HOGWARTS REVEALED

I have seen Hogwarts.

No, I am not making this up. I HAVE SEEN HOGWARTS.

“Unpossible!” you exclaim. “You are telling tales, mj. Tales made of lies interwoven with untruths.”

Oh, except it IS possible. Listen to my story. It starts . . .

OVER A YEAR AGO

Many of you have asked me why I go to England so much. There are actually loads of answers, including, “I went for the food but stayed for the weather.” But ONE of the reasons is that I worked on the Harry Potter 6 video game. I was the scriptwriter for the PSP and DS versions. The story of how I ended up being the scriptwriter for the Harry Potter 6 videogame and the GLORIOUS THINGS I SAW is a story for another day—specifically, a day AFTER the release of the film and video game. Until then, I am legally bound to keep quiet.

But I can tell you that I saw Hogwarts—the full and awesome virtual version. And I thought then that that was the last time I would be so immersed in the world of Harry.

I was wrong. Flash to . . .

LAST THURSDAY (WELL, LIKE A WEEK AGO THURSDAY)

So there I was, sitting at table, writing with The Others*, when I noticed many people Twittering about Leakycon, the big Harry Potter convention in Boston. I had known about this for a while because my friends John and Hank Green were speaking there, but didn’t think I would be able to go. “I’m too busy,” I thought. “I have THINGS to do.” But as the day went on, more and more people asked me if I was going, so I wrote that I would go if my “Accio Leakycon pass and hotel room” spell worked.

A half an hour later, Melissa Anelli, author of “Harry, A History” and one of the main organizers of Leakycon, wrote to me with passes and hotel room.

I looked to Robin Wasserman (one of The Others) and said, “What do I do?” And she said, “Clearly, you go.”

I was scheduled to be out late that night, and the train I would need to take was early in the morning, which meant no sleep. But still . . . I had asked, and I had gotten the answer.

“Okay,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”

FRIDAY

I boarded an Acela express train from New York City to Boston—a zippy 3 hours and 40 minutes. It was so freakishly beautiful that I decided to walk to the convention center. I got there just in time to hear John Green speaking with Cheryl Klein, one of the U.S. editors of Harry Potter. During the presentation, I started to realize I hadn’t eaten that day at all. As soon as it was over, I had to get up and get food. But when it was over, I found myself surrounded by several people, including the band The Luna Lovegoods.

“Let’s go get food,” I said. So we all went down to Au Bon Pain, where I bought every snack I could get my hands on and ate so fast I got cheese spread on my forehead.



My escorts.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur. There was a massive Nerdfighter gathering, and then we watched a screening of “We are Wizards.”

At some point, I began to the feel strongly that I needed to claim a house as my own. But this didn’t seem like something I could do by myself—I needed help. So, I turned to what has become my source of all information. I went to Twitter. “Twitter,” I said, “what house am I?” Twitter was pretty sure I was either Ravenclaw or Slytherin. I decided to go for Slytherin because I actually RAN INTO THE MALFOYS in the merchandise room.



HOLY CRAP IT’S THE MALFOYS

Once I had my house tie and my Harry Potter glasses, I felt a lot more relaxed and ready for the big Wrock show that night. I was told that this was in The Castle. And I was all like, “What castle?” Imagine my surprise when I turned the corner and actually saw A CASTLE behind our hotel. I have no idea why there is a castle in the middle of Boston, but there is. Part of it is taken up by a Smith and Wollensky’s steakhouse, but the rest of it can be rented out. It had been made up to look like the great hall at Hogwarts, with illuminated banners from the four houses, and a huge stage, and a big clock. I saw The Whomping Willows, Gred and Forge, and Tonks and the Aurors . . . and they were all AWESOME.

John, Hank, Katherine and I hung out at the show. I ended up meeting LOADS of people—people I’d been corresponding with for ages. It was like THE INTERNET CAME TO LIFE. I spent some time with Alex “Nerimon” Day and Kristina Horner. I met bloggers and vloggers and Twitterers and Facebookers.

I noticed many things in the crowd, like this girl, who has the Harry Potter call numbers TATTOOED ACROSS HER BACK in Harry Potter font. (The other tattoos are of the state of Texas and some Care Bears sitting on a rainbow, so you know SHE has some good stories to tell.)



Hardcore.

For some of the night, I realized I was standing next to Paul, aka Harry 7 from Harry and the Potters.



Harry and the Potters WROCK OUT.

“Hey,” he said, “do you guys want to be our dancers for the big final number?”

I didn’t have to be asked twice. When Harry and the Potters ask if you want to come on stage with them and do awesome backup dancing, you go.

