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Work Tag: non fiction

I am prouder of my years as a single mother than of any other part of my life

non fiction

Index ID: PRDSM — Publication date: September 18th, 2013

Note: Written for Gingerbread, which campaigns on behalf of single parents, as well as providing expert advice and practical support. J.K. Rowling is its president.

Nearly twenty years ago (it’s a shock to me to write that, because it still seems quite a recent occurrence) I became a single parent. Like the vast majority of single parents, this had not been my plan. My much-wanted daughter had been conceived and born while I was married, but the failure of that relationship saw me living shortly afterwards on state benefits in the coldest winter Scotland had seen in quite a few years. I had been living in sunny Portugal prior to my return to the UK and the snow was merely the first shock to my system.

I had imagined that I would be back at work fast. Indeed, it was because I expected to be employed outside of the home again that I was working so hard to finish the children’s novel I never told anyone I was writing (not wishing to be told that I was deluded). As it turned out, my belief I would shortly be back in paid work turned out to be a much bigger delusion than the hope that the novel might be published.

I was a graduate and I had been in full-time employment all my life; I did not want my daughter to grow up in poverty, but my district health visitor told me that I would never get state-funded childcare ‘because you’re coping too well’; free nursery places for very young children were reserved at that time for children deemed ‘at risk’. I can’t argue with the prioritisation of children whose mothers weren’t coping, but I had nobody else to look after my daughter. My sister worked full time, my mother was dead, I was in a strange city: where was my daughter supposed to go while I earned a living?

I ended up working a few hours a week at a local church, where I overhauled the filing system and did a bit of typing. The (female) minister let me bring Jessica with me. I was paid, deliberately, exactly that amount that I could keep without losing benefits: £15. For all of this, I was immensely grateful.

My overriding memory of that time is the slowly evaporating sense of self-esteem, not because I was filing or typing – there was dignity in earning money, however I was doing it – but because it was slowly dawning on me that I was now defined, in the eyes of many, by something I had never chosen. I was a Single Parent, and a Single Parent On Benefits to boot. Patronage was almost as hard to bear as stigmatisation. I remember the woman who visited the church one day when I was working there who kept referring to me, in my hearing, as The Unmarried Mother. I was half annoyed, half amused: unmarried mother? Ought I to be allowed in a church at all? Did she see me in terms of some Victorian painting: The Fallen Woman, Filing, perhaps?

Single parents were not popular in certain sectors of the establishment or media in the mid-nineties. I could not raise a smile over the government minister of the time singing a merry ditty about ‘young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue.’ Newspaper articles discussed single mothers in terms of broken families and anti-social teenagers. However defiant I might feel about the jobs I was doing round the clock (full-time mother, part-time worker, secret novelist), constant bombardment with words like ‘scrounger’ has a deeply corrosive effect. Assumptions made about your morals, your motives for bringing your child into the world or your fitness to raise that child cut to the core of who you are.

Then, in a sudden, seismic and wholly unexpected shift, I found myself in the newspapers.

There was still no escaping the Single Parent tag; it followed me to financial stability and fame just as it had clung to me in poverty and obscurity. I became Single Parent Writes Award-Winning Children’s Book/Earns Record American Advance/Gets Film Deal. One of the first journalists to interview me asked me whether I hadn’t felt I ought to be out looking for a job rather than ‘sitting at home writing a novel.’ By some miracle I resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to punch him and subsequently decided to channel my frustration a little more positively by becoming a Patron of what was then called the National Council for One Parent Families (now Gingerbread).

In spite of the fact that I became a Married Mother again in 2001, I remain President of Gingerbread, a superb campaigning organisation for single parents and their children. Unfortunately, their work is as necessary as ever today, in a recession much worse than the one I faced when I returned to the UK in the 90s.

According to a Gingerbread survey in 2011, 87% of single parents think there is a stigma around single parenthood that needs to be challenged and one in three say that they have personally experienced it. I find the language of ‘skivers versus strivers’ particularly offensive when it comes to single parents, who are already working around the clock to care for their children. Such rhetoric drains confidence and self-esteem from those who desperately want, as I did, to get back into the job market.

A statement by a government minister late last year that ‘people who are poorer should be prepared to take the biggest risks – they’ve got least to lose’ speaks to a profound disconnect with people struggling to keep their heads above water. In some cases – and I was once one of those cases – what you might lose is enough food to eat, a roof over your head: the fundamentals of life and existence, magnified a million-fold when it is your child’s health and security you stand to lose.

In the midst of all this, a further uncertainty is looming large for families already on the brink: the spectre of universal credit, the government’s flagship reform of the welfare system. Already Gingerbread is highlighting serious concerns. It’s all in the detail: the gaps in childcare provision for many of the poorest families, single parents under 25 to lose vital support for their children, the harsh truth that more single parent families will lose than gain under the new system – including many who work. This detail becomes hugely important if it’s the difference between eating three meals a day or going without.

Meanwhile the government mantra that work is the best route out of poverty is ringing increasingly hollow, with nearly 1 in 3 children whose single parent works part-time still growing up in poverty. Rather than focusing on ever more ‘austerity measures’, it’s investment in single parent employment that will allow single parents to work their own way out of poverty and secure real savings from the welfare bill. Nothing outlandish: affordable childcare , decent training, employers embracing flexible hours, and a long, hard look at low pay. I certainly identify with the results of a survey among single parents conducted last year which revealed that childcare costs remain the biggest barrier to work, closely followed by a shortage of flexible jobs: exactly the problems I faced when Jessica was young.

Government has the potential to change the lives, not just of single parents, but of a generation of children whose ambition and potential must not be allowed to dissipate in poverty. In the meantime, I would say to any single parent currently feeling the weight of stereotype or stigmatization that I am prouder of my years as a single mother than of any other part of my life. Yes, I got off benefits and wrote the first four Harry Potter books as a single mother, but nothing makes me prouder than what Jessica told me recently about the first five years of her life: ‘I never knew we were poor. I just remember being happy.’

