually find that the hero has to go on alone. There comes a point when his support falls away and to be truly heroic he has to act alone. Harry is not completely alone, he still has his two faithful sidekicks. This was summarized for me by the person who asked the question with, you mean the old wizard always gets it, and that fundamentally, that is what I was saying. I was trying to dress it up a little better than that. So that's why. In these sort of epic sagas, the hero eventually has to fight alone."
    • "The essential plot is what I always planned when working toward the end I'd planned in the beginning. But a couple of characters I expected to survive have died and one character got a reprieve, so there have been some fairly major changes I suppose."
    • In the Mirror of Erised Hermione would see the Trio alive, Voldemort finished, and herself closely entwined with another person.
    • "... let's just say that Draco would not have murdered the person in question. What that means for Draco's future, you will have to wait for."
    • "I will say, I'm quite a long way into writing book seven now. And there's a lot still to explain. I hadn't really realized... There's still a lot to find out, and there's a lot to figure out... and I'll probably leave some loose ends hanging ..."
    • "There is a little more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye. And you will figure out what that is in book 7."
    • "you shouldn't expect Dumbledore to do a Gandalf. Let me just put it that way. I'm sorry."
    • Salman Rushdie: Until the events of volume six, it was always made plain that Snape might be an unlikable fellow ...
      "Uh-huh. I can see this is the question you all really want answered."
      Dumbledore himself had always vouched for him.
      "Yes."
      Now we are suddenly told that Snape is in fact a villain and Dumbledore's killer.
      "Uh-huh."
      We cannot, or don't, want to believe this.
      [laughs]
      Our theory is that Snape is in fact still a good guy. From which it follows that Dumbledore can't really be dead, and that the death is a ruse, cooked up between Dumbledore and Snape to put Voldemort off his guard so that when Harry and Voldemort come face-to-face, Harry might have more allies than he or Voldemort suspects. So: is Snape good or bad?
      [JK laughs and audience cheers]
      In our opinion, everything follows from it.
      "Well, Salman, your opinion, I would say, is right. But I see that I need to be a little more explicit and say that Dumbledore is definitely dead. And I do know there's an entire website that's name is DumbledoreIsNotDead.com, so I imagine they're not happy right now. But I think I need.... You need... All of you need to move through the five stages of grief [audience and JK laugh] and I'm just helping you get past denial. So, I can't remember what's next, it may be anger, so I think we should stop it here. Thank you."
    • About Madam Pince: "If they'd had a pleasant, helpful librarian, half my plots would be gone. Because the answer invariably is in a book, but Hermione has to go and find it."
    • "the final book contains a couple of pieces of information that I don't think you could guess at. I'm sorry... You see, people think that it's all so fixed in my head. It's not that obsessively plotted out. For example, this afternoon I believe I changed my mind on the title of book 7. Having been quite convinced that I had the title, I suddenly thought, 'No, that would be better, wouldn't it?' in the shower just before coming out here, so... But you know what, I'm not going to tell you either version, because... [audience moans]. Oh, come on! Now really! Have I not given you enough? I gave you Aunt Petunia, I told you Dumbledore is really [JK moves finger across her neck in swift motion]. So, I am trying to give something to you."
  • Big Bad Read Poll - September 4, 2006
    • "I have always felt that cardboard baddies make weak heroes and that Harry deserved a really deluxe model, so I have done my best to make Lord Voldemort a real person, red eyed and snake-like though he might be."
  • JKR Website - September 11, 2006
    • "I haven't written 750 pages of book seven, and if I had, I'd be very worried, as I'm not close to finishing it yet."
  • JKR Website - September 13, 2006
    • "I am currently trying to decide between two possible titles. I was quite happy with one of them until the other one struck me while I was taking a shower in New York. They would both be appropriate, so I think I'll have to wait until I'm further into the book to decide which one works best."
    • There is a significant -- even crucial -- answer to why Dumbledore had James' invisibility cloak at the time of James' death.
  • JKR Website - September 29, 2006
    • Stubby Boardman is not Regulus Black.
    • Book 7 will not be called 'Harry Potter and the Graveyard of Memories'.
    • Snape was not hiding under the Invisibility Cloak the night the Potters died.
  • JKR Website - October 31, 2006
    • "I've now got a third title. I've been thinking back, and I know that I've had more titles than this for a couple of the previous books, so I'm not too worried by this. Title three currently ahead by a short nose, or perhaps that should be a vowel and two consonants."
  • November 20, 2006 - Goblet of Fire HD DVD. (UK release of US version)
  • JKR Website - December 19, 2006
    • "Harry will NOT merge with Voldemort to become a single entity"
  • JKR Website - December 21, 2006
    • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
  
  
  
• 2007
  • January 2, 2007: Philosopher's Stone special paperback published. [Amazon.uk] {17 chapters, 240 pages, 78,000 words}
  • Bloomsbury Press Release - January 9, 2007
    • We haven't given people permission to pre-order the book yet, because we haven't received the final manuscript. JK Rowling is still writing it.
  • The Scotsman - January 11, 2007
    • JK Rowling finished writing Deathly Hallows at the Balmoral Hotel in Scotland.
  • February 1, 2007 - Deathly Hallows announced. [Bloomsbury, Scholastic]
  • JKR Website - February 6, 2007
    • "I always knew that Harry's story would end with the seventh book, but saying goodbye has been just as hard as I always knew it would be."
    • "'Deathly Hallows' is my favourite, and that is the most wonderful way to finish the series."
    • "The 21st July publication date has given me enough time to write the book I wanted to write, and for the manuscript to be properly edited. These are the most important things to me. An earlier date -- eg, 7/7/07 -- would have meant that either the writing or editing was rushed, and neither my publishers nor I wanted that."
    • "Any clarification of the meaning of 'Hallows' would give away too much of the story."
    • The two other titles she considered for Book 7 will have to wait until after publication.
  • Yahoo News - March 14, 2007
    • 12 million copies of Deathly Hallows will be printed in the first run.
  • Yahoo News, Scholastic - March 20, 2007
    • Page count of 784 for Deathly Hallows (Scholastic version) released. Note that this is the number of total pages, including blank ones, and is derived from the number of signatures; the real printed page count is 759.
  • Mugglenet - March 28, 2007
    • Cover art for the Bloomsbury and Scholastic editions of Deathly Hallows released. And page count of 608 for the Bloomsbury version released.
  • JKR Website - May 8, 2007
    • Alecto and Amycus Carrow are sibling Death Eaters.
    • Tonks was in Hufflepuff; Moaning Myrtle was in Ravenclaw.
    • Draco cannot produce a Patronus.
    • Tom Riddle was born on December 31st.
    • Draco's wand is made from hawthorn wood, as his birthday would indicate.
  • Mugglenet - May 26, 2007
    • Harry Potter and the Relics of Death is an alternate title for the foreign-language versions of Book 7.
  • The Leaky Cauldron - June 8, 2007
    • Scholastic's Deathly Hallows Deluxe edition artwork released featuring Harry, Ron, and Hermione riding a dragon at sunset.
  • MTV Movies Blog - June 25, 2007
    • "Jo reads each draft," David Heyman had said on Saturday, "she reads each screenplay, and she said, 'You know, I wouldn't do that if I were you. Or you can, but if you get to make a seventh film, you'll be tied in knots.' " ... "Which character was it?" the Boston Herald asked. "I thought you might ask that," Heyman teased. "I'm not going to say." ... "It was Kreacher, actually," director David Yates confirmed to MTV News on Sunday. "We took Kreacher out, and Jo said, 'Listen guys, you don't have to put Kreacher back, but I'm just telling you, if you want to kind of keep a thread going for six and seven, you might want Kreacher to come back.' She basically told us Kreacher plays a role in Seven, in a sense. She hinted. We thought about it for five seconds, and he came back."
  • Time - June 29, 2007
    • Scholastic won't give out the locations of the printing plants it uses or even how many there are. (As for Bloomsbury, the series' British publisher, it fiercely denies a rumor that it forces factory workers to print Deathly Hallows in pitch darkness.) The finished books travel to stores on pallets, sealed in black plastic, in trucks tracked by GPS.
  • BBC - Jonathan Ross Interview - July 6, 2007
    • "Finishing the book is a relief, I can feel more relaxed... I can't think of anyone who could know how I felt. Actually finishing it was the most remarkable feeling I've ever had... [I felt] euphoria, devastated, when I finished one chapter near the end I absolutely howled, it had been planned for so long."
    • Hermione -- "I was quite swotty when I was a kid"; Harry -- "He's totally imaginary, it's absolutely bollocks that he's based on people"; Ron -- "A lot like my oldest friend Sean."
    • Last word in Book 7?: "Scar? It was so for ages, and now it's not. Scar is quite near the end, but it's not the last word."
  • Jonathan Ross Interview - July 6, 2007
    • "I changed it [the epilogue] slightly. I had two characters I intended to keep alive die. But then that's been taken to mean that only two characters die in the book; and it's a bloodbath. ... No, it's not a 'bloodbath', but it's more than two."
    • "The three main characters are aspects of me. Hermione most obviously because I was quite swotty and introverted when I was a kid. ... Harry's totally imaginary, though many people have claimed to be the inspiration for Harry, but that's bollocks."
    • The only one in her family who's read Book 7 is her husband.
    • Security for the books: "The last three books have all been stolen from the printers. ... All three of them disappeared at the printing stage. ... It was a bent security guard."
    • Movie adaptations: "I said 'no' initially. ... I didn't want to give them control over the rest of the story. So I said if they were prepared to guarantee that any sequels they made would be my sequels then we could talk."
    • Last word in Book 7?: "Scar? It was so for ages, and it's now not. 'Scar' is quite near the end, but it's not the last word." Could I ask you what the last word is? "No."
    • "I didn't cry when I finished, but there is a chapter toward the end where I absolutely howled; it was unbelievable. When I finished writing it -- it's been planned for so long -- finishing writing that -- I was in a hotel room on my own and I -- I grabbed -- you know those pitiful bottles of champagne -- well, I was sobbing my heart out and I ripped open the mini-bar and downed that in one and just sat there, just a mess."
    • Any more Harry Potter?: "I think Harry's story comes to quite a clear end in Book 7, but I've always said that I wouldn't say 'never'. ... But I think it's unlikely"
  • AP: Helena Bonham Carter - July 9, 2007
    • Helena Bonham Carter: "J.K. Rowling sent a message saying [Bellatrix is] going to be very significant in the last one."