There were five roles up for grabs in the backup dance: sexy Santa lady, 2 hip-hop wizards, and rubber chicken and rubber owl. Katherine and I passed on sexy Santa lady because the skirt was about two inches long. (This was eventually taken by Lauren from 5 Awesome Girls.) John and Hank took the hip hop wizards. Katherine and I took rubber chicken and rubber owl, which were large rubber masks that went over your head. Katherine was the owl. I was the chicken, which I didn’t really understand. Where is the magic chicken in Harry Potter? But I do not question Harry and the Potters. I am sure there is a magic chicken in there somewhere, perhaps in the epilogue.

Anyway, once Katherine and I had on the rubber chicken and owl heads, we realized we could not see AT ALL, because the things were so big they immediately spun around and blinded us completely. We might as well have had bags over our heads. So we each took a wizard escort. She went with Hank, and I went with John. In fact, I clung to John’s arm SO HARD that I think I bruised him.

So we heard someone scream, “Now! Now! You guys, now!” And I felt John move and I went with him. I made it up the ramp to the stage just fine, but immediately crashed into and fell over an amp. But I was so full of Harry spirit** that I felt no pain. I lurched forward and started jumping up and down while Harry and the Potters played “Smells like Harry Potter.” (I THINK this is what it was. It was a Nirvana cover, but at the end, everyone was screaming HARRY POTTER.)

Then I lost John, who was also pretty blind in his hip hop wizard glasses and bounced away in confusion. At some point, someone screamed, “Face the audience!” so I guess I was turned completely around and was rocking away to the back curtain. I attached myself to Hank, who had accidentally left Katherine to die by falling off the stage. (This was barely prevented.)



Katherine the Owl rocks out dangerously close to the stage edge, while I cling to a Brother Green.

When that was all over, we returned to the Leakysuite with something like 200 people. I remember falling asleep somewhere around 3am with a meeting going on right next to me on the bed.

SATURDAY

Saturday started three times. The first was at 4am, when we both woke to find a nice man from hotel security standing by the foot of the bed. He was there to tell Melissa that an attendee had just been taken to the hospital. She got up and went right to action, and I helpfully rolled over and went back to sleep. We woke up again right around 8 when the fire alarm went off and our floor was evacuated. This time, I had to get up as well. We dressed and picked up our laptops and stole glasses of ice water from a catering tray and made our leisurely way down to the sidewalk, where we were immediately told we could go back up again. I think I slept for a few minutes once we got back upstairs. Melissa, of course, was long gone, off running 25 events at once.

A little while later, I caught up with Hank in the Imperial Ballroom, and we sat around for a while, discussing the events of the day.

“Hey,” he said. “Harry and the Potters want to show me the best hot dog place in the world. Want to go?”

Having become a die-hard fan of Harry and the Potters the night before, I immediately agreed, even though I don’t eat hot dogs.

“I don’t eat hot dogs,” I said, “but I’d come to watch.”

So we all piled into the Harrymobile to drive around Boston in search of the world’s greatest hot dog, which was apparently in a very elusive cart in an industrial park. Well, first, Joe and Paul (Harry 4 and Harry 7) had to release the Harrymobile from the grips of the garage, which charged them billions and billions of dollars in Muggle money. After feeding a machine an endless succession of twenties, we headed out and almost IMMEDIATELY got lost. This is because Harry and the Potters usually travel by broom or flying car, and the streets keep them down. But we finally got back on track, and we got to the industrial park, only to find that the cart was not there.

There were sounds of despair from all around the Harrymobile. But Paul quickly changed plans and said that there was ALSO an awesome Vietnamese sandwich shop we should go to. So we did a few more laps around Boston and eventually took the Harrymobile back to the same exact spot we had started from and walked to the restaurant, which Paul described as having, “the dirtiest door you will ever see on a place where you would actually want to buy food.”

They took us to Boston Common and showed us their favorite sights, including a monument to anesthesia.

By this point, I was supposed to be on a train home to New York. But Hank said, “You can’t leave. You have to go to the ball.” And Paul said, “You have to stay. I’ll play Ghostbusters for you.”

So I missed my train and stayed on for the ball.

I sat around with Hank Green in his hotel room for a little while, telling the story of how the “in your pants” got started. We also noticed that one of the sessions at the conference was run by a psychologist who specialized in helping people overcome their obsessions with fictional characters, and in the last few years, she has focused her practice on people obsessed with Snape. We noticed this just too late, as I would have gone to that IN AN INSTANT.

We went to dinner with Chellie and Monica The Short Sisters, Paige, and Rachael. Then we met up with Joe DeGeorge of Harry and the Potters in the lobby and went over to the ball. Joe was so ready:



Joe DeGeorge was ready for the ball.

