"...it’s very odd to think that this will be broadcast after loads of people have read it (Deathly Hallows) and people may right now be throwing things at the screen.”

"Some of it’s fun. And some of it’s frankly horrible. The fun bits are when you get to talk to people who’ve read your books. That bit of it is great. What I find difficult is the sort of stagy, midnight moment business, because I’m not very good at it. I don’t think that makes me a better person because I’m not good at it I hasten to add, but I’m not good at it. I am not a natural ‘ta-daa’ kind of person. I get all up tight about having to do that sort of stuff and I feel like a prat. People definitely expect you to be visibly enjoying yourself, and I think Quentin Crisp said that was the secret to being good on television, just look happy to be there, and I haven’t always looked happy to be there. In fact, sometimes I’ve looked bloody miserable to be there and I know that’s not televisually good.”

“I felt that it would be a betrayal of the character if I showed Harry doing anything other than living, what all along, he has discovered to be true, which is that love is the strongest power there is. I thought a lot of people that had been through terrible things like wars, and having to come home and rebuild normality after seeing horrors has always seemed to me like such a courageous thing to do. Climbing back to normality after trauma is much harder, it’s much harder to rebuild than to destroy.

In some ways it would have been a neat ending to kill him [Harry], a neater ending to kill him. But I felt that would have been a betrayal, because I wanted my hero, and he’s my hero, to do what I think is the most noble thing. So he came back from war and he tried to build a better world I suppose – corny as that sounds – both on a small scale for a family and on a larger scale.”

Neil: “When she becomes very stressed she will detach herself, and only trust one person and that’s herself. So everyone else gets blocked out and she becomes more and more stressed and less and less able to accept any help. The barriers go up and it’s not just me it’s everyone else around her. Only one person is trusted and she’s got to do everything herself despite the fact that it’s not possible to do everything herself.”