Harry Potter and the Death Eaters
Harry Potter and the Fire Goblet
Harry Potter and the Three Champions

J.K. Rowling (to editor Emma Matthewson): “Finally! I’ve read this book so much I’m sick of it, I never read either of the others over and over again when editing them, but I really had to this time. If you think it needs more work, I’m willing and able, but I do think this draft represents an improvement on the first; the dementors are much more of a presence this time round, I think.”

“An annoying little speech bubble has just popped onto my screen saying ‘looks like you’re writing a letter. Would you like some help?’ This laptop is too clever for its own good … I am so sick of re-reading this one that I’ll be hard put to smile when it comes to doing public readings from it. But perhaps the feeling will have worn off by next summer… ”

Nigel Newton: “So I drove to The Pelican, a pub off the Fulham Road not far from Stamford Bridge, in a state of high alert. And I went in and there was a massive Sainsbury’s plastic carrier bag at this feet … he said nothing about that and I said nothing and he just said ‘Drink?’ and I said, ‘a pint, please’. So we stood at the bar and drank our pints and said nothing about Harry Potter. But when we left I walked out with the carrier bag. It was a classic dead letter drop,” said Newton.

“So I put this bag into the back of my car and drove it home. By this stage the series was so enormous that I was almost frightened to be in physical possession of it … I shoved it under the bed. I had another typescript sitting there … so I stuffed [the] top four pages of David Guterson’s East of the Mountains on the top and then stayed up all night reading it, which my wife did find a bit odd … There was no question of showing any of it to her. Even then I was putting bits of it in the safe.”