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Remus Lupin

non fiction pottermore

Index ID: PMRL — Publication date: July 31st, 2013

New from J.K. Rowling

Trait Description
Birthday 10th March
Wand 10 and a quarter inches, Cypress, Unicorn Hair
Hogwarts House Gryffindor
Special abilities Exceptionally gifted in Defense Against the Dark Arts; werewolf
Parentage Wizard father, muggle mother
Family Wife Nymphadora Tonks, son Edward Remus (Teddy) Lupin

Parents

Remus Lupin was the only child of the wizard Lyall Lupin and his Muggle wife Hope Howell.

Lyall Lupin was a very clever, rather shy young man who, by the time he was thirty, had become a world-renowned authority on Non-Human Spiritous Apparitions. These include poltergeists, Boggarts and other strange creatures that, while sometimes ghostlike in appearance and behaviour, have never been truly alive and remain something of a mystery even to the wizarding world.

On an investigative trip into a dense Welsh forest in which a particularly vicious Boggart was supposed to be lurking, Lyall ran across his future wife. Hope Howell, a beautiful Muggle girl who worked in an insurance office in Cardiff, had taken an ill-advised walk through what she believed to be innocent woodland. Boggarts and poltergeists may be sensed by Muggles, and Hope, a particularly imaginative and sensitive person, had become convinced that something was watching her from between the dark trees. Eventually, her imagination became so overactive that the Boggart assumed a form: that of a large, evil-looking man, bearing down on her with a snarl and outstretched hands in the gloom. Hearing her scream, young Lyall came sprinting through the trees, causing the apparition to shrink into a field mushroom with one wave of his wand. The terrified Hope thought, in her confusion, that he had driven her would-be attacker away, and his first words to her – ‘it’s all right, it was only a Boggart’ made no impression on her. Noticing how very beautiful she was, Lyall made the wise decision not to talk about Boggarts any more, but instead agreed that the man had been very big and scary, and that the only sensible thing to do was for him to accompany Hope home to protect her.

The young couple fell in love, and not even Lyall’s shamefaced admission, some months later, that Hope had never really been in danger, dented her enthusiasm for him. To Lyall’s delight, Hope accepted his proposal of marriage and threw herself enthusiastically into preparations for the wedding, complete with a Boggart-topped cake.

Lyall and Hope’s first and only child, Remus John, was born after a year of marriage. A happy, healthy little boy, he showed early signs of magic and both parents imagined that he would follow in his father’s footsteps, attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in due course.

Bitten

By the time that Remus was four years old, the amount of Dark magical activity across the country was increasing steadily. While few yet knew what lay behind the mounting attacks and sightings, Lord Voldemort’s first ascent to power was in progress and Death Eaters were recruiting all kinds of Dark creatures to join them in their quest to overthrow the Ministry of Magic. The Ministry called in the services of authorities on Dark creatures – even those as minor as Boggarts and poltergeists – to help it understand and contain the threat. Lyall Lupin was among those asked to join the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, which he did gladly. It was here that Lyall came face-to-face with a werewolf called Fenrir Greyback, who had been brought in for questioning about the death of two Muggle children.

The Werewolf Registry was badly maintained. Werewolves were so shunned by wizarding society that they generally avoided contact with other people; they lived in self-described ‘packs’ and did all they could to avoid being registered. Greyback, whom the Ministry did not know to be a werewolf, claimed to be nothing more than a Muggle tramp who was utterly amazed at finding himself in a room full of wizards, and horrified by the talk about the poor, dead children.

Greyback’s filthy clothing and lack of wand were sufficient to persuade two overworked and ignorant members of the questioning committee that he was telling the truth, but Lyall Lupin was not so easily fooled. He recognised certain telltale signs in Greyback’s appearance and behaviour and told the committee that Greyback ought to be kept in detention until the next full moon, a mere twenty-four hours later.

Greyback sat in silence while Lyall was laughed at by his fellow committee members (‘Lyall, you just stick to Welsh Boggarts, that’s what you’re good at’). Lyall, generally a mild-mannered man, grew angry. He described werewolves as ‘soulless, evil, deserving nothing but death’. The committee ordered Lyall out of the room, the head of the committee apologised to the Muggle tramp and Greyback was released.

The wizard who escorted Greyback out of the inquiry was intending to place a Memory Charm upon him, so that he would forget having been inside the Ministry. Before he had a chance to do so, he was overpowered by Greyback and two accomplices who had been lurking at the entrance, and the three werewolves fled.

Greyback lost no time in sharing with his friends how Lyall Lupin had just described them. Their revenge on the wizard who thought that werewolves deserved nothing but death would be swift and terrible.

Shortly before Remus Lupin’s fifth birthday, as he slept peacefully in his bed, Fenrir Greyback forced open the boy’s window and attacked him. Lyall reached the bedroom in time to save his son’s life, driving Greyback out of the house with a number of powerful curses. However, henceforth, Remus would be a full-fledged werewolf.

Lyall Lupin never forgave himself for the words he had spoken in front of Greyback at the inquiry: ‘soulless, evil, deserving nothing but death’. He had parroted what was the common view of werewolves in his community, but his son was what he had always been – loveable and clever – except for that terrible period at the full moon when he suffered an excruciating transformation and became a danger to everyone around him. For many years, Lyall kept the truth about the attack, including the identity of the attacker, from his son, fearing Remus’s recriminations.

Childhood

Lyall did all he could to find a cure, but neither potions nor spells could help his son. From this time onwards, the family’s lives were dominated by the need to hide Remus’s condition. They uprooted themselves from village to town, leaving the instant that rumours of the boy’s odd behaviour started. Fellow witches and wizards noticed how peaky Remus became as new moon approached, not to mention his monthly disappearances. Remus was not allowed to play with other children, in case he let slip the truth of his condition. In consequence, and in spite of his loving parents, he was a very lonely boy.