  • July 11, 2007: Order of the Phoenix Movie

  • Washington Post - July 11, 2007
    • "I'm not her collaborator. I'm just the stand-in for the reader," he [Arthur Levine] explains. She doesn't need him to shape her story. His job -- along with Rowling's British editor, Bloomsbury's Emma Matthewson -- is to say, "This is how I reacted."
      Sometimes, he would say, "I do not know what's going on here," and Rowling would say, "I didn't want you to have that reaction at this point, so I think I'm going to move some information."
      At other times, when he asked about something in one of the earlier volumes, she would say, "That's a good question. I'm okay with your wondering that here. I will answer that in Book 5."
  • The Scotsman - July 13, 2007
    • "You don't know, it might be rubbish. Some people will loathe it, they will absolutely loathe it. For some people to love it, other people must loathe it. That's just in the nature of the plot."
    • "I'm actually really, really happy with it"
    • In the documentary, Rowling describes her works as "profoundly moral", adding: "I think it is a lie to pretend that even children of 11 don't have to make moral decisions. I think it's an outrageous black lie."
    • The documentary follows the completed manuscript's delivery in a locked suitcase to Rowling's agent at Heathrow Airport.
  • Salt Lake Tribune - July 15, 2007
    • Unlike most of Earth's population, which must wait until 12:01 a.m. Saturday to read Deathly Hallows, GrandPré received the manuscript several months ago. The timing could have been better -- she and her husband, artist Tom Casmer, had just returned from China with their newly adopted daughter a month earlier. But as GrandPré has done since the first Potter novel, 1997's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, fell into her lap, she set aside everything else and sat down with two highlighters -- one for possible cover material, the other for chapter headings.
      "I go through and see what I've got," she said. "I read and re-read until I feel I've got a good visual understanding of what would make an exciting scene or a meaningful scene." After discussions with her art director and editor, she got out the pastels and charcoal. GrandPré said she spent a week and a half reading and making notes, a week on the cover, then another couple of weeks on the chapter headings.
      How many? GrandPré, who shredded the manuscript when she finished, couldn't divulge even that detail, but each of the last three books has had more than 30 chapters. "Every chapter heading is supposed to tell you something, to pull you in and tease you," she said. "Not that you need them -- it's a little something extra."
  • Pendle Today - July 16, 2007
    • Amazon has recorded over two million pre-orders for Deathly Hallows.
    • Philosopher's Stone had an original print run of only 1500 books back in 1997.
  • Mugglenet - July 19, 2007
    • JK Rowling has spoken out about this New York Times review and numerous others: "I am staggered that American newspapers have decided to publish purported spoilers in the form of reviews in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children, who wanted to reach Harry's final destination by themselves, in their own time. I am incredibly grateful to all those newspapers, booksellers and others who have chosen not to attempt to spoil Harry's last adventure for fans."
  • MSNBC - July 19, 2007
    • "Harry's story comes to a definite end in book seven."
    • "Because the world is so big, there would be room to do other stuff," Rowling says carefully. "I am not planning to do that, but I'm not going to say I'm never going to do it."
    • "The first two days in particular, it was like a bereavement, even though I was pleased with the book. And then after a week that cloud lifted and I felt quite lighthearted, quite liberated."
    • "My mum died six months into writing (the books), and I think that set the central theme -- this boy dealing with loss."
    • "The final book is what it was always supposed to be, and so I feel very at peace with that fact."
  • JKR Website - July 20, 2007
    • "'Deathly Hallows' remains my favourite of the series, even after several re-reads."
    • "I wrote the final draft of the first three chapters of 'Philosopher's Stone' while pregnant with my eldest daughter, Jessica."
  • Blue Peter Special - July 20, 2007
    • Writer's block: "Sometimes I'll go for a walk. Sometimes I'll go into the kitchen, and if my husband is there I'll say 'I can't do it! This book's terrible!'. And he'll say 'you always say that around about chapter 15'. And he's quite right, I do. And once on Deathly Hallows, I took a trip to the set to see Dan and Rupert and Emma, and mid-flight on my way to London, it [the writer's block] broke."
    • "the story I had planned really worked well as a seven-book series, because it's one book for every year of Harry's, erm, schooling. So I planned the way it would end quite a long time ago, and that was at the end of the seventh book."
    • "while writing Seven, I started to feel a bit of a pull between Luna and Neville in a way. I started to see how that could work, but it hasn't happened. That was an interesting thing. The moment I'd said, 'Of course, they would never fancy each other,' I go... 'I don't know'... You know, I kind of see that."
    • "Most of the magical objects in Harry Potter are double-edged in some way. There are very few objects that are straight -- that are completely benign. They all seem to have some sort of negative quality to them. So, and it's how you use them. And there are a couple of objects in Book Seven that might be quite desirable, but you have to wait to find out about that."
    • "Trevor really is just a toad."
    • "Well, the time-turner was a very difficult invention for me, because it created as many problems as it solved. And anyone who's read 'Order of the Phoenix' may have noticed that during the climactic scene in which they chase through the Ministry of Magic, they shatter all the time-turners, thereby preventing them using those in the future."
    • "Well. I'm not sure what his [Snape's] Boggart would be. But it's closely related... well I suppose I do know, I've never thought about it before, but I suppose, thinking about it, I do know what it would be, and it would be related to what he saw in the Mirror of Erised. So I really don't think I can answer that."

  • July 21, 2007: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows published. [Amazon.uk, Amazon] {37 chapters, 759 pages (608 UK), 199,000 words - 12 million printed (US)}