The ball, dear readers, was an epic, epic thing. I can barely describe it. There was so much dancing. Paul, Hank, Melissa, and I broke into the restricted area and got up into the clocktower and danced for the crowd. Melissa did some major dance numbers. Hank and I did a tortured romantic number to “Total Eclipse of the Heart” that ended with Paul pinning Hank down on the floor. Then we once again returned to the Leakysuite, this time with I think 500 people.

I took my place on the enormous bed and decided that I wanted to have a “lounge party,” which was just me being lazy and a party forming around me.

“I’m having a lounge party,” I said. “People should come in and lounge.”

For the first few minutes, it seemed like this idea might not take hold, but I am a persistent person. I invited everyone who even poked their head in to “come lounge.” And when I say “invited,” I mean, “ordered.” Pretty soon, the bed was completely full. I remembered seeing another rollaway bed in the main room, so I left my spot and went and got that bed and ADDED it to the big bed.



The lounge party.

Pretty soon, we had filled both beds, and all the space around the beds. We had about, I’d say, maybe 35 people on or around the beds. I got up to do something and LOST MY SPOT, and didn’t get it back until around 3 in the morning. At some point, I entered into a texting feud with Hank Green. A brave man named Colin stood up as my defender, and a wondrous battled ensued.



A wondrous battle.

Having given up on the bed, I took a rogue party into the main room of the suite to build a fort out of chairs and sheets we stole from other beds. This went pretty well for a while, but then the fort fell down, largely because we were holding it together with drumsticks and bits of a Rockband video game kit we found, and too many people tried to get in, and we got lazy. And then we locked Hank Green in a bathroom.

At some point after that, there was sleep. Once again, I think there were about ten people on the bed. When I woke up the next morning, I stumbled over the sleeping form of Voldemort by our door, and saw the ragged remains of our fort.



A sleeping He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and the ruins of the fort.

Though I caught Leakyflu, the virulent illness that overcame many people who were in the room that night, it was still 100% worth it. I may have infected many people at BEA (Book Expo America, a major publishing event) this weekend, but that’s just my way of KEEPING LEAKYCON ALIVE!

To see more scandalous photos, please friend me on Facebook. They are all there.

And next time . . . ADVICE POST. So if you need ADVICE, leave your questions in the comments.



* An unspecified gang of writers who will remain unspecified
** Butterbeer

ACCIO, STEWARDESS!

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “She promises to post every single day, and she gets to day three and fumbles.”

But when you hear WHY, you will stop shaking your heads, as I know you must be. And in the process, I can answer today’s ASK MJ question.

shausto-la said...
Did you hear about J.K Rowling being list of 100 Top Living Geniuses? Really makes you think twice about all those visits she made to you in the past..

Funny you should ask this . . .

So there I am, sitting on the nice Virgin Atlantic plane yesterday, all buckled in like a good passenger. The plane was pretty crowded, but I had gotten lucky—the seat next to me was empty. So I was all ready to sit back for a nice flight. A little reading, a movie or two, and some writing--including my promised blog--until my laptop ran out of power. I had a plan.

When the cabin lights were dimmed for takeoff. I was looking out the window when another passenger approached me from behind—I have no idea where from—and plopped down in the empty seat.

“Fancy meeting you here,” J.K. said.

She was in disguise again, this time wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants, a sweatshirt from EuroDisney, and a cowboy hat. There was a suspicious-looking bulge around her stomach area.

“Why I do feel this isn’t a coincidence?” I asked her, as we sped down the runway. “And don’t you have your own plane? The one you use to chase Alan Rickman?”

“I often fly commercial. It’s better for the environment. And Alan has stopped going outside as much. He’s even gotten very good blackout curtains, the cheeky minx, so I can’t even spy on him from across the garden.”

I felt the wheels of the plane leave the ground. I illegally unhooked my seat belt and stood to scan for more empty seats, but there were none.

“Don’t bother trying to move,” she said. “I made sure these seats were full. I wanted to make sure we were together. Here. I got us some snacks.”

She unzipped her sweatshirt, revealing what had to be the plane’s entire supply of mini pretzels and nuts. Even though she had offered them, and even though I didn’t want them . . . I did note that she didn’t look like she was really going to share her stash.

“I’ve been busy since I last saw you,” she said, ripping open a bag of sour cream and chive pretzels (yes, they exist). “I bought a dolphin. I keep it in a tank on my roof. Ask me what I named it. Go on. Ask me. Ask me.”

“What did you call it?” I asked dully.

“Fatso.”

“You named your dolphin Fatso?”

“It’s a family name.”

“Is it?” I said, gripping my armrests.