While Remus was small, his containment during his transformation was not difficult; a locked room and plenty of silencing spells usually sufficed. However, as he grew, so did his wolfish self, and by the time he was ten years old, he was capable of pounding down doors and smashing windows. Ever more powerful spells were needed to contain him and both Hope and Lyall grew thin with worry and fear. They adored their son, but they knew that their community – already beset with fears at the mounting Dark activity around them – would not be lenient on an uncontrolled werewolf. The hopes that they had once had for their son seemed in ruins, and Lyall educated Remus at home, certain that he would never be able to set foot in school.

Shortly before Remus’s eleventh birthday, no less a person than Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, arrived uninvited on the Lupins’ doorstep. Flustered and frightened, Lyall and Hope tried to block his entrance, but somehow, five minutes later, Dumbledore was sitting at the fireside, eating crumpets and playing Gobstones with Remus.

Dumbledore explained to the Lupins that he knew what had happened to their son. Greyback had boasted of what he had done and Dumbledore had spies among Dark creatures. However, Dumbledore told the Lupins that he saw no reason why Remus should not come to school, and described the arrangements that he had made to give the boy a safe and secure place for his transformations. Due to the widespread prejudice around werewolves, Dumbledore agreed that for Remus’s own sake his condition should not be broadcast. Once a month, he would leave for a secure and comfortable house in the village of Hogsmeade, guarded by many spells and reached only by an underground passage from the Hogwarts grounds, where he could transform in peace. Remus’s excitement was beyond anything he had known before. It was the dream of his life to meet other children and have, for the first time, friends and playmates.

School

Sorted into Gryffindor house, Remus Lupin was swiftly befriended by two cheerful, confident and rebellious boys, James Potter and Sirius Black. They were attracted by Remus’s quiet sense of humour and a kindness that they valued, even if they did not always possess it themselves. Remus, always the underdog’s friend, was kind to short and rather slow Peter Pettigrew, a fellow Gryffindor, whom James and Sirius might not have thought worthy of their attention without Remus’s persuasion. Soon, these four became inseparable.

Remus functioned as the conscience of this group, but it was an occasionally faulty conscience. He did not approve of their relentless bullying of Severus Snape, but he loved James and Sirius so much, and was so grateful for their acceptance, that he did not always stand up to them as much as he knew he should.

Inevitably, his three best friends soon became curious as to why Remus had to vanish once a month. Convinced by his lonely childhood that his friends would desert him if they knew that he was a werewolf, Remus made up ever more elaborate lies to account for his absences. James and Sirius guessed the truth in their second year. To Remus’s astonished gratitude, they not only remained his friends but thought up an ingenious method of easing his monthly isolation. They also gave him a nickname that would follow him all through school: ‘Moony’. Remus finished his school career as a Prefect.

The Order of the Phoenix

By the time the four friends left school, Lord Voldemort’s ascendancy was almost complete. True resistance to him was concentrated in the underground organisation called the Order of the Phoenix, which all four young men joined.

The death of James Potter, along with his wife Lily, at the hands of Lord Voldemort, was one of the most traumatic events of Remus’s already troubled life. His friends meant even more to him than to other people, because he had long since accepted the fact that most people would treat him as untouchable, and that there could be no possibility of marrying and having children. Even worse, within twenty- four hours he had also lost his two other best friends. Remus was in the north of the country on Order of the Phoenix business when he heard the horrible news that one of them had murdered the other, and was now in Azkaban, a traitor to the Order and to Lily and James themselves.

The downfall of Voldemort, such a source of jubilation to the rest of the wizarding community, marked the beginning of a long stretch of loneliness and unhappiness for Remus. He had lost his three close friends and, with the Order disbanded, his previous comrades returned to busy lives with families. His mother was now dead, and while Lyall, his father, was always delighted to see his son, Remus refused to endanger his father’s peaceful existence by returning to live with him.

Remus now lived a hand-to-mouth existence, taking jobs that were far below his level of ability, always knowing that he would have to leave them before his pattern of growing sick once a month at the full moon was noticed by his workmates.

The Wolfsbane Potion

One development in the wizarding community gave Remus hope: the discovery of the Wolfsbane Potion. While this did not prevent a werewolf losing his human form once a month, it restricted his transformation to that of an ordinary and sleepy wolf. It had always been Remus’s worst fear that he would kill while out of his right mind. However, the Wolfsbane Potion was complex and the ingredients very expensive. Remus had no chance to sample it without admitting what he was and so he continued his lonely, itinerant existence.

Return to Hogwarts

Once again, Albus Dumbledore changed the course of Remus Lupin’s life when he tracked him down to a tumbledown, semi-derelict cottage in Yorkshire. Delighted to see the Headmaster, Remus was amazed when Dumbledore offered him the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. He was only persuaded to accept when Dumbledore explained that there would be a limitless supply of Wolfsbane Potion, courtesy of the Potions master, Severus Snape.

At Hogwarts, Remus revealed himself to be a gifted teacher, with a rare flair for his own subject and a profound understanding of his pupils. He was, as ever, particularly drawn to the underdog, and both Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter benefited from his wisdom and kindness.

However, Remus’s old flaw was at work. He had grave suspicions about one of his old friends, a known fugitive, but did not share them with anyone at Hogwarts. His desperate desire to belong and to be liked meant that he was neither as brave nor as honest as he ought to have been.

An unfortunate combination of circumstances arose that resulted in Remus undergoing a true werewolf’s transformation on the grounds of the school. Severus Snape’s resentment, never abated by Remus’s subsequent respectful politeness, made sure that it was widely known what the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was. Remus felt obliged to resign and departed Hogwarts once more.

Marriage

As Lord Voldemort once again gained ascendancy, the old resistance regrouped and Remus found himself once more part of the Order of the Phoenix.

This time, the group included an Auror who had been too young to belong to the Order during its first incarnation. Clever, brave and funny, pink-haired Nymphadora Tonks was a protégée of Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody, the toughest and most grizzled Auror of them all.