  • July 21, 2007: Deathly Hallows large print edition published. [Amazon.uk] {37 chapters, 1360 pages, 199,000 words}
  • USA Today - July 25, 2007
    • "When all the hype and everything else dies down, they will have to float or sink on their own merits, won't they? So in 50 years time, if people are still reading them, they deserve to be read, and if they're not, then that's OK."
    • "I was very proud that people thought Harry's death was a genuine possibility. I was very proud, because my story had to make the possibility of death real. I wanted the reader to feel that anyone might die, as in life."
    • "Lupin and Tonks were two who were killed who I had intended to keep alive. It's like an exchange of hostages, isn't it? And I kept Mr. Weasley (Ron's father) alive. He was slated to die in the very, very original draft of the story."
  • Today Show - July 26, 2007
    • "It would have been humanly impossible to answer every single question."
    • "The last third of the book [Book 7] is as I always planned it. ... The only exception would be the one character that appears in that last third and I thought that character was going to die in Book 5 when I started writing. ... Mr. Weasley; he was the person who got a reprieve. I had to keep him alive partly because I couldn't bear to kill him."
    • "I can remember meeting a boy who said to me 'please, never ever ever ever kill Hagrid, Dumbledore, or Sirius' and I knew that I'd already done it."
    • "The passage that I found hardest to write of all seven books, and the one that made me cry the most, was chapter 34 in this book [The Forest Again]. It's when Harry sets off into the Forest. You had this enormous explosion of emotion, and I cried and cried and cried."
    • "The deaths were all very, very considered. I don't kill even fictional characters lightly."
    • "To tell the truth, the first draft of the Epilogue was more detailed, but it didn't work very well as a piece of writing, but I do of course have that bit of information for you, if you require it."
    • Was Snape always intended to be a hero?: "Is he a 'hero'? I don't see him, really, as a hero. He's spiteful, he's a bully, all these things are still true of Snape, even at the end of this book. But was he brave?, yes immensely."
    • If Snape didn't love Lily, would he still try to protect Harry?: "No. He definitely wouldn't have done. He wouldn't have been remotely interested in what happened to this boy."
    • Someone new would be Headmaster '19 years later'. "McGonagall was really getting on a bit. But if I ever do the encyclopedia I'm promising, I will give details. ... But I'm not going to do it tomorrow, because I'd really like a break."
    • "It's very very hard to separate your influences like Star Wars, or the Lord of the Rings, or the Harry Potter series; they take the form of quests; they take the form of good versus evil, and what that does to people."
    • "I think I've kind of done the Wizarding world. ... I've done my Harry Potter."
  • Today Show - July 27, 2007
    • "I never planned to kill Hagrid."
    • "I told all three of them: the three mains ones, Emma, Daniel, and Rupert knew more than they've ever let on."
      Did any of them ask, 'Are you gonna off me?'
      "Yeah, Dan did. ... At one point he said 'I've just got to ask you: do I die?' And I thought quick and then I whispered, so no one else could hear, 'You get a death scene'. But Dan's very smart and I'm pretty sure he walked away from that dinner thinking, 'Yeah, I get a death scene, but what does that mean?'"
    • "The virtue that I prize among all others, and think it's patently obvious from the books, is courage, so I would hope to be in Gryffindor."
  • Dateline Show - July 29, 2007
    • Readers skipping to the end: [jokingly] "I should have published the last chapter separately; forced you to read."
    • "To write something where I don't get to make up words anymore is going to be quite sad in a way; it's been part of the pleasure for me. ... I really like 'Quidditch'; Quidditch is probably still my favorite word. ... I definitely wanted it to begin with a 'Q'. ... I think 'Quidditch' probably because it rhymes with 'pitch'. That felt nice to be able to say 'Quidditch pitch'."
    • Did you ever consider killing Harry or Hermione or Ron?: "Yeah, definitely. I'm very proud of the fact that as we went into this book many many readers believed it was a real possibility that Harry would die. Proud not because that means that I've got people on tenterhooks. Proud because it means that the books are imbued with a sense of genuine mortality. It was felt that it was a possibility that the Hero would die. That's what I was aiming for: that you felt that anyone was up for grabs."
    • "When I sketched out the books, Mr. Weasley was due to die in Book 5. ... I swapped him for someone else. ... I made a decision as I went into writing 'Phoenix' that I was going to reprieve Mr. Weasley and that I was going to kill someone else ... someone else who is a father. Because I wanted there to be an echo of Harry's loss of parents. So there were two characters who were killed instead in [book] 7. ... [Mr. Weasley] would have died if I'd stuck to the original plan, be he survived. I had to keep him alive partly because I couldn't bear to kill him.
      "If there's one character I couldn't bear to part with, it's Arthur Weasley. I think part of the reason for that is: there are very few good fathers in the books. In fact you could make a very good case for Arthur Weasley being the only 'good' father in the whole series."
    • "I wanted there to be an echo of what happened to Harry just to show the absolute evil of what Voldemort's doing ... the fact that that you leave orphans and you leave children who have to make their way in the world uncared-for and unprotected. So that's why I killed the two that you know about in this book."
    • "Definitely Mum dying had a profound influence on the books. Because in the first draft his parents were disposed of in an almost cavalier fashion. I didn't really dwell on it. Six months in and my mothers dies, and I can't just kill a fictional mother that callously. Well, it wasn't callous, but it wasn't what it became. And I really think from that moment on Death became a central, if not the central, theme of the books. The theme of how we react to death, how much we fear it, which is a key part of the books because Voldemort is someone who will do anything not to die. He's terrified of death. In many ways all of my characters are defined by their attitude to death and the possibility of death."
    • "I had said I could produce a novel a year, but the novels were getting longer. 'Goblet' nearly killed me to get it out for the time they wanted to publish."
    • Movies: "The biggest thing, by far, is I was looking for an agreement that they would follow my story even though the rest of the books weren't written. What I didn't want to do was sell the rights to the characters and enable them to do sequels that I hadn't written. That was my worst nightmare. So I was quite happy to never have Harry Potter films if I couldn't get that guarantee. ... I think that to keep it an all-British cast, given that all the action happens in Britain and all the kids are British was great and a real achievement. ... Visually it's so close as to be virtually indistinguishable."
    • "I was looking for a name that was really quite mundane in a way but a name that I liked. It took me a while to find 'Potter', and Potter was the surname of a family that I lived near when I was growing up. ... More than one has claimed to be Harry, but it's interesting that no one claims to be Hermione."
    • "I loosened up quite a bit as I got older and so did she [Hermione] in the books under the healthy influence of Harry and Ron. Hermione's a bit of an exaggeration. I was deeply insecure as is Hermione, I think, who, it's clear if you read the books she's covering up a lot of insecurities by trying to get good marks. That's the place she feels most secure: in the classroom with her hand up."
    • "Everyone was up for grabs, but from very early on I wanted Hagrid to be the one who carried Harry out of the forest. That had been planned for so long, and I wanted Hagrid to believe that Harry was dead. I had this image in my mind that Hagrid would survive to do that."
    • "Dumbledore knew what his weakness was, and he learned it when he was seventeen. He learned that he weakness and his temptation is power. He recognized that he was not ready to be trusted with power, and so he remained at Hogwarts. It was important to me to see that Dumbledore made that choice."
    • "I knew from the beginning what Snape was. Do I think he's a hero? To a point I do but he's not an unequivically good character. Snape is a complicated man. He's bitter, he's spiteful, he's a bully. All these things are still true of Snape even at the end of this book. But was he brave? Yes, immensely. Was he capable of love? Very definitely. So he was a flawed human being like all of us. Harry forgives him, as we know, from the epilogue, Harry really sees the good in Snape ultimately. I wanted there to be redemption and I wanted there to be forgiveness. And Harry forgives. Even knowing that to the end Snape loathed him unjustifiably. It's totally, totally unfair that he loathed him so much, but there you are."
    • "There are minor plots, things that I would change going back. I'd certainly edit 'Phoenix' a bit better, because I think it's too long."
    • "It is a political metaphor, but I didn't sit down and think I wanted to recreate Nazi Germany in the wizarding world."
    • "There clearly is a religious undertone, and it's always been difficult to talk about that because until we reach Book 7, views of what happens after death and so on, it would give away a lot of what was coming."
    • Jobs: "Harry and Ron positively revolutionize the Auror Department. ... Nineteen years later I imagine that Harry is heading up that department. ... And Hermione, well, I think she's pretty high up in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."
    • "I didn't write the epilogue thinking, right: lets set the stage for another seven books for the next generation. I wanted to show that life went on, and there was new life."
    • "To hear that Teddy Lupin, Lupin's son, is obviously okay, has an on-going relationship with Harry, he must be quite happy, and he's got a very good looking girlfriend. The person that he is kissing in the epilogue is Bill and Fleur's eldest daughter. ... Having killed both his parents I really wanted him to be okay."
    • "I always knew it was going to be Fred. I suppose standing back from it I think that most people would have expected it to be George. Because Fred's the ring-leader; he was the instigator. He's slightly harder than George; George is slightly gentler. Fred is normally the funnier, but also the crueler of the two. So they might have thought George would be the more vulnerable one, and therefore the one to die."
    • "It's about choice and you are shown that Voldemort -- I suppose we're going to call him a psychopath -- he is what he is and he is beyond redemption. Although this being Harry Potter and I can take liberties because I have magic in my world it is shown at the very end of the book that he did have a chance for redemption because he'd taken into his body this drop of hope or love. So that meant if he could have mastered the courage to repent he would have been okay, but of course he wouldn't have done that. It's his choice.
      "But the people around him, that's what's more interesting in a way. The people who are drawn to evil for protection, for power, out of sadism. But people who do have a choice, who did make a choice, like the Malfoys of this world, I think that's always worth examining; why people choose to make those decisions."
    • "For a long time the last line was something like: 'Only those whom he loved could see the lightning scar.' And that was a reference to the fact that, as they were on the platform, Harry was flanked by his loved ones. So they were the only ones near enough to see it even though other people were looking. It also had a kind of ambiguity, so it's: 'Is the scar still really there?' But I changed it because I wanted a very concrete statement that Harry won and the scar, although it's still there, it's now just a scar. And I wanted to say: 'It's over, it's done'. And maybe a tiny bit of that to say to people: 'No Voldemort is not rising again; we're not going to have "part two". Harry's job is done.' That's why I changed it."
  • MSNBC - July 30, 2007
    • "To truly own the Elder Wand, which means to receive the full benefits, double-edged though it is, of all its power, you have to have conquered the previous owner. And that meant he conquered him, even though Dumbledore was very weak at the time, he was very ill. He was on the point of collapse when it happened. Dumbledore didn't want to lose his wand at that point and Draco disarmed him. So that meant that the wand gave Draco its allegiance, even though Draco never knew it, even though Draco never touched it. From that moment on, that wand gave its allegiance to Draco, and it wouldn't work as well for anyone but Draco."
    • "But, no, I really wanted, very consciously, for the history of the wizarding world to hinge on this moment where two teenage boys have a physical [fight]. They don't even do it by magic. That sort of puts all of Voldemort's and Dumbledore's grandiose plans in their place, doesn't it? You just can't plan that well, that something can go wrong and it went wrong ... It went wrong because Harry managed to pull this wand out of Draco's grip."
    • "Now we can reveal that Griphook was wrong. The sword was truly Gryffindor's and he didn't steal it ... Its first allegiance always was to a worthy Gryffindor, and it was going to come back when someone really, really needed it. And it came back to Neville."
    • There's no significance to the number of years (19) between the last two chapters. "I didn't want some people to have children too young because I don't think that's good. So 19 years was just enough time for the next generation to have reached the point I wanted them to reach when the Hogwarts Express is departing."
  • Bloomsbury Chat - July 30, 2007
    • Kingsley Shacklebolt de-corrupted the Ministry.
    • "I think Ginny demonstrated powerful magic in the final battle, and that for a sixteen year old witch she acquitted herself pretty well."
    • "the Malfoys weaseled their way out of trouble (again) due to the fact that they colluded (albeit out of self-interest) with Harry at the end of the battle."
    • King's Cross: "I think that Harry entered a kind of limbo between life and death."
    • "Harry and Voldemort are distantly related through the Peverells. ... Peverell blood would run through many wizarding families."
    • R/H kiss: "I loved the fact that Hermione took the initiative!"
    • Winky is still at Hogwarts.
    • "Hermione began her post-Hogwarts career at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures where she was instrumental in greatly improving life for house-elves and their ilk. She then moved (despite her jibe to Scrimgeour) to the Dept. of Magical Law Enforcement where she was a progressive voice who ensured the eradication of oppressive, pro-pureblood laws."
    • "Teddy was raised by Andromeda. [And] Teddy had his godfather, Harry, and all his father's friends in the Order, to visit and stay with."
    • "Ron joined George at Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes. ... After a few years as a celebrated player for the Holyhead Harpies, Ginny retired to have her family and to become the Senior Quidditch correspondent at the Daily Prophet!"
    • Deathly Hallows based on: "Perhaps 'the Pardoner's Tale', by Chaucer."
    • "[Luna] ended up marrying (rather later than Harry and co) a fellow naturalist and grandson of the great Newt Scamander (Rolf)!"
    • "Dumbledore suspected that the snake's essence was divided -- that it contained part of Voldemort's soul, and that was why it was so very adept at doing his bidding. This also explained why Harry, the last and unintended Horcrux, could see so clearly through the snake's eyes, just as he regularly sees through Voldemort's."
    • Dudley's worst emmory: "he saw himself, for the first time, as he really was."
    • "Remus was killed by Dolohov and Tonks by Bellatrix."
    • Headmaster Snape's lack of portrait: "It was deliberate. Snape had effectively abandoned his post before dying, so he had not merited inclusion."
    • "a wizard can use almost any wand, it is simply that a wand that chooses him/her will work best. Where there is a family connection, a wand will work a little better than a wand chosen at random, I think."
    • "the new improved Percy ended up as a high-ranking official under Kingsley."
    • "Neville, most worthy Gryffindor, asked for help just as Harry did in the Chamber of secrets, and Gryffindor's sword was transported into Gryffindor's old hat."
    • "Griphook was wrong -- Gryffindor did not 'steal' the sword, not unless you are a goblin fanatic and believe that all goblin-made objects really belong to the maker."