“That’s not what I came to tell you about, though,” she said.

“No?”

“No. As I know you know, because you mentioned it on your blog, I revealed that Dumbledore is gay.”

“Yes,” I said. “I am always glad to hear about positive gay and lesbian characters. Well played, J.K.”

She nodded.

“Of course,” she said, “I have more to tell the world. That’s why I’ve arranged this meeting.”

“Oh no,” I said. “Oh no, no, no. You always lie to me. I’m not going to be your little instrument of falsehood anymore. Go tell it to Fatso. He can go tell the dolphins. I’m done, J.K. Do you hear me? Done!”

I put in my earphones and turned my full attention to my movie screen, which wasn’t even on yet, because we had just taken off. I stared at it anyway.

“Obviously,” she began, ignoring my attempts to ignore her, “Dumbledore is not the only gay character in the books. The magic world is comprised in much the same way as the muggle world, population-wise, so there are many gay citizens.”

I took off my headphones and looked over slowly. This made perfect sense—unlike pretty much every other exchange I’d ever had with J.K.. So you can understand my concern.

“Right,” I said, guardedly.

“So I thought I’d tell you about a few more. For example: Helga Hufflepuff, Kingsley Shacklebot, Amelia Bones, Lee Jordan, Dolores Umbridge . . .”

“Umbridge?”

“The gay guys are not always the good guys,” JK said, again, making a fair point. I was beginning to think I had misjudged her severely.

“You’re right,” I said. “Please continue.”

“Sirius Black, Crookshanks . . .”

“Crookshanks, Hermione’s cat?”

“Do you know another Crookshanks? Where was I? Oh yes. Katie Bell, Professor Flitwick, the Goblet of Fire . . .”

“Now wait a minute,” I said. “Look, I appreciate the fact that you’ve stepped up and given the world such a shining example of a gay parental figure—I do. But the Goblet of Fire is a goblet, and there is no such thing as a gay goblet. And if you make any remarks about ‘flaming goblets’ I am going to call the pilot. Not the cabin crew. The PILOT.”

“You really can’t take a joke, can you?” she said smugly. “That’s why I like you. You are very, very literal.”

I didn’t speak to her again until the stewardess brought me my vegetarian meal. Since it was food, J.K. was extremely interested. Her hand was midway to my salad dressing when I gave her a very dangerous look.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said.

She retracted her hand and did the “I was doing nothing, what are you even talking about?” look. She tried to distract me by playing with the contrast control on my video screen and making my seat go back, but I never diverted my eyes from my food. This, I could tell, was getting to her. She almost broke the stewardess’s wrist when they finally rolled up with her tray.

“Let’s stop wasting time,” she said, eating a pat of butter right out of the foil. “Let’s get right to the Curse of Ravenclaw.”

THE CURSE OF RAVENCLAW

“Everyone in Ravenclaw has a very serious nut allergy,” she said.

“What?”

“All incoming students with pre-existing nut allergies are sorted into Ravenclaw, but the majority of students are actually given a nut allergy right after the arrival night banquet. This is why you will never see a Ravenclaw eating a peanut butter sandwich.”

“Do you ever see anyone at Hogwarts eating a peanut butter sandwich?” I asked.

“Not a Ravenclaw.”

“Or anyone.”

“Anyone who is a Ravenclaw.”

“What I’m saying,” I said, “is that I have never seen a peanut butter sandwich at Hogwarts, ever.”

“Especially not when Ravenclaws are involved,” she said, knowingly.

“I’m saying that there are no peanut butter sandwiches,” I said, growing annoyed. “Not just in Ravenclaw House . . .”

“Exactly!”

“No . . . let me finish. Not just in Ravenclaw, but . . .”

“Exactly!” she shouted.

She made a second attempt for the salad dressing. I smacked her hand.

“Why?” I asked. “What is the point of giving everyone in Ravenclaw a nut allergy? Is this relevant?”

“I wanted to illustrate the fragility of the human experience. The humble nut taking down a powerful wizard. You see?”

“But you never used any humble nuts in the books.”

“That’s what makes this such an exciting revelation,” she said. “Only I knew about the curse!”

“It’s not a curse if they give students a nut allergy on purpose. What you’re describing is a tradition. A highly insane tradition.”

“If you think that’s bad,” she said, “you should see what they do to the students in Quabblecrack.”

“What in the #&*(@ is Quabblecrack?”

“The fifth house,” she said, with a smile.

With that, we hit a patch of turbulence and the plane began to shake.

THE FIFTH HOUSE

“It didn’t seem worth mentioning at the time,” J.K. said, as we gripped our armrests and the flight crew went running down the aisle to secure the duty free cart.