Remus, so often melancholy and lonely, was first amused, then impressed, then seriously smitten by the young witch. He had never fallen in love before. If it had happened in peacetime, Remus would have simply taken himself off to a new place and a new job, so that he did not have to endure the pain of watching Tonks fall in love with a handsome, young wizard in the Auror office, which was what he expected to happen. However, this was war; they were both needed in the Order of the Phoenix, and nobody knew what the next day would bring. Remus felt justified in remaining exactly where he was, keeping his feelings to himself but secretly rejoicing every time somebody paired him with Tonks on some overnight mission.

It had never occurred to Remus that Tonks could return his feelings because he had become so used to considering himself unclean and unworthy. One night when they lay in hiding outside a known Death Eater’s house, after a year of increasingly warm friendship, Tonks made an idle remark about one of their fellow Order members (‘He’s still handsome, isn’t he, even after Azkaban?’). Before he could stop himself, Remus had replied bitterly that he supposed she had fallen for his old friend (‘He always got the women.’). At this, Tonks became suddenly angry. ‘You’d know perfectly well who I’ve fallen for, if you weren’t too busy feeling sorry for yourself to notice.’

Remus’s immediate response was a happiness he had never experienced in his life, but this was extinguished almost at once by a sense of crushing duty. He had always known that he could not marry and run the risk of passing on his painful, shameful condition. He therefore pretended not to understand Tonks, which did not fool her at all. Wiser than Remus, she was sure that he loved her, but that he was refusing to admit it out of mistaken nobility. However, he avoided any further excursions with her, barely talked to her, and started volunteering for the most dangerous missions. Tonks became desperately unhappy, convinced not only that the man she loved would never willingly spend time with her again, but also that he might walk to his death rather than admit his feelings.

Remus and Tonks both fought Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries, a battle that resulted in the public exposure of Voldemort’s return. The loss of the last of his school friends during this battle did nothing to soften Remus’s increasingly self-destructive attitude. Tonks could only watch in despair as he volunteered to spy for the Order, leaving to live among fellow werewolves to try to persuade them to Dumbledore’s side. In doing this, he was exposing himself to the possible reprisals of the werewolf who had changed his life forever, Fenrir Greyback.

Remus came face-to-face with both Greyback and Tonks at Hogwarts barely a year later, when the Order clashed with Death Eaters within the castle. During this battle, Remus lost yet another person he had loved: Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore had been adored by every member of the Order of the Phoenix, but to Remus, he had represented the sort of kindness, tolerance and understanding that he had received from nobody in the world outside his parents and his three best friends, and had been the only man ever to offer him a position within normal wizarding society.

In the aftermath of the bloody fight, inspired by Fleur Delacour’s protestation of enduring love for Bill Weasley, who had been savaged by Greyback, Tonks made a brave, public declaration of her feelings for Remus, who was forced to admit the strength of his love for her. In spite of continuing misgivings that he was acting selfishly, Remus married Tonks quietly in the north of Scotland, with witnesses taken from the local wizarding tavern. He continued to fear that the stigma attached to him would infect his wife and wished for no fanfare around their union; he swung constantly between elation that he was married to the woman of his dreams and terror of what he might have brought upon them both.

Parenthood

Within a few weeks of their marriage, Remus realised that Tonks was pregnant and every fear he had ever had surfaced. He was convinced that he had passed on his condition to an innocent child and that he had condemned Tonks to the same life as his mother, forever moving around, unable to settle, having to hide her increasingly violent child from sight. Full of remorse and self-recrimination, Remus fled, leaving the pregnant Tonks, seeking out Harry and offering to accompany him on whatever death-defying adventure awaited.

To Remus’s shock and displeasure, the seventeen-year-old Harry not only declined his offer but became angry and insulting. He told his ex-teacher that he was acting selfishly and irresponsibly. Remus responded with uncharacteristic violence and stormed out of the house, taking refuge in a corner of the Leaky Cauldron, where he sat drinking and fuming.

However, after a few hours’ reflection, Remus was forced to accept that his ex-pupil had just taught him a valuable lesson. James and Lily, Remus reflected, had stuck with Harry even unto their own deaths. His own parents, Lyall and Hope, had sacrificed their peace and security to keep the family together. Bitterly ashamed, Remus left the inn and returned to his wife, where he begged her forgiveness and assured her that, come what may, he would never leave her again. For the rest of Tonks’s pregnancy, Remus eschewed missions for the Order of the Phoenix and made it his first priority to protect his wife and unborn child.

The Lupins’ son, Edward Remus (‘Teddy’), was named for Remus’s recently deceased father-in-law. To both parents’ relief and delight, he showed no sign of lycanthropy when born, but inherited his mother’s ability to change his appearance at will. On the night of Teddy’s birth, Remus briefly left Tonks and his son in the charge of his mother-in-law, so that he could go and find Harry for the first time since their angry confrontation. Here, he asked Harry to be Teddy’s godfather, feeling nothing but forgiveness and gratitude towards the person who had sent him home to the family that gave him his greatest happiness.

Death

Both Remus and Tonks returned to Hogwarts for the final battle against Voldemort, leaving their tiny son in the care of his grandmother. The couple knew that if Voldemort won this battle, their family was sure to be eliminated: both were notorious members of the Order of the Phoenix, Tonks was a marked woman in the eyes of her Death Eater aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange, and their son was the very antithesis of a pure-blood, having many Muggle relatives and a dash of werewolf.

Having survived numerous encounters with Death Eaters and fought his way skillfully and bravely out of many tight corners, Remus Lupin met his end at the hands of Antonin Dolohov, one of the longest-serving, most devoted and sadistic of all Voldemort’s Death Eaters. Remus was no longer in prime fighting condition when he rushed to join the fight. Months of inactivity, using mostly spells of concealment and protection, had blunted his duelling capabilities, and when he ran up against a dueller of Dolohov’s skill, now battle-hardened after months of killing and maiming, his reactions were too slow.

Remus Lupin was posthumously awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class, the first werewolf ever to be accorded this honour. The example of his life and death did much to lift the stigma on werewolves. He was never forgotten by anyone who knew him: a brave, kind man who did the best he could in very difficult circumstances and who helped many more than he ever realised.