    • No more dementors at Azkaban.
    • "The Hufflepuff common room is accessed through a portrait near the kitchens, as I am sure you have deduced. Sorry -- I should say 'painting' rather than portrait, because it is a still-life. It is a very cosy and welcoming place, as dissimilar as possible from Snape's dungeon. Lots of yellow hangings, and fat armchairs, and little underground tunnels leading to the dormitories, all of which have perfectly round doors, like barrel tops."
    • "I don't think that George would ever get over losing Fred, which makes me feel so sad. However, he names his first child and son Fred, and he goes on to have a very successful career, helped by good old Ron."
    • Mirror of Erised: "[Dumbledore] saw his family alive, whole and happy -- Ariana, Percival and Kendra all returned to him, and Aberforth reconciled to him."
    • Who does magic late in life?: "I'm sorry about this, but I changed my mind! My very earliest plan for the story involved somebody managing to get to Hogwarts when they had never done magic before, but I had changed my mind by the time I'd written the third book."
    • Voldemort's lost wand: "Wormtail, desperate to curry favour, salvaged it from the place it had fallen and carried it to him. I admit that would have been a bit of a feat for a rat, but they are highly intelligent creatures!"
    • Merope's love potion: "It was a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union -- but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union."
    • Do you think Snape is a hero?: "Yes, I do; though a very flawed hero. An anti-hero, perhaps. He is not a particularly likeable man in many ways. He remains rather cruel, a bully, riddled with bitterness and insecurity -- and yet he loved, and showed loyalty to that love and, ultimately, laid down his life because of it. That's pretty heroic!"
    • Did Lily have feelings for Snape?: "Yes. She might even have grown to love him romantically (she certainly loved him as a friend) if he had not loved Dark Magic so much, and been drawn to such loathesome people and acts."
    • "You cannot destroy Dementors."
    • "Something had to leave the school for good when Dumbledore died, and I decided that would be Fawkes. Dumbledore was a very great and irreplacable man, and the loss of Fawkes (and the fact that he was 'non-transferable'!) expresses this symbolically"
    • "Colin wasn't a student. He sneaked back with the rest of the DA."
    • "Dumbledore understood Mermish, Gobbledegook and Parseltongue. The man was brilliant."
    • Will Lockhart recover?: "No. Nor would I want him to. He's happy where he is, and I'm happier without him!"
    • "[Teddy Lupin] is a Metamorphmagus like his mother."
    • Horcruxes: "The diary: Moaning Myrtle. The cup: Hepzibah Smith, the previous owner. The locket: a Muggle tramp. Nagini: Bertha Jorkins (Voldemort could use a wand once he regained a rudimentary body, as long as the victim was subdued). The diadem: an Albanian peasant. The ring: Tom Riddle snr."
    • The Deluminator: "[Dumbledore] knew that Ron might need a little more guidance than the other two. Dumbledore understood Ron's importance in the trio. He wasn't the most skilled, or the most intelligent, but he held them together; his humour and his good heart were essential."
    • The third thing Hermione smelled in HBP (Amortentia): "I think it was his hair. Every individual has very distinctive-smelling hair, don't you find?"
    • Houses still divided?: "Slytherin has become diluted. It is no longer the pureblood bastion it once was. Nevertheless, its dark reputation lingers, hence Albus Potter's fears."
    • "Well, that is Snape's tragedy. Given his time over again he would not have become a Death Eater, but like many insecure, vulnerable people (like Wormtail) he craved membership of something big and powerful, something impressive. He wanted Lily and he wanted Mulciber too. He never really understood Lily's aversion; he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side he thought she would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater."
    • "As Dumbledore explains, the real master of Death accepts that he must die, and that there are much worse things in the world of the living."
    • "Harry's faults are primarily anger and occasional arrogance."
    • Marauder's Map?: "I've got a feeling [Harry] didn't give it to any of them, but that James sneaked it out of his father's desk one day."
    • Petunia: "I think that for one moment she trembled on the verge of wishing Harry luck; that she almost acknowledged that her loathing of his world, and of him, was born out of jealousy."
    • Harry can no longer speak Parseltongue.
    • Aberforth bought Sirius' mirror from Mundungus in HBP.
    • Dumbledore's boggart is the corpse of his sister.
    • "[Umbridge] was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned for crimes against Muggleborns."
    • "Muggle-borns will have a witch or wizard somewhere on their family tree, in some cases many, many generations back. The gene re-surfaces in some unexpected places."
    • "I imagine [Rita] immediately dashed off a biography of Harry after he defeated Voldemort. One quarter truth to three quarters rubbish."
    • "[Hermione] brought [her parents] home straight away."
    • "James always suspected Snape harboured deeper feelings for Lily, which was a factor in James' behaviour to Snape."
    • "[Regulus] was not prepared for the reality of life as a Death Eater. It was Voldemort's attempted murder of Kreacher that really turned him."
    • "Scorpius has a lot going against him, not least that name. However, I think Scorpius would be an improvement on his father, whom misfortune has sobered!"
    • Harry and Draco: "There would be a kind of rapprochement, in that Harry knows Draco hated being a Death Eater, and would not have killed Dumbledore; similarly, Draco would feel a grudging gratitude towards Harry for saving his life."
    • Resurrection Stone: "I imagine that it was squashed into the ground by a centaur's hoof as the centaurs dashed to the aid of the Hogwarts fighters, and thereafter became buried."
    • The jinx on the DADA position is no more.
    • "[Quirrell] was teaching at Hogwarts for more than a year, but NOT in the post of D.A.D.A. teacher. He was previously Muggle Studies professor."
    • Aberforth is still bartender of the Hog's Head.
    • "[Narcissa Malfoy] never had the Dark Mark and was never a fully paid-up member. However, her views were identical to those of her husband until Voldemort planned the death of her son."
    • Mr. Weasley fixed up Sirius' motorbike, and Harry now has it.
    • "Dumbledore understood Ron better than Ron ever knew, and liked him, too."
    • "the rest of the herd was forced to acknowledge that Firenze's pro-human leanings were not shameful, but honorable."
    • James and Lily's Stag and Doe Patronuses: "the Patronus often mutates to take the image of the love of one's life (because they so often become the 'happy thought' that generates a Patronus)."
    • "[Voldemort] is not a ghost. He is forced to exist in the stunted form we witnessed in King's Cross."
    • "Yes, Voldemort accidentally broke his soul into eight parts, not seven."
    • "They are two different charms. [Hermione] has not wiped her parents' memories (as she later does to Dolohov and Rowle); she has bewitched them to make them believe that they are different people."
    • "[Voldemort] is losing control, and unable to prevent Harry seeing into his mind. The connection between them is never fully understood by Voldemort, who does not know that Harry is a Horcrux."
    • Krum found love in Bulgaria.
    • "The loss of Hedwig represented a loss of innocence and security. She has been almost like a cuddly toy to Harry at times. Voldemort killing her marked the end of childhood. I'm sorry... I know that death upset a LOT of people!"
    • Harry and friends on Chocolate Frog cards?: "Definitely, and Ron will describe this as his finest hour."
    • Snape was the only Death Eater who could produce a Patronus.
    • "The two other possibilities were 'the Elder Wand' (used instead as a chapter title) and 'the Peverell Quest', which I decided against quite quickly. I think the word 'Quest' is a bit corny!"
    • "Wearing the ring would not make the [Resurrection] stone work. The stone existed outside the ring originally, and to use it you had to turn it three times in your hand."
    • "The Dark Mark would fade to a scar, not dissimilar to the lightning scar on Harry's forehead."
    • "[Bellatrix] took a pureblood husband, because that was what was expected of her, but her true love was always Voldemort."
    • "[Voldemort] loved only power, and himself. He valued people whom he could use to advance his own objectives."
    • "Snape entered the house immediately after Dumbledore's death, before Moody put up the spells against him."
    • "[Marietta's pimply formation faded eventually,] but it left a few scars. I loathe a traitor!"
    • King's Cross: "The name works rather well, and it has been established in the books as the gateway between two worlds, and Harry would associate it with moving on between two worlds (don't forget that it is Harry's image we see, not necessarily what is really there."
    • "keep an eye on my website, and I’ll try and answer some more questions in due course!"
  • August 15, 2007: Deathly Hallows large print edition published (US edition). [Amazon] {37 chapters, 969 pages, 199,000 words}
  • DC Velocity - September 5, 2007
    • Those 12 million books represented the largest single book distribution project in the industry's history—surpassing the previous record of 10.8 million held by book six in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which was released in 2005.
    • Planning for the rollout began in January, even before Scholastic had the finished manuscript.
    • As soon as information on the book's actual size and weight became available, Scholastic began the process of calculating load plans. "Then we could plug that into a formula to see how many books we could get on a truck and then reserve the capacity," Yablin says. The eventual load plan came within 1,000 pounds of the legal maximum allowable weight on the trucks.
    • Before the trailer doors were closed and sealed, every load was photographed.
  • October 1, 2007: Harry Potter Books 1-7 box set published. [Amazon.uk]
  • October 1, 2007: Harry Potter Books 1-7 Special Edition Boxed published. [Amazon.uk]
  • October 16, 2007: Harry Potter Books 1-7 Special Box set (US edition) published. [Amazon]
  • MTV - October 16, 2007
    • "Snape is vindictive, he's cruel. He's not a big man," she insisted. "But he loves. I like him, but I'd also like to slap him hard."
    • "Although [Dumbledore] seems to be so benign for six books, he's quite a Machiavellian figure, really. He's been pulling a lot of strings. Harry has been his puppet," she explained. "When Snape says to Dumbledore [toward the end of 'Hallows'], 'We've been protecting [Harry] so he could die at the right moment' -- I don't think in book one you would have ever envisioned a moment where your sympathy would be with Snape rather than Dumbledore."
    • Harry Potter Encyclopedia: "It's not coming along, and I haven't started it yet. I never envisioned that as being the next thing I did. I wanted to take a break and a step back and then [do that] in due course."
  • MTV - October 17, 2007
    • "They're very British books, so on a very practical note Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones," Rowling explained. "[But] I think those two particular quotations he finds on the tombstones at Godric's Hollow, they sum up -- they almost epitomize the whole series."
    • Quotations at beginning of Book 7: "I really enjoyed choosing those two quotations because one is pagan, of course, and one is from a Christian tradition," Rowling said of their inclusion. "I'd known it was going to be those two passages since 'Chamber' was published. I always knew if I could use them at the beginning of book seven then I'd cued up the ending perfectly. If they were relevant, then I went where I needed to go.
      "They just say it all to me, they really do."
  • Times-Picayune - October 18, 2007
    • "Cho married a Muggle."
    • "If you'd seen my grades in chemistry ... That's why Snape teaches Potions.
      "Don't say awwww! He deserved it! We can all think of teachers we'd like revenge on."
  • Carnegie Hall - October 19, 2007
    • Neville married Hannah Abbott and she became the landlady at the Leaky Cauldron.
    • Molly killing Bellatrix: "Molly was really an amazing exemplar of maternal love. ... There was something very satisfying about putting those two women together."
    • "By turning Ron into someone who had suffered the loss of a parent, I was going to remove the Weasleys as a refuge for Harry and I was going to necessarily remove a lot of Ron's humor. That's part of the reason why I didn't kill Arthur. I wanted to keep Ron intact. A lot of Ron's humor comes from his insensitivity and his immaturity, to be honest about Ron. And Ron finally, I think, you see, grows up in this book. He's the last of the three to reach what I consider adulthood, and he does it then [when he destroys the horcrux] and faces those things."
    • "I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that then added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent? But, he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him. Yeah, that's how I always saw Dumbledore."
    • "Dumbledore wrote to [Petunia] very kindly and explained why he couldn't let her come to Hogwarts to become a witch. So, Petunia, much as she denies it afterwards, much as she turns against that world when she met Uncle Vernon, who is the biggest anti-wizard you could ever meet in your life, a tiny part of her -- and that's the part that almost wished Harry luck when she said goodbye to him in this book -- she just teetered on the verge of saying, 'I do know what you're up against and I hope it's okay'. But she couldn't bring herself to say it. Years of pretending she doesn't care have hardened her. But Dumbledore appealed in the letter you're asking about, so that part of Petunia that did remember wanting desperately to be part of the world and he appealed to her sense of fair play to a sister that she had hated because Lily had what she couldn't have. So that's how he persuaded Petunia to keep Harry."
    • Why wasn't the Horcrux within Harry destroyed by the basilisk bite in Book 2?: "Harry was exceptionally fortunate in that he had Fawkes. So before he could be destroyed without repair, which is what is necessary to destroy a horcrux, he was mended. However, I made sure that Fawkes wasn't around the second time a Horcrux got stabbed by a basilisk fang, so the poison did its work and it was irreparable within a short period of time."
    • "[Harry] said he's frightened by his decision not to race for the wand, because he had never chosen not to act. So that's Harry's real big coming of age moment, that he's decided to hold back for the first time very in his life."
    • "I think most of us, if you were asked to name a very evil regime, we would think Nazi Germany. There were parallels in the ideology. I wanted Harry to leave our world and find exactly the same problems in the wizarding world. So you have the intent to impose a hierarchy, you have bigotry, and this notion of purity, which is this great fallacy, but it crops up all over the world."
    • Draco does not owe Harry a life-debt.
    • James supported Lupin financially.
    • James, Sirius, Remus, and Lily were full-time members of the Order.
    • "Hagrid never did marry and have children."
  • CBC Toronto Press Conference - October 22, 2007
    • "How much I had to tweak in the Epilogue? Not so much, actually. Most of the tweaking was done to reveal less information, rather than more. As originally conceived, the Epilogue pretty much crowbarred in every possible piece of information I could give you about their future lives just because that was where I always knew I was heading. So I knew I had a lot of information and I when I first wrote that all down, that was the point I'm saving it for. The big tweak, I suppose, was Lupin's son. Because until the Fifth book in the series, Order of the Phoenix, I had intended Lupin to stay alive. So then it became a focus of the epilogue -- one of the focuses -- to make sure that he knew, even if he doesn't physically appear, that he was okay."
    • [The only further Harry Potter plan] "is possibly to write an encyclopedia, which would be the way of putting in all the information, the extra information I have on all these characters."
  • UK DVD / Blu-ray / HD DVD releases
    • November 12, 2007 - Order of the Phoenix DVD (UK release).
    • November 12, 2007 - Harry Potter Years 1-5 DVD box set (UK release).
    • November 12, 2007 - Harry Potter Years 1-5 DVD Limited Edition box set (UK release).
    • November 12, 2007 - Philosopher's Stone Blu-ray and HD DVD (UK release).
