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' concern