J.K. Rowling’s thoughts

Remus Lupin was one of my favourite characters in the entire Potter series. I made myself cry all over again while writing this entry, because I hated killing him.

Lupin’s condition of lycanthropy (being a werewolf) was a metaphor for those illnesses that carry a stigma, like HIV and AIDs. All kinds of superstitions seem to surround blood-borne conditions, probably due to taboos surrounding blood itself. The wizarding community is as prone to hysteria and prejudice as the Muggle one, and the character of Lupin gave me a chance to examine those attitudes.

Remus’s Patronus is never revealed in the Potter books, even though it is he who teaches Harry the difficult and unusual art of producing one. It is, in fact, a wolf – an ordinary wolf, not a werewolf. Wolves are family-orientated and non-aggressive, but Remus dislikes the form of his Patronus, which is a constant reminder of his affliction. Everything wolfish disgusts him, and he often produces a non-corporeal Patronus deliberately, especially when others are watching.

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Time-Turner

non fiction pottermore

Index ID: PMTT — Publication date: July 31st, 2013

New from J.K. Rowling

In spite of the many Muggle fantasies around the subject, time travel is possible in only a limited sense even in the magical world. While the subject is shrouded in great secrecy – investigations are ongoing in the Department of Mysteries – it appears that magic can take you only so far.

According to Professor Saul Croaker, who has spent his entire career in the Department of Mysteries studying time-magic:

As our investigations currently stand, the longest period that may be relived without the possibility of serious harm to the traveller or to time itself is around five hours. We have been able to encase single Hour-Reversal Charms, which are unstable and benefit from containment, in small, enchanted hour-glasses that may be worn around a witch or wizard’s neck and revolved according to the number of hours the user wishes to relive.

All attempts to travel back further than a few hours have resulted in catastrophic harm to the witch or wizard involved. It was not realised for many years why time travellers over great distances never survived their journeys. All such experiments have been abandoned since 1899, when Eloise Mintumble became trapped, for a period of five days, in the year 1402. Now we understand that her body had aged five centuries in its return to the present and, irreparably damaged, she died in St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries shortly after we managed to retrieve her. What is more, her five days in the distant past caused great disturbance to the life paths of all those she met, changing the course of their lives so dramatically that no fewer than twenty-five of their descendants vanished in the present, having been “un-born”.

Finally, there were alarming signs, during the days following Madam Mintumble’s recovery, that time itself had been disturbed by such a serious breach of its laws. Tuesday following her reappearance lasted two and a half full days, whereas Thursday shot by in the space of four hours. The Ministry of Magic had a great deal of trouble in covering this up and since that time, the most stringent laws and penalties have been placed around those studying time travel.

Even the use of the very limited amount of Time-Turners at the Ministry’s disposal is hedged around with hundreds of laws. While not as potentially dangerous as skipping five centuries, the re-use of a single hour can still have dramatic consequences and the Ministry of Magic seeks the strictest guarantees if it permits the use of these rare and powerful objects. It would surprise most of the magical community to know that Time-Turners are generally only used to solve the most trivial problems of time-management and never for greater or more important purposes, because, as Saul Croaker tells us, just as the human mind cannot comprehend time, so it cannot comprehend the damage that will ensue if we presume to tamper with its laws.

The Ministry’s entire stock of Time-Turners was destroyed during a fight in the Department of Mysteries about three years after Hermione Granger was granted permission to use one at Hogwarts.

J.K. Rowling’s thoughts

I went far too light-heartedly into the subject of time travel in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. While I do not regret it (Prisoner of Azkaban is one of my favourite books in the series), it opened up a vast number of problems for me, because after all, if wizards could go back and undo problems, where were my future plots?

I solved the problem to my own satisfaction in stages. Firstly, I had Dumbledore and Hermione emphasise how dangerous it would be to be seen in the past, to remind the reader that there might be unforeseen and dangerous consequences as well as solutions in time travel. Secondly, I had Hermione give back the only Time-Turner ever to enter Hogwarts. Thirdly, I smashed all remaining Time-Turners during the battle in the Department of Mysteries, removing the possibility of reliving even short periods in the future.

This is just one example of the ways in which, when writing fantasy novels, one must be careful what one invents. For every benefit, there is usually a drawback.

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Goodreads: J.K. Rowling on How She Crafts Gritty, Realistic Characters

non fiction

Index ID: GRANSW — Publication date: July 25th, 2013

Note: To celebrate the paperback release of The Casual Vacancy, Goodreads asked the best-selling author's fans to submit their questions about the book. Goodreads then chose five finalists and polled members on their favorite. The winning question was answered by J.K. Rowling.

The most haunting idea I was left with came from your gritty exposure of ugliness and weakness of human nature (it’s far too easy, after all, to write about the potential and existent beauty of our natures). How important is it to you that this kind of real-ness exists in your characters? And if your hope was to showcase this, do you have a goal in mind, in terms of how we can rise above or grow from humanity at its worst?
– Goodreads member Anne Gunden

This is a great question and I’m very glad it was chosen! Yes, it was very important to me that the characters felt like real people, with their confused motives and their complicated lives. Thomas Hardy, a writer who knew a lot about the desperation of poverty and of quiet rural lives, wrote: ‘If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst.’

I see the vast majority of the characters in The Casual Vacancy as trapped by circumstance, by their life choices or a mixture of both and I have especial sympathy for all five teenagers – Andrew, Fats, Sukhvinder, Gaia and Krystal – who are all suffering from what an astute reader described to me as ‘casual parenting’.

One of the things I thought about a lot while writing was how hard it is to change your life even as an adult, though some people face much bigger obstacles in doing so than others. Gavin Hughes, for instance (a character for whom I can muster very little affection or sympathy), is really blocked only by his own timidity and inertia. I find his total disengagement and his self-absorption unsympathetic and I must admit that (having my ignoble side as much as the next person) I rather enjoy Samantha’s goading of him. Then we have Kay, who has made a disastrous change to her life in moving to be near her disinterested boyfriend; Samantha, whose accidental pregnancy irrevocably changed her life and, at the fat end of the spectrum, Terri Weedon. She has been damaged so young and is so severely addicted, trapped among people who use or abuse her, that almost every aspect of her thought process, her emotional state and her external circumstances would have to be transformed to alter the course of her life.