    • November 12, 2007 - Chamber of Secrets Blu-ray and HD DVD (UK release).
    • November 12, 2007 - Prisoner of Azkaban Blu-ray and HD DVD (UK release).
    • November 12, 2007 - Goblet of Fire Blu-ray (UK release).
    • November 12, 2007 - Order of the Phoenix Blu-ray and HD DVD (UK release).
  • Volkskrant (translated) - November 18, 2007
    • "Ron is the most immature of the three main characters, but in part seven he grows up. He was never strong footed. People see him mostly as Harry's friend; his mother had actually wanted a girl, and in the last book he finally has to acknowledge his weaknesses. But it's exactly that which makes Ron a man. The others also have such a moment where they truly grow up. Harry when he reacts so fiercely against his former professor Lupin who decides to abandon his family. Hermione when she is forced to choose between Harry and Ron. Hermione never strays of the path; she always keeps her attention focused on the job that must be done."
    • "A part of Harry's anger is my own, just like his frustration. He particularly has that in book five. The darkest book of the series where he has lost everything and there is no one who believes him."
    • "I saw Molly and Bellatrix standing opposite of each other for a long time; two completely different characters, who each show a very feminine side of love. The pure and protecting love of Molly, and the obsessive, perverse of Bellatrix. Those two feminine types of energy against each other. That was very satisfying to write."
    • "I used the symbolism of the Stone to show that Dumbledore accepts his mortality. Once he realises that its mortality that gives life meaning, he is no longer interested in the Philosopher's Stone. Harry goes even further. He not only rejects one, but two of his most powerful weapons. Of the three Hallows he acquires in book seven; he only keeps the Invisibility Cloak. This says a lot about him because, like Dumbledore tells Harry: The true magic of the cloak is that it not only protects the owner, but also other people. Harry doesn't want the Elder wand, he has never been after power. And he throws the resurrection stone away; just like Dumbledore Harry has made his peace with death."
    • "He's a complex character. I don't see him as God. I did want that the reader would question Dumbledore's part in the whole story. We all believed that he was a kind-hearted father figure. And to a certain extent he is. But at the same time he is someone who treats people as puppets, who carries a dark secret from his past, and who never told Harry the full truth. I hope that the reader will love him again in the end. But that they love him like he is, including his faults. Is Dumbledore divine? No. He has certain divine qualities though. He is merciful, and in the end he is just."
    • "[Voldemort] was conceived by force and under the influence of a silly infatuation, while Harry was conceived in love. I think the conditions under which you were born form an important fundament of your existence. But Voldemort chose evil. I've been trying to point that out in the books; I gave him choices."
    • "The way I write about Professor Trelawney, the particularly inadequate Divination teacher, says a lot about how I think about destiny. I did a lot of research into astrology for her character. I found it all highly amusing, but I don't believe in it."
    • "Hagrid was never in any danger. I already knew before I started writing that he would survive. Because I always had that picture in my head of the huge gigantic Hagrid walking through the Forest crying with Harry in his arms. Ron's father was actually going to die in Book Five. I didn't do it because I felt that Arthur Weasley was the greatest father figure in the books. I couldn't let Arthur die, I just couldn't do it. He is the father everyone would wish for."
    • "I was planning to have Hermione's parents separate. But it felt so weird, it didn't belong to the story. It was a sub story that didn't go anywhere. Dean Thomas comes from a broken home by the way. But I made a lot of cuts in his storyline. I created this enormous world, for every character I've created a background; but I couldn't use it all. Even I had to make choices. And in the end it's a children's world."
  • JKR Website - December 7, 2007
    • "I decided that the core of the Elder Wand is the tail hair of a Thestral; a powerful and tricky substance that can be mastered only by a witch or wizard capable of facing death."
    • The baby at King's Cross: "It is the last piece of soul Voldemort possesses. When Voldemort attacks Harry, they both fall temporarily unconscious, and both their souls -- Harry's undamaged and healthy, Voldemort's stunted and maimed -- appear in the limbo where Harry meets Dumbledore."
    • "Having taken Harry's blood into himself, Voldemort is keeping alive Lily's protective power over Harry. So Voldemort himself acts almost like a Horcrux for Harry -- except that the power of Lily's sacrifice is a positive force that not only continues to tether Harry to life, but gives Voldemort himself one last chance (Dumbledore refers to this last hope in chapter 35). Voldemort has unwittingly put a few drops of goodness back inside himself; if he had repented, he could have been healed more deeply than anyone would have supposed. But, of course, he refused to feel remorse."
    • The Elder Wand does not work properly against its true owner.
    • Harry's greatest powers are "free will, courage and moral certainty."
  • US DVD / Blu-ray / HD DVD releases
    • December 11, 2007 - Order of the Phoenix DVD (US release).
    • December 11, 2007 - Harry Potter Years 1-5 DVD Limited Edition box set (US release).
    • December 11, 2007 - Sorcerer's Stone Blu-ray and HD DVD (US release).
    • December 11, 2007 - Chamber of Secrets Blu-ray and HD DVD (US release).
    • December 11, 2007 - Prisoner of Azkaban Blu-ray and HD DVD (US release).
    • December 11, 2007 - Goblet of Fire Blu-ray and HD DVD (US release).
    • December 11, 2007 - Order of the Phoenix Blu-ray and HD DVD (US release).
    • December 11, 2007 - Harry Potter Years 1-5 Blu-ray and HD DVD Limited Edition box sets (US release).
  • Amazon.com - December 13, 2007
    • Amazon.com buys JKR's hand-written book The Tales of Beedle the Bard for 1.95 million pounds at Sotheby's auction.
  • Pottercast 1 - December 17, 2007
    • "'Wizard and the Hopping Pot'. It's kind of a -- the moral, really, is to teach young wizards and witches that they should be using their magic altruistically."
    • "'Fountain of Fair Fortune' is my favorite one, and that's really about the qualities you need to achieve your heart's desire, and the moral being that magic ultimately is not the best weapon."
    • "'Warlock's Hairy Heart' is really quite gothic. It's quite dark, that one. And Voldemort would've done well to know that story before he set out on his campaign of terror."
    • "'Babbitty Rabbitty' was a challenge. But I did get there, and it's a story about revenge, one witch's sort of cunning way of revenging herself for persecution, for Muggle persecution."
    • "I didn't want to have too many Dark Arts weapons ending in "-ri", so it was a kind of stylistic choice, really. I like 'horcruxes' as a plural."
    • Herpo the Foul created the first Horcrux.
    • "There are two things that I think are too horrible, actually, to go into detail about. One of them is how Pettigrew brought Voldemort back into a rudimentary body. 'Cause I told my editor what I thought happened there, and she looked as though she was gonna vomit. And the other thing is, how you make a Horcrux. And I don't even like -- I don't know. Will it be in the Encyclopedia? I don't know if I can bring myself to, ummm ... I don't know."
    • HP Encyclopedia: "I absolutely do intend to do it but, you know, I can't pretend that I'm in a hurry right now. It's gonna be a hell of a lot of work, but I have -- You know, I've kept everything, and I know where things are, and yeah ... at some point I will get myself together and do it."
    • "If we're talking about prejudiced people within the Wizarding World, what they care most about is your blood status. So I think you could be, um, gay, pure-blood, and totally without any kind of criticism from the Lucius Malfoys of the world. I don't think that would be something that would interest him in the slightest. But, you know, I can't answer for all witches and wizards because I think in matters of the heart, it would be directly parallel to our world."
    • "Because Voldemort never went through the grotesque process that I imagined creates a Horcrux, with Harry, it was just that he had destabilized his soul so much that it split when he was hit by the back-firing curse. And so this part of it flies off and attaches to the only living thing in the room. A part of it flees in the very close-to-death limbo state that Voldemort then goes on and exists in. I suppose it's very close to being a Horcrux. But Harry was not -- did not become an evil object. He wasn't -- he didn't have curses upon him that the other Horcruxes had. He himself was not contaminated by carrying this bit of parasitic soul. The only time he ever felt it stirring and moving was in 'Order of the Phoenix', when he himself goes through a very dark time. And there's a moment where he's looking at Dumbledore and he feels something rear like a snake inside him. And of course at those times, it's because the piece of soul inside him is feeding off his emotions."
    • "Also I always imagined the Sorting Hat detected the presence of that piece of soul when Harry first tried it on. Because it was strongly tempted to put him in Slytherin."
    • "The pain [Harry] feels whenever Voldemort is particularly active, is this piece of soul seeking to rejoin the Master Soul. When his scar is hurting him so much, that's not scar tissue hurting him. That's this piece of soul really wanting to get back out the way it entered."
    • "There's a moment when Dumbledore casts a charm and you see a two-headed snake split. ... It's in Dumbledore's office, and he suddenly does this strange -- he performs this strange piece of magic in which he watches images and these are his -- and this snake dividing and that's the way he sees Voldemort's soul dividing. He's playing through his own theory about what's happened, and his theory is, of course, correct. That Voldemort, as summed up by the snake, divided. So Harry never understood what the two-headed snake was all about."
    • "So Dumbledore knew all along that he must have split -- he suspected until 'Chamber of Secrets', and then at the point where he saw what was clearly the remains of a Horcrux, in other words, the diary, he thinks, okay, there you go. And not only has he definitely done it, but he's got to have more than one because he's treated this one very casually."
    • "[Neville] really was The Boy It Could've Been, because as you know, as I made clear, he was born hours before Harry, he was born on the 30th of July, Voldemort singled him out as the other possibility. But the great thing about Neville's story for me, the over-arching story about Neville, is that he proves himself to be a boy who could've done it too. Yeah, Harry had the scar and arguably, Harry had an edge more talent because Harry -- he has an extraordinary instinct for the right thing to do. He's just got the right instinct, and that's what would make him, in due course, a phenomenal Auror. But Neville was, I think, amazing in the final battle, and proved himself a hundred times over worthy of being a Gryffindor, his parents' son, despite the very difficult childhood he had in the hands of his very pushy grandmother, and I know, she loves him and he loves her, but she's not an easy person to be raised by. So yeah, so that for me, was the big thing about Neville."
    • "[The Longbottoms] had rounded up Death Eaters, they were very good Aurors, they knew what they were doing, they were responsible for a lot of captures and arrests and imprisonments."
    • "James and Lily turned [Voldemort] down; that was established in 'Philosopher's Stone'. He wanted them, and they wouldn't come over, so that's one strike against them before they were even out of their teens."
    • The Encyclopedia: "I imagined it as half of it, I mean maybe on facing pages, but that might be difficult to do just through layout. But the ideal would be, to have, say, on the left-hand side you've got a page showing all your back story, extra details on characters, or an entry on wands showing what every character's wand was, and all of this stuff. And then I think also, it might be interesting to have information about the actual writing and what I discarded. So on one side, it's acting as though the whole world is true and I'm giving you extra information on that real world, and on the other side, we're admitting that it's actually fiction and I'm showing discarded plots, characters that didn't make it, problems in the plot. I think both lots of information are interesting, so it would be nice to unite both of them."
    • "I'm pretty sure Hannah's a pureblood."
    • "The W.O.M.B.A.T.s are done, I'm sorry. There are no more W.O.M.B.A.T.s."
    • "I was told that it would be very unwise to put hints about 'Hallows' on my site because we've had enormous trouble in 'Half-Blood Prince' because I had put hints about it, and it was argued in court by people who wanted to put the whole book on the internet, or press people who've got hold of it, and wanted to put it out early, and -- an argument would be 'well you put it on your site, so we have the right to put it up as well.' So I was told it would be very foolish to start putting chapter headings and so on, up. I would be weakening my own case against people who wanted to do spoilers. So then I started looking for something that I could give fans that wasn't foreshadowing Book 7. But in fact, if you were paying attention, W.O.M.B.A.T. 3 had loads of stuff from Book 7 in it. Hahahaha. And no one knew. And no one realized, including the lawyers, yay! So I win."
    • "Harry and Ron didn't go back, Hermione did."
    • "She went with Ron and Harry because she has a really good heart. That's not about brain. Ultimately, she had a bigger heart than she had a brain, and that's saying something for Hermione. But was she naturally drawn to battle? No, she wasn't. She's not a Bellatrix. She's not a woman who actually wants to be hurting, fighting, killing. Not at all. She would be glad to go back to school, be glad to get back to study, and then would join them at the Ministry."
  • Pottercast 2 - December 24, 2007
    • "I loathe Pansy Parkinson. I don't love Draco but I really dislike her. She's every girl who ever teased me at school. She's the Anti-Hermione. I loathe her. Yeah, sorry! Sidetracked there by my latent bitterness. He married Astoria Greengrass."
    • The "Love Room" in the Department of Mysteries: "So that room, I believe, would have at its center, a kind of fountain or well containing a love potion, a very powerful love potion. You know that the first time they ever enter Slughorn's Potions class, and he starts talking about Amortentia, the Love Potion, and he says it's the most dangerous one in the room. That's what they would've found in the Love Room. So you would see wizards and witches taking it, they would study the effects. The room, of course, has to be locked. And you know, again, there's this thread running through the books, what Love does, and it raises people to the heights of absolute heroism, as in Lily, Harry, Neville. And it also leads them into acts of foolishness and even evil, which is Bellatrix and also Dumbledore. He became foolish. He lost his center, his moral center, when he became infatuated. So that's what it does, that's what makes it dangerous."
    • Alan Rickman: "He knew very early on that he'd been in love with Lily. 'Cause I told him so. We needed to have a conversation early on. He needed to understand, I think, and does completely understand and did completely understand where this bitterness towards this boy, who's living proof of her preference for another man, came from. Yeah, I told him that. He was the only person who knew that for a long, long time."
    • Florean Fortescue was killed.
    • "I did have a sub-plot planned for Florean. And it was to do with the Elder Wand, so I will definitely put that into the Encyclopedia."
    • "The only thing that Hagrid has ever created are Blast-Ended Skrewts, and I think we should all agree that he should never attempt to create a species again."
    • "The Elder Wand is simply the most dispassionate and ruthless of wands in that it will only take into consideration strength. So one would expect a certain amount of loyalty from one's wand. So even if you were disarmed while carrying it, even if you lost a fight while carrying it, it has developed an affinity with you that it will not give up easily. If, however, a wand is won, properly won in an adult duel, then a wand may switch allegiance, and it will certainly work better even if it hasn't fully switched allegiance for the person who won it. So that of course is what happens when Harry takes Draco's wand from him."
  