“You didn’t think it was worth mentioning that there are FIVE houses, not four?” I said.

“I wrote up a description, if you want to see it.”

She produced a folded piece of paper from the pocket of her sweatpants. It read as follows:

The house of Quabblecrack was founded by Quentin Quabblecrack. He was a great believer in bureaucracy, and he invented many behind-the-scenes elements of Hogwarts, such as the complex magical spreadsheets that explain the pay scale for the staff, the impenetrable filing system, and the truly astonishing vendor approval process for all Hogwarts maintenance work.

The house symbol is the platypus. With its furry body, webbed feet, duck-like bill, pouch for young, and one poisonous spur, the platypus truly encapsulates Quabblecrack’s motto: “I am moved not by beauty, nor elegant design, nor simplicity . . . bring to me your forms, your procedures, and your systems of law, and I will make them complete in all ways. But print these things in block letters in number #2 quill, and make no mistakes. Also, please provide copies (in person, not by owl) and expect two weeks for processing.” The house colors are steel and smoke, which is pretty much just grey and a slightly lighter shade of grey.

Entry to the Quabblecrack common room is gained by a picture called “In the mail room at Gringotts.” Students must answer a long series of seemingly unrelated questions, and it is known to take up to three days to get inside. (The longest recorded wait was four and a half weeks, but that was due to a technical error inside of the painting.) As such, Quabblecrack students are frequently late to class due to exhaustion and confusion. Also, every student in Quabblecrack has a serious nut allergy . . .



The duck-billed platypus, symbol of the House of Quabblecrack

I put the paper down.

“You see,” J.K. said, “I created a lot of characters in my head. Certainly more than you ever have. I’ve read your books, you know, and with the exception of 101 Dalmatians, they’re pretty sparsely populated. And I don’t even think dogs count.”



101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith was published in 1956.

“Unlike you,” she said pointedly, “and many lazy writers like you, I have a cast of hundreds! But I made up far more characters than I needed, and frankly, a lot of them were boring and unusable. They had to go somewhere. So I put them in Quabblecrack. Lavingia Root, for example, is your classic Quabblecrack student. I never wrote Lavingia because she was so awfully, awfully dull and served no purpose. So I put her in Quabblecrack, where she is a prefect.”

“You mean that you made an imaginary house for imaginary students?” I asked.

J.K. made a sudden and successful lunge for my cheese as we hit an air pocket.

“Hogwarts is entirely imaginary,” she said with a chuckle. “Magic isn’t real, you know. There’s no such thing as Diagon Alley, or Hogsmeade, or the Hogwarts Express, or King’s Cross railway station.


King’s Cross Railway Station is a major junction of both the London Tube and the rail service. It does not have a nut allergy.

“That’s not the point,” I said. “You can’t just keep adding stuff you didn’t write. You can’t make an unwritten home for unwritten characters who were too boring to live.”

“Who says?” she asked, eating my piece of cheddar in triumph.

“Everyone knows that!”

“Someone,” she said, pointing at me with a food-stained finger, “makes a lot of dangerous assumptions. Now if you’ll excuse me, the pilot is going to give me some flying lessons. I think I can talk him into letting me land the plane if I let him have an hour in the tank with Fatso. People love dolphins.”

As a parting shot, she took my pillow. I think she ate it.

I hope this answers your question, Shausto-la. And I hope you have all assumed that when I said “every day for a week,” I didn’t mean weekends. I have a lot of mental damage to recover from, and I have to sign books tomorrow and talk to English teachers.

Please continue to send your questions, and I will continue to do my little all in providing answers.

EMERGENCY READER POLL

Friends, I’m in a bit of a pickle, and I need your help.

You may remember a while back that I made a bet with Scott Westerfeld that he could not put together a group trip to Dragoncon, where we would all sign and do events. I said that if he could arrange it, not only would I go, I would go wearing the Princess Leia gold bikini outfit.

Why did I do this? Because I’m an idiot.

Most of you are smarter than I am, and would know not to make such a bet with Scott. Within days, it was a done deal. So Scott, Justine Larbalestier, Holly Black, Cassie Clair, and I are all going to Dragoncon together—by train. Yes, we’ll be spending 24 hours on a train together, speeding southward, then four days at the con itself. (I should mention though that Suite Scarlett is due pretty much the minute I get back. How will I write a book while doing all of this? I am about to find out.)

I just looked at my calendar and saw that the time for DRAGONTRAIN comes closer. In fact, I really have only a matter of days to settle the issue of my outfit, as I have to go back to the London Office to lock myself in and try to finish the book before then. (On this note—you are likely to see some frantic “how to revise a book” posts soon.)

This is where you come in.