Two major themes of the novel are hypocrisy and responsibility. I wanted to show how humans can have ugly feelings that they might prefer not to acknowledge; how we’re all caught up in our own problems and limited by our own life experience. To judge somebody else, to declare them substandard, to conclude that their misfortunes are due to inherent character flaws, can be a way of boosting our own self-esteem, because it must follow that our comparative success or happiness is not mere luck or chance, but the reward for superior morals or talent.
Yet none of that has to stop us doing wonderful things; perfection is not necessary to make a real and lasting difference to other people’s lives. Barry Fairbrother was not a saint in the eyes of his grieving wife; he may have stretched himself too thin in his determination to make a difference to the people trapped in the same kind of childhood he escaped, but had he lived, Krystal and Robbie would have lived, too.

You ask about rising above our baser nature to effect real change in the world and I feel that many of my characters do that at the end of the book. Colin shows real bravery, compassion and forgiveness for his deeply damaged son; has become Fats’ sole source of comfort. Kay has faced up to her own motives in moving to Pagford, resolved to repair the damage and been reconciled with her daughter. Parminder has recognised the bravery and the trauma of the daughter onto whom she has projected all her own dissatisfaction and insecurities. Perhaps most importantly of all, Samantha Mollison, who has been so discontented throughout the story, who has been scathing of the possibilities offered by government to make any real change, volunteers to join the local council. We are left with the impression that she will not vote with her husband; that she and Colin Wall will fight to keep the addiction clinic open and prevent more drug-related calamities.
The awful knowledge that she could have saved a small boy’s life has jolted Samantha out of her complacency and she wants to be absorbed in something bigger than herself. I suppose that is my real answer to the second part of your question: we need to become absorbed in something bigger than ourselves. That doesn’t mean that everyone should stand for parliament (God forbid); it is a more subtle business than that. If we make decisions in small matters in the awareness that our actions can have huge impact on others, we will begin to make a difference. If we choose to understand the other person’s point of view, if we make the effort to understand before rushing to judgment, all kinds of different vistas might become apparent to us. This might sound very little, but the effects could be world changing and many people would rather not do this much. It feels comfortable and secure to adhere to one viewpoint and not shift (I very much include myself in everything written here, by the way!)

In the final analysis, The Casual Vacancy was constructed so that when three characters walk past a small, unaccompanied boy who is wandering between a dangerous river and a road, we understand why none of them stopped to ask him why he was alone, or take charge of him. I chose each of those characters carefully. Gavin represents the utter apathy for which it is necessary (in the famous quotation) for evil to flourish. He cannot even remember seeing Robbie Weedon after he hears that he has drowned, nor is he troubled by the thought that he must have walked very close to the boy during his final moments.

Samantha represents the rush of everyday troubles that prevents basically well-intentioned people from concentrating on matters that do not directly concern them. She subsequently admits to having seen Robbie and feels deep remorse at not having acted. Samantha is also honest enough to acknowledge to herself that Robbie’s appearance made her less likely to help him.
Shirley represents a degree of unkindness that stems from her own basic insecurity, because her background is not so very far removed from that of the Weedons. I think it is very common for such people to be among the most critical and judgmental. She – not Howard – is Barry Fairbrother’s true opposite in the novel. Denying her roots and castigating those who remind her of them, she is the negative image of the man who admits where he came from and goes back to try and help others. Shirley not only sees Robbie and ignores him as she grapples with her own problems, she feels no remorse afterwards, merely heaping blame on others for the child’s death.

An interesting question is whether Howard would have stopped to help Robbie. I’d be fascinated to know what readers think, but I’m sure he would have done. Howard is a happy man, which makes a difference; happy people are often kinder than the unhappy. What is more, Howard can appreciate hardship and suffering when it is personalized. For instance, he pays credit to Cath Weedon, whom he acknowledges to have had a hard life and to have done her best in spite of all her disadvantages. Confronted with a dirty little boy wandering beside the river, I can well imagine Howard taking him firmly by the hand and leading him off the police station. However much I might disagree with Howard on many issues, he has his code, and it is not devoid of a decency that I think is absent in his wife.

This has been a discursive answer, but I was stimulated by the question!

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The Marauder’s Map

pottermore non fiction

Index ID: PMMMAP — Publication date: April 10th, 2013

New from J.K. Rowling

Perhaps no students (even including Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Tom Riddle) have ever explored the castle and grounds of Hogwarts as thoroughly and illicitly as the four creators and contributors to the Marauder’s Map: James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.

James, Sirius and Peter were not initially impelled to explore the school grounds by night out of devilment alone (though that played its part), but by their desire to help their dear friend Remus Lupin to bear his lycanthropy. Prior to the invention of the Wolfsbane Potion, Lupin was compelled to undergo an excruciating transformation every full moon. Once his condition was discovered by his three best friends, they sought a way to render his transformations less solitary and painful, which led to them learning to become (unregistered) Animagi, so that they could keep him company without harm to themselves. The ability of Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and James Potter to become, respectively, a dog, a rat and a stag, enabled them to explore the castle grounds by night undetected. The interior of the castle, meanwhile, was mapped over time with the help of James Potter’s Invisibility Cloak.

The Marauder’s Map is lasting testimony to the advanced magical ability of the four friends who included Harry Potter’s father, godfather and favourite teacher. The map they created during their time at Hogwarts appears to be a blank piece of parchment unless activated by the phrase: I solemnly swear that I am up to no good, a phrase that, in the case of three of the four makers, should be understood as a joke. The ‘no good’ of which they wrote never denoted Dark magic, but school rule-breaking; similar bravado is evinced by their use of their own nicknames on the map (‘Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs’).