  
  
• 2008
  • La Gazette du Sorcier (James Joyce Award - French and English translation) - February 12, 2008
    • "Dumbledore had always been such an almost god-like figure to Harry in some ways, that he felt he couldn't ask him personal questions. Snape, on the other hand, I had to drop clues all the way through because as you know in the seventh book when you have the revelation scene where everything shifts and you realize why Snape was ... what Snape's motivation was. I had to plot that through the books because at the point where you see what was really going on, it would have been an absolute cheat on the reader at that point just to show a bunch of stuff you’ve never seen before." ... "It was a complicated plotting process but by the time Philosopher's Stone was finished, I definitely knew all the big things about Snape and Dumbledore."
    • "the only actor or actress who has ever, ever intruded while writing was Evanna Lynch, who is absolutely perfect as Luna." ... "I don't see Alan Rickman when I write Snape."
    • "it took seven years between having the idea for Harry and publishing Philosopher’s Stone, I did consider having him die, and I have said before that in some ways it would have been a neater ending."
    • "The book that annoys me most in retrospect is five. The people who like Order of the Phoenix best form a weird sub-sect of the Harry Potter fandom and I occasionally stumble across one and someone says, 'My favourite is Order of the Phoenix', and I always think, 'Hmm, dark!'. But that book I must admit I was feeling the strength of the pressure a bit during that phase, and I think it shows in the book." ... "the difficulty I did sometimes have was I made a rule so tight it was sometimes hard to navigate around it myself. So not being able to Apparate in and out of Hogwarts was a pain in the back."
  • July 10, 2008: Deathly Hallows paperback published. [Amazon.uk] {37 chapters, 608 pages, 199,000 words}
  • September 23, 2008: Sorcerer's Stone Special 10th Anniversary Edition hardback published. [Amazon] {17 chapters, 320 pages, 78,000 words}
  • October 6, 2008: Harry Potter Books 1-7 Paperback box set published. [Amazon.uk]
  • Scholastic Interviews - October 19, 2008
    • We always take into account the book specifications when selecting paper, but Harry presented a few major challenges: 1) Starting with Goblet of Fire we needed to order paper before we had a final page count and quantity. 2) There were strict security requirements for all seven books, which the paper mills had to adhere to. So they had to be sure that they did not raise any flags when purchasing the raw materials used to make paper.
    • Our codename for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was Ted Taylor. When the actual jackets were printed, our jacket vendor stamped a jacket with the title Ted Taylor and the Goblet of Fire.
    • Marketing: The most brilliant idea came from Jo Rowling. For Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Jo wanted to make sure that every fan had the opportunity to read the book at the same time. A strict on-sale date was established. This date is what led to the "Midnight Parties" and the unified celebration worldwide.
    • In the early days, we just called [Jo] at home and even gave reporters her home phone number!
    • I've always had pretty clear ideas about what might be on the cover and what objects or characters might be perfect for the chapter openings. Happily, Mary and I are so attuned that we almost always agreed about what worked for the covers and chapters openers.
    • For most of the books I had a color scheme in mind, based on something that came through in the story. ... From the beginning, the palette of the books was based on the "jewel tones" of Mary's artwork: ruby reds, deep amethyst purple, dark sapphires and emeralds.
    • The biggest change in covers came with Order of the Phoenix, where Mary and I thought that a more monochromatic look was good for the book, based on a particular scene in a revolving room that emphasized the blue candlelight glowing all around Harry. This was the first book where it felt that Harry was truly growing into the man he would become.
    • For the Scholastic Anniversary Edition: The scene of him looking in the Mirror of Erised, for me, captures the essence of the story: Harry is longing to connect with his dead parents, and that loss hovers over all the books.
    • All of the character's signatures in the books are signed by people who worked on the books in some way.
    • Of the millions of books shipped, not a single copy of Deathly Hallows was lost in transit.
  • November 10, 2008 - Harry Potter Years 1-5 Blu-ray regular box set (UK release).
  • November 11, 2008 - Harry Potter Years 1-5 DVD and Blu-ray regular box sets (US release).
  • November 21, 2008: Half-Blood Prince Movie original release date.

