I think what is probably hard for people to imagine is how wrapped up the 17 years' work on Harry Potter is with what was going on in my life at the time. 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.

The ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.

Lord Voldermort Has Risen Again.

Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.

But Snape always seemed to hate me so much.

NO!” The scream was the more terrible because he had never expected or dreamed that Professor McGonagall could make such a sound.

It was his own grief turned magically to song.