See, I’ve looked for the Leia bikini outfit. I thought it would be easy to get. Turns out, it’s not. Yes, I know some places online have it—but I kind of want to try it on first to make sure it fits. I went to the biggest costume store in New York, and they didn’t even have it. Cecil Castellucci tried to get one for me at that big 30th anniversary of Star Wars a few weeks ago, but I was painting my apartment and missed her call.

I have asked permission and been told that an alternate outfit will be acceptable. But I’ve never been to a con before. It’s all new to me. I don’t know what to get.

So I thought I’d leave it up to you. Below you will see some options I came up with. Please place your vote in the comments. In about two days time, I will have to make the final decision and get the outfit as quickly as possible.

Please give your selection and your reason for choosing said outfit. I will go with the outfit that most compellingly argued or most popular. If you have another suggestion, feel free to write it in.

Here we go.

ONE: THE LEIA BIKINI

Also know as “slave Leia.” I put this first because this was the original promise. Why is this so hard to get?

PROS: Shiny. I like shiny. Can swim in it if necessary.
CONS: Hard to obtain. May be cold. (Don’t they keep the air conditioning up high in Atlanta?) May be attacked by Jabba the Hutt.



The elusive gold bikini. Jabba not included. Hopefully.

TWO: CLASSIC LEIA

In second position, here is the “classic” Leia outfit—the white robe that we all know and love.

PROS: I can get this outfit. Will be warmer than the bikini.
CONS: Hair buns. I don’t really want to wear a wig. My friend Winchester Grey has a knit hat that looks like the Leia buns, but I don’t want to wear a knit hat around all day either. May be too 1977. Also, may be imprisoned by Darth Vader.


Is this the little black dress of con outfits, or just the last refuge of people who don't know much about SciFi?

THREE: WONDER WOMAN

Why? Ask the four year old mj, who still lives inside me, who used to spin around on the lawn in the hopes that she would transform, just like Wonder Woman did. (Best outfit change strategy ever. Ev-er.)

PROS: TOTALLY AWESOME! Also, Cassie Clare has a friend who actually HAS the outfit and said she would lend it to me.
CONS: Would require obtaining red boots. May be ticketed for illegally parking invisible jet. Also, may revert to four year old behavior and start spinning until I throw up.



By the power of Hera!

FOUR: MAGENTA FROM THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

Why? Well, I know the movie. I like it. And this is a straightforward costume.

PROS: Obtainable. I know the lyrics to all the songs. Would prefer not to Time Warp, but will do so if required. Also, it would allow me to make use of my new, longer hair.
CONS: May get dragged off to sing-along with Rocky fans or to spaceship headed back to Transsexual Transylvania.


Dinner is served!

FIVE: DEVIL GIRL

I’m going to Dragoncon to sign and talk about Devilish, so I figured this was at least relevant.

PROS: Costume easily obtainable as is very generic. Relevant to Devilish.
CONS: Costume is so generic as to be kind of boring. Frankly, I am not as into this idea. May poke self with horns. Also, when I looked up images of “devil girl” on Google, they were so filthy that the only one I can post is of a stuffed hamster.



Costume not as pictured.

SIX/SEVEN: BELLATRIX LESTRANGE OR TONKS

A bit of a curve ball! I could go with either the evil Bellatrix or the ever-so-good Tonks.

PROS: I am a Harry Potter fan, and know J.K. personally. Also, I could pull either one of these off without too much trouble.
CONS: I may be in a sea of Harry Potter characters. This may be too easy.



Will it be everyone's favorite Metamorphmagus?



Or Neville's enemy?

I’m counting on you guys. Please vote! Get your friends to vote! This matter is in YOUR hands now. That’s how much I trust you.

UPDATE AS OF MONDAY EVENING: Tonks has an early lead, but Wonder Woman is catching up.

The stats are:

1. Tonks (11 votes)
2. Wonder Woman (9 votes)
3. Bellatrix (4 votes)
4. Slave Leia (2 votes)
5. Devil girl (1 vote)

Magenta and Classic Leia: 0 votes. May be entirely out of the running.

One commenter points out: "I think Tonks would be chickening out some because it's easier and also, not as recognizable, I would think. Also - it isn't as "WOW She's actually wearing that?" which I think was kind of the whole point of your bet." Meanwhile, Cecil has come through with THREE sources of the Leia slave outfit since I posted.

Which will win? I can hardly stand the pressure! I think I'll have to call a deadline on this, so let's say midnight, tomorrow night.

Also, for those of you who get my newsletter, the deadline for the Girl At Sea picture contest is tomorrow! Get your entries in to win signed books in a special edition Harry Potter bag!

