03-J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life

The death of Joanne Rowling's mother was to have a profound effect on her writing.

In many ways, the whole of Harry Potter is one giant attempt to reclaim a childhood.

" You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us?

You think that we don't recall them more clearly then ever in times of great trouble? "

I'd been writing for six months before she died.

The weird thing is the essential plot didn't change after my mother died.

But everything deepened and darkened.

Harry was always going to lose his parents.

And it was always going to be a quest, really to avenge them, but to avenge everyone against this creature this being who believes that he can make himself immortal by killing other people.

So that's something I created before she died but, yes, it seeped into every part of the books.