  • December 4, 2008: The Tales of Beedle the Bard published. [Amazon.uk, Amazon] {1 chapter, 112 pages (128 UK), ? words - 3.5 million printed (US)}

  
  
  
• 2009
  • UK DVD / Blu-ray re-release.
    • June 15, 2009 - Philosopher's Stone DVD and Blu-ray.
    • June 15, 2009 - Chamber of Secrets DVD and Blu-ray.
    • June 15, 2009 - Prisoner of Azkaban DVD and Blu-ray.
    • June 15, 2009 - Goblet of Fire DVD and Blu-ray.
    • June 15, 2009 - Order of the Phoenix DVD and Blu-ray.
  • July 6, 2009: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them paperback re-issued. [Amazon.uk] {1 chapter, ? pages, 14,000 words}
  • July 6, 2009: Quidditch Through the Ages paperback re-issued. [Amazon.uk] {10 chapters, ? pages, 12,000 words}
  • July 7, 2009: Deathly Hallows paperback published (US edition). [Amazon] {37 chapters, 784 pages, 199,000 words}
  • July 7, 2009: Harry Potter Books 1-7 Paperback box set published (US edition). [Amazon]

  • July 15, 2009: Half-Blood Prince Movie

  • December 8, 2009 - Sorcerer's Stone Ultimate DVD and Blu-ray (US).
  • December 8, 2009 - Chamber of Secrets Ultimate DVD and Blu-ray (US).
  • December 8, 2009 - Half-Blood Prince DVD and Blu-ray; and 1-6 DVD and Blu-ray Giftsets.
  
  
  
• 2010
  • 2010? - Prisoner of Azkaban Ultimate DVD and Blu-ray (US).
  • 2010? - Goblet of Fire Ultimate DVD and Blu-ray (US).
  • 2010? - Order of the Phoenix Ultimate DVD and Blu-ray (US).
  • 2010? - Half-Blood Prince Ultimate DVD and Blu-ray (US).
  • March 31, 2010 - Harry Potter 1-4 LEGO game.
  • Spring, 2010 - Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park to open.

  • November 19, 2010: Deathly Hallows Movie, part 1

  
  
  
• 2011
  • 2011? - Deathly Hallows, part 1 DVD and Blu-ray, and Ultimate DVD and Blu-ray (US).

  • May, 2011: Deathly Hallows Movie, part 2

  • 2011? - Deathly Hallows, part 2 DVD and Blu-ray, and Ultimate DVD and Blu-ray (US).

Myths / Hoaxes

1. "Harry will end up with somebody who was in all four books, although it will not be Hermione."
   • This persistent rumor supposedly came from an unnamed German magazine that allegedly quoted JKR making this statement [Google Groups]. There's no mention of what German magazine this quote is supposed to have appeared in, much less which specific issue; no one has been able to uncover where this "information" came from. At this point I believe the quote is nothing more than a myth. Though even if it is a myth, that doesn't necessarily preclude Harry from getting together with someone who actually has been in all of the first four books, either.
2. Book titles shot down by JKR:
   • Harry Potter and the Green Flame Torch
   • Harry Potter and the Mountain of Fantasy
   • Harry Potter and the Fortress of Shadows
   • Harry Potter and the Forest of Shadows - "Not even close! Who makes these up?! And this green torch business seems to be cropping up everywhere. Do you really think getting rid of Voldemort would be that easy?" [JKR website]
   • The Pillar of Storgé - "I am trying very hard not to feel offended that anyone thought this was possible. 'Storgé', for crying out loud. Come on, people, get a grip." [JKR website]
   • Harry Potter and the Pyramids of Furmat [JKR Website]
   • Harry Potter and the Graveyard of Memories [JKR Website]
3. Chapter titles shot down by JKR:
   • 'Lupin's Papers'
   • 'The Lovegoods in Court'
   • 'Pettigrew's Pamphlets'
   • 'Sirius's Circulars'
   • 'the Pocket Crosswords of Severus Snape'
4. Pillar of Storgé hoax [Storgé Hoax Video, Still picture of Storgé Hoax, Jo's response to the rumor, The hoaxster speaks]
   • In late June, 2004 a post on Mugglenet's forum pointed to an alleged video of the famous Locked Door on JKR's website (the one with the DO NOT DISTURB sign on it). The poster claimed to have captured a video of the door opening and revealing tantalizing information about Book 6, even though the door hadn't worked for anyone else previously. In the end it turned out to be a college student from Florida who had cobbled together a fake video using parts of Jo's site and then posted it online. Ironically, the locked door on JKR's site did open three days later to reveal a brick wall. And, once you got through the brick puzzle, a piece of paper revealed the true title of Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The text from the Storgé hoax:

   • so i was fooling around at http://www.jkrowling.com (an awesome site if you haven't been there before, with lots of information) and i don't know what i did but that door that no one has been able to open suddenly opened after a big gust of wind. (Peeves?) inside was this book with a message from JKR herself where she released the name of book 6! i think it was a software glitch or something because i have no idea how i got the door open... then again, i was fooling around with the web site for hours yesterday, so it might have been something i did. the reason i think it's a glitch though is because the date of the message is the first of July, which is like a week away. i think we weren't supposed to find it until then. anyway, i turned on my screen capture software and went back to the book room to record what happened. i captured the movie and uploaded it (although it would be better if someone could host it for me because geocities might clunk out). you can find it at this link: http://www.geocities.com/hpstorge/screen.mpg you can't really see what her message is in the video, so i retyped it below: ***message with spoilers below*** 01/07/04 Erm… it is perhaps time for me to reveal the title of Book 6! I am nearing completion of the first draft and have definitely decided upon a title. I had numerous possibilities in mind, but as I wrote, I realized that only one did the book justice. The more clever Potter fans may recognize that the title relates directly to both 'Order of the Phoenix' and 'Chamber of Secrets.' I will be highly amused if one of you can guess exactly what's going on! On a side note, the length of the book is growing so fast, I could swear Filius has put an Engorgement Charm on it; an editor's nightmare! I promised myself not to exceed the length of 'Order of the Phoenix,' but every day that passes makes that undertaking more difficult. Incidentally, I have much more work ahead. Alas, the time has come! Here is the reward for you lot that so diligently figured out all the puzzles on the site. If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, I will reveal to you the title of Book 6! ... The title of Book 6 is: Harry Potter and the Pillar of Storgé ***end message*** I was sooooo excited when i read it! i can't believe she's released the title so early! what pillar? where is it? who/what/where is Storgé? to me it sounds like the name of a powerful wizard... Dumbledore's relative perhaps??? if you have any theories about this, i'd love to hear them. i have a better quality video of the open door and the message. you can email me at hpstorge@yahoo.com and i'll try to send it to you (it's a big, big file). i'd also love to hear what you have to say about the title! i'm sooooo excited, i can't believe it!

5. The first draft of Book 6 was nearly complete in late June, 2004.
   • This rumor comes from the Storgé hoax above. While it's theoretically possible that the hoax might have accidentally stumbled onto the truth, a statement by Ms. Rowling about her third pregnancy a month after the hoax seems to indicate the first draft wasn't really near completion at the time: "I bet the next chapter goes horribly wrong now". [JKR website] And, of course, the announcement of the completed sixth book came on December 20, six months later.
6. Books 2 and 5 are intrinsically linked.
   • This also comes from the Storgé hoax above, and is often confused with the fact that Books 2 and 6 are the ones that share plot strands, according to Ms. Rowling: "Certain crucial pieces of information in book six were originally planned for 'Chamber of Secrets', but very early on (first draft of Chamber) I realised that this information's proper home was book six. I have said before now that 'Chamber' holds some very important clues to the ultimate end of the series. Not as many as six, obviously, but there is a link." [JKR website]
   • And further: "The link I mentioned between books two and six does not, in fact, relate to the 'Half-Blood Prince' (because there is no trace left of the HBP storyline in 'Chamber'.) Rather, it relates to a discovery Harry made in 'Chamber' that foreshadows something that he finds out in 'Prince'." [JKR website]
7. A significant character will die in Book 6.
   • While it's certainly possible, Jo has never said this specifically. She's said, referring to the last chapter of Book 7: "This is it and I'm not opening it for obvious reasons -- this is really I'll wrap everything, it's the epilogue and I basically say what happens to everyone after they leave school, those who survive -- because there are deaths, more deaths coming." [Ananova Interview]
   • The 'significant death' she referred to in one of her interviews was Sirius in Book 5: "Well I had re-written the death, re-written it and that was it. It was definitive. And the person was definitely dead. And I walked into the kitchen crying and Neil said to me, 'What on earth is wrong?' and I said, 'Well, I've just killed the person'." [Paxman Interview]
   • And she further clarified on her site when this rumor took hold: "Please remember that allegations of 'leaks' concerning deaths in 'Half-Blood Prince' are very easy to make. Any comment I make on such rumours would be a spoiler, so I'll just repeat: keep those barrels of salt handy." [JKR website]
8. Official translations of the Book 7 title refer to "Saints".
   • This is an entirely fan-created myth. When the title Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows first appeared in December, 2006, fans went to their nearest dictionary to look up the word "hallow" and found it could mean a place or a person that is revered or holy, such as 'hallowed halls' or saints. Others then took this "information" and translated it into their native languages. These unofficial translations were then posted by two of the biggest Harry Potter fan sites: The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet as tentative title translations. Many fans, however, took these postings as if they were official translations of the book's title, and a myth was born. It took over five months for the official alternate translation (Harry Potter and the Relics of Death) to surface, and so many still continue to believe the original fan translations indicate that 'Hallows' refers to 'Saints'.