The magic used in the map’s creation is advanced and impressive; it includes the Homonculous Charm, enabling the possessor of the map to track the movements of every person in the castle, and it was also enchanted to forever repel (as insultingly as possible) the curiosity of their nemesis, Severus Snape.

Although the precise circumstances surrounding the makers’ loss of their map are not given in the Harry Potter novels, it is easy to conclude that they eventually over-reached themselves and were cornered by Argus Filch, probably on a tip-off from Snape, whose obsession it had become to expose his arch-rival, James Potter, in wrongdoing. The masterpiece of a map was confiscated in Sirius, James, Remus and Peter’s final year and none of them were able to steal it back from a well-prepared and suspicious Filch. In any case, their priorities changed in their final months at school, becoming far more serious and focused on the world beyond Hogwarts, where Lord Voldemort was successfully rising to power. All four of the map’s creators would shortly be inducted into the renegade organisation headed by Albus Dumbledore, the Order of the Phoenix, and a map of their old school – no matter how ingenious – would no longer be of use to them except as a piece of nostalgia.

The Marauder’s Map was, however, of immense use to the young Weasley twins. The story of Fred and George’s acquisition of the map is told in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It was a mark of their high esteem for Harry Potter, and their belief that he stood in need of assistance with a destiny none of them yet fully understood, that they later gifted the map to him, unwittingly passing it on to the child of one of the creators.

The map was subsequently confiscated from Harry Potter by a Death Eater in disguise at the school, who recognised it as a likely source of his own discovery.”

J.K. Rowling’s Thoughts

The Marauder’s Map subsequently became something of a bane to its true originator (me), because it allowed Harry a little too much freedom of information. I never showed Harry taking the map back from the empty office of (the supposed) Mad-Eye Moody, and I sometimes regretted that I had not capitalised on this mistake to leave it there. However, I like the moment when Harry watches Ginny’s dot moving around the school in Deathly Hallows, so on balance I am glad I let Harry reclaim his rightful property.

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The Knight Bus

non fiction pottermore

Index ID: PMKB — Publication date: December 20th, 2012

New from J.K. Rowling

For witches and wizards who are Floo-sick, whose Apparition is unreliable, who hate heights or who feel frightened or queasy taking Portkeys, there is always the Knight Bus, which appears whenever a witch or wizard in urgent need of transportation sticks out their wand arm at the kerb.

A purple, triple-decker bus, it has seats during the day and beds at night. It is not particularly comfortable, and I would advise against ordering hot drinks even if offered, because the bus’s habit of leaping from one destination to another at a moment’s notice can result in a lot of spillage.

The Knight Bus is a relatively modern invention in wizarding society, which sometimes (though it will rarely admit it) takes ideas from the Muggle world. The need for some form of transportation that could be used safely and discreetly by the underage or the infirm had been felt for a while and many suggestions had been made (sidecars on taxi-style broomsticks, carrying baskets slung under Thestrals) all of them vetoed by the Ministry. Finally, Minister for Magic Dugald McPhail hit upon the idea of imitating the Muggles’ relatively new ‘bus service’ and in 1865, the Knight Bus hit the streets.

While some wizards (mainly pureblood fanatics) announced their intention of boycotting what was dubbed ‘this Muggle-esque outrage’ in the letters page of the Daily Prophet, the Knight Bus proved hugely popular with most of the community and remains busy to this day.”

J.K. Rowling’s thoughts

The Knight Bus was so-named because, firstly, knight is a homonym of night, and there are night buses running all over Britain after normal transport stops. Secondly, ‘knight’ has the connotation of coming to the rescue, of protection, and this seemed appropriate for a vehicle that is often the conveyance of last resort.

The driver and conductor of the Knight Bus in ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ are named after my two grandfathers, Ernest and Stanley.

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Marge Dursley

non fiction pottermore

Index ID: PMMD — Publication date: December 20th, 2012

New from J.K. Rowling

Marjorie Eileen Dursley is the older sister of Vernon Dursley. Although no blood relation of Harry Potter, he has been taught to call her ‘Aunt Marge’.

Marge is a large and unpleasant woman whose main interest in life is breeding bulldogs. She believes in corporal punishment and plain speaking, which is what she calls being offensive. Marge is secretly in love with a neighbour called Colonel Fubster, who looks after her dogs when she is away. He will never marry her, due to her truly horrible personality. This unrequited passion fuels a lot of her nasty behaviour to other people.

Marge dotes on Dudley, her only nephew. She does not know that Harry Potter , who lives with her relatives, is a wizard. She believes him to be the offspring of two unemployed layabouts who dumped their son on their hardworking relatives, Vernon and Petunia . The latter, who are terrified of the prejudiced and outspoken Marge finding out the truth, have fostered this impression over many years.

When Harry becomes angry with Aunt Marge, who has been insulting his parents, and loses control over his magical abilities, she is blown up like a barrage balloon. Two members of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad must be dispatched from the Ministry of Magic to deal with this incident and modify Aunt Marge’s memory. From that time forward, the Dursleys do not invite Marge to stay while Harry is in residence and he never sees her again.

J.K. Rowling’s thoughts

I regret making Aunt Marge a breeder of bulldogs, as I now know them to be a non-aggressive breed. My sister owns one and he’s the most loveable, affectionate dog you could hope to meet. On the other hand, they do look grumpy, and on appearance alone seemed to suit Aunt Marge.

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I feel duped and angry at David Cameron’s reaction to Leveson

non fiction articles

Index ID: ANGDCL — Publication date: November 30th, 2012

Note: Published on the The Guardian website.

If the prime minister didn’t want to implement the report, why were people like me asked to relive our painful experiences in public?

I am alarmed and dismayed that the prime minister appears to be backing away from assurances he made at the outset of the Leveson inquiry.