ACTUAL HARRY POTTER SPOILERS REVEALED AGAIN! THIS TIME, WITH MORE TRUTHINESS!

Friends, I am back in NYC. As my plane was landing (literally, at the same time), the water pipe exploded in midtown. This was my welcome home.

Don’t worry! We New Yorkers are a hearty people, and this is about what we expect from our infrastructure. Our standards of what should happen in a day are either much, much higher or much, much lower (it’s hard to tell which way this goes) than pretty much anywhere else in the US. And while we will notice a massive explosion of steam and asbestos, one that cracks a massive crater into the middle of the street and swallows cars . . . it doesn’t necessarily faze us as much as you might think. I’m sure I told you about the time that my bathroom wall exploded into flame as I went out the door, or the time the manhole cover exploded and flames shot out of it, high as a car roof. I like this kind of atmosphere. It makes me feel much more alert.

Before I left the London Office, though, I had another encounter. I wasn’t sure whether or not to tell you about this, so I gave myself the plane ride to think about it. I took the explosion as a sign that I should. Also, with the proliferation of “spoilers” and “important book reviews” coming out, I felt the need to set the record straight.

Some people didn’t believe what happened when I first met J.K. Rowling. As one commenter just wrote:

this is all a load of ****, you didnt see jk rowling, and her editor and pagers was bullshit, people stole copies of the book and told all, like she said, shes a fellow author so shed have no problem making all this up

I could barely believe it myself. Read on, doubtful commenter, and be amazed.

Two nights before I left, I heard a rapping at the kitchen window. At first, I thought it was the mad old lady who walks around outside of the new office. (Did I tell you about her? That’s been very fun. She walks around and around, starting at about 4 in the morning, screaming at the top of her lungs. The other day my alarm clock was literally her voice screaming, “I HATE CHILDREN! EVERYONE HATES CHILDREN!” It’s very soothing. She sometimes appeared at the windows or the door. The flat has a lot of windows, which are quite low, so I could literally turn around to find her looking at me from about two feet away, and that is exactly as reassuring as it sounds.)

But it wasn’t her. Nor was it the cat from the garden, who became my very best friend and ran for me at all times, haunting the windowsills and peering at me while I was working. There was a lot of window activity is what I’m trying to say, so I just assumed it was either our child-loving visitor or our furry-faced one.

But it was neither. It was J.K. Rowling. She was knocking and fervently gesturing for me to open the window. At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. Our last encounter had been rather awkward. But I decided that I really had to let her in. I opened the window, and she climbed inside, knocking over all the bottles we had carefully arranged there for the recycling bin.

“What are you doing?” she hissed. “What are those there for?”

“What am I doing?” I shot back. “Don’t you think I should be asking that question?”

She ignored this and looked around the room.

“Do you have any cereal?” she asked. “I’m famished.”

She didn’t wait for my reply. She saw the cereal boxes lined up on the counter and shot right to them. She grabbed a box of Special K with yogurt-covered berries, tore it open, and clawed around inside.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, shoveling a handful of cereal into her mouth. “I read what you wrote. My plan worked perfectly.”

“Plan?” I repeated.

“To mislead everyone,” she said. “Everything I told you the other day was a lie. Now I want the world to know the truth.”

“Why should I believe you now?” I said. “Plus, it’s been leaked.”

“Yes. And that’s why I want to set the story straight. If someone if going to leak this, I want it to be me. Now . . .”

She brushed some Special K crumbs from her lips with the back of her hand and pushed past me to get to the fridge.

“Get a pen and paper. And make some coffee. This is going to take a while.”

The following are the chosen bits of information that J.K. chose to share with me on this, our second meeting. Believe them as you will.

HP7: THE SECRET PLOT DEVICE

“When we last met,” I said, as J.K. gulped down some milk straight from the carton, “you told me that Ginny was a robot, Hermoine was Harry’s sister, Ron was a figment of Harry’s imagination, and Harry wasn’t in the book at all because he had gone to Spain. You also told me that book seven was all about Kevin Whitby.”

“Who’s Kevin Whitby?”

“The last person to be sorted in book four.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not about him. At first, I was going to make it all about Tonks, just so I could call it Tonks for the Memories.”

I gave her a murderous look.

“The secret of book seven . . .” she said, lowering her voice, “the thing that makes it different, more exciting than any book ever written, the thing that will make literary history . . .”

“Yes?” I said, reluctantly drawn in by her tone.

“Is that it’s a . . .”

“A . . .”

“It’s a . . .”

“A what?” I snapped. “An emergency floatation device? A tasty sandwich filling? A cure for the common cold? What?”

“It’s a musical.”

Without another word, I reached into the fridge for the gin and took a long gulp right from the bottle.