'Ships

• I'd like to ask if there would be a lot of romances between the characters in the upcoming books? "Good question. I'm having so much fun writing Book 4 because for the first time Harry, Ron, and Hermione are starting to recognize boys and girls as boys and girls. Everyone is in love with the wrong people. Let no one say my books lack realism." [September 8, 1999]
• One of our internet correspondents wondered if Snape is going to fall in love: "(JKR laughs) Who on earth would want Snape in love with them? That's a very horrible idea." [October 12, 1999]
• "Oh, I like this one… do Harry and Hermione have a date? [laughter] No. They are -- they're very platonic friends. But I won't answer for anyone else, nudge, nudge, wink, wink." [October 20, 1999]
• Will Harry find romance in book four?: "He tries, but he doesn't get very far. They're all kind of after the wrong people, as in life. Hermione gets the first date, and it's quite a cool one because I thought I owed her a bit of fun." [October 28, 1999]
• In the fourth book, due out in July, Harry will develop his first crush. "Careful readers of book three will already know who the girl is," Rowling said, smiling mysteriously. [October 30, 1999]
• Is Harry Potter ever going to fall in love with Hermione or is he going to fall in love with Ginny Weasley?: "In Book IV Harry does decide he likes a girl, but it's not Hermione or Ginny. However, he's only 14, so there's plenty of time for him to change his mind. ;-)" [February, 2000]
• "Last time you met him, he was 13," Rowling said at a news conference at the British Library. "He's 14 now and he's started to realize girls are quite interesting," she said. "I tend to think that if someone is sufficiently engaged in one of the books, he's not going to be too disappointed if, at some point, his hero holds hands with a little girl." [March 27, 2000]
• As Harry matures, does a love interest develop between him and Hermione?: "Harry & Hermione... d'you really think they're suited?" [May, 2000]
• Is there something going on between Ron and Hermione in GoF?: "yes, something's 'going on'... but Ron doesn't realise it yet... typical boy" [October 20, 2000]
• Will Ron ever get a girlfriend?: "I'm laughing again... why wouldn't he?! Though he's not doing too well at the moment, is he? But then, Fleur Delacour was really aiming a bit high." [October 20, 2000]
• "And what about Ginny [Ron's younger sister]? Poor Ginny, languishing in love for Harry, and he's merrily asking out other girls right under her nose! But that's just a boy thing." [December 25, 2000]
• Will Harry ever notice the long-suffering Ginny Weasley?: "You'll see... poor Ginny, eh?" [March, 2001]
• Does Hermione like Ron as more than a friend?: "The answer to that is in Goblet of Fire!" [March, 2001]
• In this movie we've seen the kids develop from the first film, can you tell us about the relationship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione and how that is developing film by film?: "Well I think it is developing in the films as it does in the books, which is to say that they are, they're much stronger together than apart. They're much more aware, in the second film, of their particular strengths. So they're more effective, the children are able to do more complex things, for example the Polyjuice Potion. And also Chris in the second film has kind of foreshadowed what I don't do until the fourth book, which is that you get hints of certain feelings between the three of them, that belong to a sort of slightly more mature person." [February, 2003]
• Are we going to discover anything more about Snape?
  "Yes."
  And Harry's mother? Did he have a crush on Harry's mother or unrequited love or anything like that?
  "Hence his animosity to Harry?"
  Yes.
  "You speculate?"
  I speculate, yes, I'm just asking whether you can tell us.
  "No I can't tell you. But you do find out a lot more about Snape and quite a lot more about him actually." [June 19, 2003]
• Any snogging with Hermione?: "Hermione and Harry! [surprised look] Do you think so?" ... "Ron and Hermione, I would say, have -- there's more tension there." [Video clip] [June 20, 2003]
• So... will Harry be receiving a second kiss in his last two years at Hogwarts?: "He might well be receiving another kiss (or two) but I'm not saying who the kisser's going to be." [March 4, 2004]
• Will Harry fall for another girl in book six, or will he be too busy for romance?: "He'll be busy, but what's life without a little romance?" [March 4, 2004]
• Will Harry and Hermione be together?: "lol Not saying... but you've had enough clues by now, surely?!" [March 4, 2004]
• "Actually, this is a really good place to answer a question about Draco and Hermione, which a certain Ms. Radcliffe is desperate to have answered. Will they end up together in book six/seven? NO! The trouble is, of course, that girls fancy Tom Felton, but Draco is NOT Tom Felton!" [March 4, 2004]
• What happened between Hermione and Viktor Krum during the summer?: "Ron would like to know that, too." [March 4, 2004]
• Why did Harry have to split up with Cho Chang?: "That's life, I'm afraid. They were never going to be happy, it was better that it ended early!" [March 4, 2004]
• Does Hermione love Ron or Harry?: "I can't believe that some of you haven't worked this one out yet, but I'm not going to answer because that would spoil the arguments, which I enjoy." [May 15, 2004]
• "I really got goose bumps when I saw a couple of those things, and I thought, people are going to look back on the film and think that those were put in deliberately as clues."
  Cuaron, for his part, says "in a way, it was intuition, but everything is so emotionally eloquent, the book gives you all the hints." [May 27, 2004]
• Will Ron and Hermione ever get together?: "Well -- [Laughter]. What do you think? [Audience member: I think they will]. I'm not going to say. I can't say, can I? I think that, by now, I've given quite a lot of clues on the subject. That is all I'm going to say. You will have to read between the lines on that one." [August 15, 2004]
• Luna and Neville will hook up in HP&THBP: "The Luna/Neville shippers are much less vehement and scary than the Harry/Hermione, Ron/Hermione tribes, so I hope I won't receive too much hate mail for quashing this rumour. I see Neville and Luna as very different kinds of people and while they share a certain isolation within Hogwarts, I don't think that's enough to foster true love -- friendship, perhaps, although I think that Neville would always find Luna's wilder flights of fancy alarming." [December 10, 2004]
• "As for the idea of Ron and Hermione having a son... (chuckles as the distant roars of a million shippers reach my ears, all cursing me to an eternity of unsatisfied curiosity)." [April 6, 2005]
• This one, he [Arthur Levine] said, "has more romance in general". And then he and marketing VP Jennifer Pasanen, who was sitting in, started humming, "Love is in the air". Well, it's a clue. [June 4, 2005]
• "Because of the demands of the adventure that Harry is following, he has had less sexual experience than boys of his age might have had. But I really wanted my heroes to grow up. Ron's hormones get fuller play in book six. Basically it dawns on Ron that Hermione's had some action, Harry's had some action and he's never got close!" [July 17, 2005]
• "I will say, that yes, I personally feel -- well it's going to be clear once people have read book six. I mean, that's it. It's done, isn't it? We know. Yes, we do now know that it's Ron and Hermione. I do feel that I have dropped heavy -- ANVIL-sized, actually, hints, prior to this point. I certainly think even if subtle clues hadn't been picked up by the end of 'Azkaban', that by the time we hit Krum in Goblet..." [July 20, 2005]
• "Ron up to this point has been quite immature compared to the other two and he kind of needed to make himself worthy of Hermione. Now, that didn't mean necessarily physical experience but he had to grow up emotionally and now he's taken a big step up. Because he's had the meaningless physical experience -- let's face it, his emotions were never deeply engaged with Lavender -- and he's realized that that is ultimately not what he wants, which takes him a huge emotional step forward." [July 20, 2005]
• "Well I think anyone who is still shipping Harry/Hermione after this book -- they need to go back and reread, I think." [July 20, 2005]
• Ginny did send Harry the Valentine. [July 23, 2005]
• "... the plan was, which I really hope I fulfilled, is that the reader, like Harry, would gradually discover Ginny as pretty much the ideal girl for Harry. She's tough, not in an unpleasant way, but she's gutsy. He needs to be with someone who can stand the demands of being with Harry Potter, because he's a scary boyfriend in a lot of ways. He's a marked man. I think she's funny, and I think that she's very warm and compassionate. These are all things that Harry requires in his ideal woman. But, I felt -- and I'm talking years ago when all this was planned -- initially, she's terrified by his image. I mean, he's a bit of a rock god to her when she sees him first, at 10 or 11, and he's this famous boy. So Ginny had to go through a journey as well. And rather like with Ron, I didn't want Ginny to be the first girl that Harry ever kissed."
  "I feel that Ginny and Harry, in this book, they are total equals. They are worthy of each other. They've both gone through a big emotional journey, and they've really got over a lot of delusions, to use your word, together. So, I enjoyed writing that. I really like Ginny as a character." [July 23, 2005]
• Was James the only one who had romantic feelings for Lily?: "No. [Pause.] She was like Ginny, she was a popular girl." ... "I can't answer, can I, really [about Snape or Lupin]?" [July 23, 2005]
• "Lupin was very fond of Lily, we'll put it like that, but I wouldn't want anyone to run around thinking that he competed with James for her. She was a popular girl, and that is relevant. But I think you've seen that already. She was a bit of a catch." [July 23, 2005]
• "I am very protective of my characters and the storyline; I stick fiercely to what I believe is right for them even if I know that it will make some fans unhappy (for instance, some of the romance in book six disappointed readers who were hoping for other pairings)." [April 29, 2006]

Book Release Dates

ISBN / ASIN Numbers

* Struck-through items are not yet released.
* The only difference between the British "Children's" and "Adult" editions is the cover graphics.
* HD DVD and Blu-ray discs are not affected by PAL vs. NTSC encoding differences. HD DVD discs are not restricted by region codes (they will play in all HD DVD players). And Warner does not restrict their Blu-ray discs by region codes (they will play in all Blu-ray players). HD DVD is now a defunct format; no further HP films will appear on HD DVD.