I thought long and hard about the possible consequences to my family of giving evidence and finally decided to do so because I have made every possible attempt to protect my children’s privacy under the present system – and failed. If I, who can afford the very best lawyers, cannot guarantee the privacy of those dearest to me, what hope did the Dowlers, the McCanns and the Watsons ever have of protecting their own children and their own good names? Those who have suffered the worst, most painful and least justifiable kinds of mistreatment at the hands of the press, people who have become newsworthy because of the press’s own errors or through unspeakable private tragedy, are those least likely to be able to defend themselves or to seek proper redress.

My understanding is that Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations would give everybody, whatever their degree of celebrity or their bank balance, a quick, cheap and effective way of holding the press to account. They would also protect the press against frivolous complaints and reduce costly lawsuits. At the moment, only those of us who can afford the immensely expensive, time-consuming and stressful services of the legal system are able to take a stand against serious invasions of privacy, and even this offers little or no protection against the unjustified, insidious and often covert practices highlighted by the Leveson inquiry.

Without statutory underpinning Leveson’s recommendations will not work: we will be left with yet another voluntary system from which the press can walk away. If the prime minister did not wish to change the regulatory system, even to the moderate, balanced and proportionate extent proposed by Lord Justice Leveson, I am at a loss to understand why so much public money has been spent and why so many people have been asked to relive extremely painful episodes on the stand in front of millions. Having taken David Cameron’s assurances in good faith at the outset of the inquiry he set up, I am merely one among many who feel duped and angry in its wake.

I hope that those who share similar concerns will speak up now and sign the Hacked Off petition. Cameron said that he would implement sensible recommendations: it is time for him to honour that commitment and join the other political leaders by supporting the Leveson recommendations in their entirety.

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The Sword of Gryffindor

pottermore non fiction

Index ID: PMSWORD — Publication date: October 18th, 2012

New from J.K. Rowling

The sword of Gryffindor was made a thousand years ago by goblins, the magical world’s most skilled metalworkers, and is therefore enchanted. Fashioned from pure silver, it is inset with rubies, the stone that represents Gryffindor in the hour-glasses that count the house points at Hogwarts. Godric Gryffindor’s name is engraved just beneath the hilt. The sword was made to Godric Gryffindor’s specifications by Ragnuk the First, finest of the goblin silversmiths, and therefore King (in goblin culture, the ruler does not work less than the others, but more skillfully). When it was finished, Ragnuk coveted it so much that he pretended that Gryffindor had stolen it from him, and sent minions to steal it back. Gryffindor defended himself with his wand, but did not kill his attackers. Instead he sent them back to their king bewitched, to deliver the threat that if he ever tried to steal from Gryffindor again, Gryffindor would unsheathe the sword against them all.

The goblin king took the threat seriously and left Gryffindor in possession of his rightful property, but remained resentful until he died. This was the foundation for the false legend of Gryffindor’s theft that persists, in some sections of the goblin community, to this day.

The question of why a wizard would need a sword, though often asked, is easily answered. In the days before the International Statute of Secrecy, when wizards mingled freely with Muggles, they would use swords to defend themselves just as often as wands. Indeed, it was considered unsporting to use a wand against a Muggle sword (which is not to say it was never done). Many gifted wizards were also accomplished duellists in the conventional sense, Gryffindor among them.

There have been many enchanted swords in folklore. The Sword of Nuadu, part of the four legendary treasures of Tuatha Dé Danann, was invincible when drawn. Gryffindor’s sword owes something to the legend of Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur, which in some legends must be drawn from a stone by the rightful king. The idea of fitness to carry the sword is echoed in the sword of Gryffindor’s return to worthy members of its true owner’s house.

Much like a magic wand, the sword of Gryffindor appears to be almost sentient, responding to appeals for help by Gryffindor’s chosen successors; and, similar to a wand, part of its magic is that it imbibes that which strengthens it, which can then be used against enemies.

J.K. Rowling’s thoughts

There is a further allusion to Excalibur emerging from the lake when Harry must dive into a frozen forest pool to retrieve the sword in Deathly Hallows (though the location of the sword was really due to a spiteful impulse of Snape’s to place it there), for in other versions of the legend, Excalibur was given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake, and was returned to the lake when he died.

Within the magical world, physical possession is not necessarily a guarantee of ownership. This concept applies to the three Deathly Hallows, and also to Gryffindor’s sword.

I am interested in what happens when cultural beliefs collide. In the Harry Potter books, the most militant of the goblin race consider all goblin-made objects to be theirs by right, although a specific object might be made over to a wizard for his life-span upon a payment of gold. Witches and wizards, like Muggles, believe that once payment has been made, the object belongs to them and their descendants or legatees in perpetuity. This is a clash of values without a solution, because each side has a different concept of what is right. It therefore presents Harry with a difficult moral dilemma when Griphook demands the sword as payment for his services in Deathly Hallows.

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Polyjuice Potion

non fiction pottermore

Index ID: PMPOLY — Publication date: October 18th, 2012

New from J .K. Rowling

The Polyjuice Potion, which is a complex and time-consuming concoction, is best left to highly skilled witches and wizards. It enables the consumer to assume the physical appearance of another person, as long as they first procured part of that individual’s body to add to the brew (this may be anything – toenail clippings, dandruff or worse – but it is most usual to use hair) The idea that a witch or wizard might make use of parts of the body is an ancient one, and exists in the folklore and superstitions of many cultures.

The of the potion is only temporary, and depending on how well it has been brewed , may last anything from between ten minutes and twelve hours. You can change age, sex and race by taking the Polyjuice Potion, but not species.

J .K. Rowling’ s thoughts

I remember creating the fill list of ingredients for the Polyjuice Potion. Each one was carefuIIy selected. Lacewing flies (the first part of the name suggested an intertwining or binding together of identities); leeches (to suck the essence out of one and into the other); horn of a Bicorn (the idea of duality); knotgrass (another hint of being tied to another person); fluxweed (the mutability of the body as it changed into another) and Boomslang skin (a shedded outer body and a new inner).

The fact that Hermione is able to make a competent Polyjuice Potion at the age of twelve is testimony to her outstanding magical ability, because it is a potion that many adult witches and wizards fear to attempt.

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