J.K. Rowling
See also: Robert Galbraith
Although she writes under the pen name J.K. Rowling, pronounced like rolling, her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. She calls herself Jo and has said, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared that people pronounced her name incorrectly.
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.
Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She recalls that: "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind," gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department. Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books.
“What's that?" he snarled, staring at the envelope Harry was still clutching in his hand. "If it's another form for me to sign, you've got another -""It's not," said Harry cheerfully. "It's a letter from my godfather.""Godfather?" sputtered Uncle Vernon. "You haven't got a godfather!""Yes, I have," said Harry brightly. "He was my mum and dad's best friend. He's a convicted murderer, but he's broken out of wizard prison and he's on the run. He likes to keep in touch with me, though...keep up with my news...check if I'm happy....”
“Luna had decorated her bedroom ceiling with five beautifully painted faces: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. They were not moving as the portraits at Hogwarts moved, but there was a certain magic about them all the same: Harry thought they breathed. What appeared to be fine golden chains wove around the pictures, linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so, Harry realized that the chains were actually one word, repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends . . . friends . . . friends . . .”
“I just wish I’d asked you sooner. We could’ve had ages . . . months . . . years maybe. . . .”
“Wonder what it’s like to have a peaceful life,” Ron sighed, as evening after evening they struggled through all the extra homework they were getting.”
“Because - oh shut up laughing, you two - because they've just been turned down by girls they asked to the ball!”
“This is mad,” said Ron. “We’re the only ones left who haven’t got anyone — well, except Neville. Hey — guess who he asked? Hermione!”“What?” said Harry, completely distracted by this startling news.“Yeah, I know!” said Ron, some of the color coming back into his face as he started to laugh. “He told me after Potions! Said she’s always been really nice, helping him out with work and stuff — but she told him she was already going with someone. Ha! As if! She just didn’t want to go with Neville...I mean, who would?”
“Who're you going with, then?" said Ron."Angelina," said Fred promptly, without a trace of embarrassment."What?" said Ron, taken aback. "You've already asked her?""Good point," said Fred. He turned his head and called across the common room, "Oi! Angelina!"Angelina, who had been chatting with Alicia Spinnet near the fire, looked over at him."What?" She called back."Want to come to the ball with me?"Angelina gave Fred a sort of appraising look."All right, then," she said, and she turned back to Alicia and carried on chatting with a bit of a grin on her face."There you go," said Fred to Harry and Ron, "piece of cake.”
“She should've interviewed Snape," said Harry grimly. "He'd give her the goods on me any day. "Potter has been crossing lines ever since he first arrived at this school...”
“She can't keep writing about what a tragic little hero I am, it'll get boring.”
“I thought it sounded a bit like Percy singing... maybe you've got to attack him while he's in the shower, Harry.”
“There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water."What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia."Your new school uniform," she said. Harry looked in the bowl again."Oh," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet.”
“That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand new uniform...As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that if was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.”
“How long have you been ‘Big D’ then?” said Harry.“Shut it,” snarled Dudley, turning away again.“Cool name,” said Harry, grinning and falling into step beside his cousin. “But you’ll always be Ickle Diddykins to me.”“I said, SHUT IT!” said Dudley, whose ham-like hands had curled into fists.“Don’t the boys know that’s what your mum calls you?”“Shut your face.”“You don’t tell her to shut her face. What about ‘popkin’ and ‘Dinky Diddydums,’ can I use them then?”
“Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world.”
“The three of them fell silent. After a long pause, Hermione voiced the knottiest question of all in a hesitant voice. “Do you think we should go and ask Hagrid about it all?” “That’d be a cheerful visit,” said Ron, “ ‘Hello, Hagrid. Tell us, have you been setting anything mad and hairy loose in the castle lately?”
“Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic?" said Malfoy. "And he’s supposed to be our teacher!"Harry and Ron both made furious moves toward Malfoy, but Hermione got there first - SMACK!She had slapped Malfoy across the face with all the strength she could muster. Malfoy staggered. Harry, Ron, Crabbe, and Goyle stood flabbergasted as Hermione raised her hand again."Don’t you dare call Hagrid pathetic you foul—you evil—""Hermione!" said Ron weakly and he tried to grab her hand as she swung it back."Get off Ron!"Hermione pulled out her wand. Malfoy stepped backward. Crabbe and Goyle looked at him for instructions, thoroughly bewildered."C’mon," Malfoy muttered, and in a moment, all three of them had disappeared into the passageway to the dungeons."Hermione!" Ron said again, sounding both stunned and impressed.”
“But people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. The most you and Malfoy’ll be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of you knows enough magic to do any real damage. I bet he expected you to refuse, anyway.” “And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?” “Throw it away and punch him on the nose,” Ron suggested.”
“A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at Harry's brow. He knew that they would not tell him to go, that it would have to be his decision. "You'll stay with me?""Until the very end," said James.”
“Well, I dreamed I was playing Quidditch the other night,' said Ron, screwing up his face in an effort to remember. 'What d'you reckon that means?''Probably that you're going to be eaten by a giant marshmallow or something,' said Harry.”
“Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide — except perhaps Hogwarts.”
“Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.”
“Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”
“Killing is not so easy as the innocent believe.”
“Jealous?...Of what? I don't want a foul scar right across my head, thanks. I don't think getting your head cut open makes you that special, myself.”
“But this is touching, Severus,” said Dumbledore seriously. “Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?”“For him?” shouted Snape. “Expecto Patronum!”From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe. She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.“After all this time?”“Always,” said Snape.”
“IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I'LL KILL YOU, HARRY!”
“He felt his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. How strange that in his dread of death, it pumped all the harder, valiantly keeping him alive. But it would have to stop, and soon. Its beats were numbered. How many would there be time for, as he rose and walked through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the forest?”
“I scared Stephen King.”
“That's right," said Luna encouragingly, as if they were back in the Room of Requirement and this was simply spell practice for the D.A. "That's right, Harry... come on, think of something happy...""Something happy?" he said, his voice cracked."We're all still here," she whispered, "We're still fighting. Come on, now...”
“Nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts.”
“Turn to page three hundred and ninety-four.”
“Yes, Harry, blessed as I am with extraordinary brainpower, I understood everything you told me. I think you might even consider the possibility that I understood more than you did.”
“Azkaban - the wizard prison, Goyle." said Malfoy, looking at him in disbelief. "Honestly, if you were any slower, you'd be going backward.”
“Longbottom, if brains were gold, you'd be poorer than Weasley, and that's saying something.”
“There are plenty of eyewitness accounts, just because you're so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you—”
“Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect.”
“I hope there's pudding!”
“Get up, you useless lump, get up!”
“Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words...”
“Yeah, we’ll call you,” muttered Ron as the knight disappeared, “If we ever need someone mental.”
“I bet you’re not dangerous at all, are you? Are you, you great ugly brute?”
“Lord Voldermort Has Risen Again.”
“It was important, Dumbledore said, to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then could evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated. . . .”
“Yeah,” said Ron, “and lucky Harry doesn’t lose his head in a crisis — ‘there’s no wood,’ honestly.”
“He might have crawled up into the airing cupboard and died, but I mustn't get my hopes up.”
“Such loyalty is admirable, of course,” said Scrimgeour, who seemed to be restraining his irritation with difficulty, “but Dumbledore is gone, Harry. He’s gone.”“He will only be gone from the school when none here are loyal to him,” said Harry, smiling in spite of himself.”
“The Death Eaters can't all be pure-blood, there aren't enough pure-blood wizards left," said Hermione stubbornly. "I expect most of them are half-bloods pretending to be pure. It's only Muggle-borns they hate, they'd be quite happy to let you and Ron join up" "There is no way they'd let me be a Death Eater!" said Ron indignantly...."My whole family are blood traitors! That's as bad as Muggle-borns to Death Eaters!" "And they'd love to have me," said Harry sarcastically. "We'd be best pals if they didn't keep trying to do me in.”
“You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!”
“But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they don't take him off the Chocolate Frog cards.”
“Parry Otter, the Chosen Boy Who — well — something of that sort..”