Potter: Rowling Herself Predicts Future of Harry Past Book 7
Semi-spoiler alert: But it’s what JK Rowling feels is OK to speak about now By Carmen Wong for Hollywood Today

HOLLYWOOD, CA (RUSHPRNEWS) July 27, 2007– Following one of the most successful book releases of all time, JK Rowling admits that she was originally going to kill off Mr. Weasley and as for the future of Harry she predicts that he will become the professor of the Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.

Ron Weasley (played in the movie by red-headed Rupert Grint) was due to die in Book Five but Rowling changed her mind at the last minute. “He was the person who got a reprieve. When I sketched out the books, Mr. Weasley was due to die in Book Five,” said Rowling. “I swapped him for someone else, and I don’t want to say who for the people who haven’t read it. But I made a decision as I went into writing Phoenix that I was going to reprieve Mr. Weasley and I was going to kill someone else. And if you finish the book, I expect you probably know and someone else who is a father. “

Rowling also explains that

The last third of book seven, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” is almost exactly the way she expected.

Rowling pictures Harry’s return to Hogwarts as the professor of the Defense against the Dark Arts. “I can well imagine Harry returning to give the odd talk on defense against the dark arts. And of course, the jinx is broken now because Voldemort’s gone. Now they can keep a good Defense against the Dark Arts teacher from here on in. So that aspect of the wizarding education is now provided for,” said Rowling.

NBC’s Meredith Vieira sat down in Edinburgh, Scotland with Rowling for her only television interview after the release of the seventh and final installment in the Harry Potter series. This is the first time Rowling will discusses the worldwide reaction to the finale of Harry Potter.

Rowling tells Vieira that she feels both a sense of achievement and sadness now that her series has come to an end. “I mean, I am sad. But I’ve been sadder,” said Rowling. “It was this amazing cathartic moment. The end of 17 year’s work. And– that was– that was just hard to– hard to deal with for about a week.”

Rowling has spent 17 years of her life writing and creating the Harry Potter characters and her life and her characters life are intertwined. “It’s very much tied into things I’ve done in my life for 17 years that brought back a lot of memories of what had been going on in my life when I started writing,” said Rowling. “Harry’s been with me as a result. I think it was that feeling more than any other that I wouldn’t have that world to retreat into again that was painful. “

During these past 17 years while Rowling has been writing her series she had dealt with the birth of her three children, the passing of her mother and the end of a marriage among many other things. “What is probably hard for people to imagine is how wrapped up the 17 years’ work is with what was going on in my life at the time. So it all– it all merges into one. But I was– I was mourning the loss of this world that I had written for so long and loved so much. I was also mourning the retreat it had been from– from ordinary life, which it has been. And it forced me to look back at 17 years of my life and remember things,” said Rowling.

The hardest part for Rowling to write was chapter 34 in the last book. ”That was partly because of the content– and partly because it had been planned for so long and been roughed out for so long. And to write the definitive version felt like a– a huge climax,” said Rowling. “I didn’t cry as I was writing, but when I finished writing, I had enormous explosion of emotion and I cried and cried and cried.”

Chapter 34 is when Harry goes back into the forest.

Throughout each book Rowling has left something out that she would have liked to put in but she does not want to write a prequel to the series. “Dean Thomas had a much more interesting history than ever appeared in the books for me. And you– you just see glimpses of it. But to write it really would take us into prequel territory,” said Rowling. “And that’s not really a place I’m– I’m planning to go.”

However, she has considered writing a Harry Potter encyclopedia in the near future. “I think I probably will. But I’m not going to do it tomorrow. ‘Cause I’d really like a break,” said Rowling. “In a way I suppose I have [started] because the raw material is all in my notes. But– I wanna take a break from publishing for a little while. “

The rest of the interview on NBC will be more in depth when Rowling discusses her life before Harry Potter, how the Harry Potter franchise changed her life, why she killed off some of her characters, what she would change in the series and whether Rowling will ever revisit these Harry Potter characters. It will air on “Today” tomorrow, Friday, July 27 and on “Dateline NBC,” Sunday, July 29.

Rowling’s Harry Potter series have sold over 325 million copies worldwide and the film adaptation of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” rank number four on the list of highest grossing films of all time and the other four movies are all ranked in the top 20. As of July 2005, the Harry Potter franchise is estimated to worth $4 billion and some even say she is wealthier than Queen Elizabeth II, who technically is the owner of many of Britain’s historical treasures. Rowling’s final Harry Potter volume, “Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix,” sold 72 million copies worldwide in the first weekend, according to Nielsen BookScan. Her fifth book made into a movie is in theatres now doing boffo business.