JK Rowling will participate in a 45-minute long webchat session with students on Thursday as part of the new Harry Potter Reading Club by Scholastic Publishing, and will answer questions about the Harry Potter series, Pottermore, and much more.

The webchat can be viewed here; highlights from the discussion can be seen here (updated live throughout the hour). We hope to have a transcript of the session soon after; for those who missed it live, Scholastic and Pottermore stated they will rebroadcast it.

• At a church in Edinburgh, she saw the name Lockhart there, which gave the surname for Gilderoy in Chamber of Secrets; she got street name inspiration from her hometown as well.
• She said that the idea of the hidden world for Harry Potter was something she loved getting into, even as the author, and she was especially drawn by the characters, of course including Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
• She credited a couple of primary teachers in becoming a writer (who read out her work as a child), and a professor named Lucy Shepherd as a teen, who taught her about life, like Dumbledore or McGonagall would.
• First line she wrote for Harry Potter was, excluding preliminary notes, to do with a place called Dark's Hollow (that became Godric's Hollow) to see what happened the day the Potters died in 1981, which she cut out of the actual series until Deathly Hallows.
• She loved Luna's first appearance in Order of the Phoenix, the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire was great to write (she was aiming to write that scene of Voldemort's resurrection), and silly jingles Peeves sang.
• While reading an excerpt from Sorcerer's Stone where Harry got his wand from Ollivander's, he pronounced Hagrid's first name as 'Roo-BAY-us', different from that in the films (RU-bee-us).
• On Harry, Ron, and Hermione's relationship: Ron is all about the fun, but is very loyal and human person (moreso than Harry, who is the hero that is set apart and a purified form of a human), and is more real with his faults, and is always there by Harry's side; Ron's one problem is his insecurity, he feels he's not as good as his brother, and becomes friends with Harry, the most famous boy in the Wizarding World, and through this he goes on his own emotional journey (she knew all this about Ron from the start). With Hermione, Harry gets informed, as she's very clever and knows where to find information/stuff, and loosens up throughout the series (thanks to Ron), and realizes there's more to life than just books. She knew this about the trio's relationship very early on and needed this to continue writing the books. Ron and Hermione also challenge Harry, in that there is conflict and trials, and how to deal and survive from them. Self-knowledge is key in their relationship, and being drawn to a particular Deathly Hallow defined the kind of person they were (Harry, the stone; Ron, the wand; Hermione, the cloak).
• With Harry, she's aware that he's unlikeable to fans because of his hero-like tendencies that can't be quite sympathized fully by readers. Hermione was an exaggerated version of Rowling as a child (as she's said before), and Ron's base humour is what would have made her laugh.
• On Pottermore, she was asked by fans when the official e-books would be available, and she felt it was time to bring Harry Potter to the online world. She saw it as a way to go inside illustrations of the series, and have a really good reading experience online. She was excited about putting all the extra information about the Wizarding World online so any fan could access it without payment.
• She said about Pottermore she enjoyed getting feedback from people about how much fun the website is, and making definitive questions for the Sorting Quiz.
• She said she could never fully detach herself to Harry, and loves to go back into her old notes and find new information about the series. She recently said she finished the full biography for Remus Lupin (probably for Prisoner of Azkaban in Pottermore), and said in writing it she got upset/emotional (wouldn't say why), because she was connected to him and it was sad to go back to his life.
• For those disappointed who were sorted on Hufflepuff, she said Hufflepuff is her favourite house (though she was sorted into Gryffindor), and noted a scene in Deathly Hallows where students had to choose to stay and fight at the battle at Hogwarts; the Hufflepuffs stayed not because they were reckless, or wanted to show off (like Gryffindors), but for genuine reasons of wanting to help. JK Rowling said she would not be at all disappointed to be sorted into Hufflepuff, and is upset that people would be disappointed. Hufflepuff has a very clear record in terms of not having any dark wizards (and there has been the rare hero from Slytherin too).
• Favourite colour - pink; favourite food - sushi; least favourite food - tripe; favourite sound - the sea or her husband snoring; least favourite sound - her husband snoring when she's trying to sleep; favourite sport - Quidditch; favourite thing to do while not writing - taking her kids out, drawing, listening to music, cooking and baking; quality she most admires in a person - bravery.
• JK Rowling: "If I wasn't a writer, I would be depressed."
• What she hopes readers will get out of the Harry Potter series: The knowledge that you can go somewhere that will make you happy and safe.

Lauren22

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