“It’s not even called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” she went on. “It’s just called Harry! This was the idea I had on that train ride, all those years ago. All six books have been leading up to a musical finish. Lots of books have been musicals. Mame. Mary Poppins. Cats. Phantom of the Opera. Mamma Mia.”

“Mamma Mia was not a book,” I said. “It was a song by Abba. But that is beside the point. Those were books that were turned into musicals. What you are telling me is that you have written a book that is somehow an actual musical, is that right?”

“That’s right,” she said, slamming down the milk carton. “Do you have any more cereal?”

“No. How can this be possible?”

“I guess you ate it all. Selfish.”

“I mean about the book musical thing,” I said sternly. “What? Does it sing? Does it dance?”

“You just read it,” she said. “And you experience it like a musical.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I am J.K. Rowling,” she said. “I am capable of anything! I am MAGIC!”

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WITH SNAPE?

I decided to let that go for a moment and get to something that all Potter fans can get their heads around.

“One of the things everyone really wants to know—musically or not—is whether or not Snape is evil,” I said. “So what’s the deal with that?”

“Snape,” she said, getting up to go through the cupboards, “is my greatest creation. I love Alan Rickman. Don’t you love Alan Rickman?”

“He’s a very good actor,” I said.

“Sometimes,” she said dreamily, “I have my pilot fly my plane over his house, very low. You should see him run as we come swooping down over his lawn. It is very, very beautiful to watch. I do that with all the actors, actually, but he is my favorite.”

“But what about the question?” I asked. “Good or bad? I mean, he did kill Dumbledore.”

“Who? Alan Rickman?”

“No. Snape.”

“I don’t think Alan Rickman has ever killed anyone,” she said, munching some uncooked spaghetti right out of the box. “But if he did, I would forgive him.”

“Okay,” I said in desperation, “when Alan Rickman is playing Snape, is he playing a good Snape or a bad Snape?”

“You want to know if Snape was actually killing Dumbledore according to a pre-arranged plan . . . maybe even one set by Dumbledore himself. And that’s why Snape simply blocks Harry’s curses at the end of the Half-Blood Prince instead of just killing him, when he clearly could kill him.”

“Yes!” I said. “Yes! That’s exactly what I want to know.”

“Alan Rickman asked me the same question,” she said. “When I had him locked in my basement.”

I stiffened, but she went on crunching the spaghetti and smiling in a very creepy manner.

“The answer is obvious, of course,” she said. “All the evidence is there. Actually if you just read the chapter at Spinner’s End carefully, the one with the Unbreakable Vow . . .”

“I think I follow you,” I said. “Snape takes the Unbreakable Vow in order not to give his position away in front of Bellatrix, but Dumbledore’s death is pre-arranged, maybe part of some prophesy. I mean, Dumbledore knows all about it . . . though he does seem surprised that Snape does it. But maybe that’s all part of helping Snape keep his cover and . . .”

“God, you do go on,” she said. “The thing you need to know is that in book seven, Snape is laid bare.”

“We get to learn his mysterious past?”

“No. He’s naked. I stripped him of his clothes. They’re making a movie of book seven, you know. With the same actors!”

“But what about Snape’s goodness or evilness?”

“Who cares?” she said. “I certainly don’t. I care about his nakedness. Alan works out. A lot.”

I decided to leave the matter alone, largely because I was frightened.



Alan Rickman would like to come out of the basement now.

HARRY: DEAD VS. ALIVE

“Okay,” I said, “since we know that Harry is actually in the book . . . I have to ask you the big question again.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “Harry. Does he live? That’s what you want to know.”

“Me and the rest of the world.”

“Fine. I’ll tell you. But we have to discuss this from a musical perspective. You see, whenever I am confused in life, I ask myself, “What would Andrew Lloyd Webber do?” Although, on some days I ask myself, “What would Britney Spears do?” You’d be amazed how many times I get the same answer. Are you sure you don’t have any more cereal? Those breadsticks were awful.”

“Does he live or die?” I finally screamed. “This is not a hard question! Not for you!”

She reeled and stepped back a bit.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s Ron and Hermione. They die. Snape is evil. The final horcrux is Harry’s scar. Hogwarts is destroyed.”

It was my turn to stagger. These sounded like actual, possible spoilers.

“Hogwarts?” I mumbled. “Destroyed? Ron dies? This is horrible.”

“I know,” she said sympathetically. “Ron really dies a very slow and horrible death, too. It goes on for five chapters. Oh, and then Harry dies at the very, very end. Hagrid too. And Hedwig. Basically, all characters whose names start with H, or who you like, die. Neville dies. Luna dies. Ginny seems like she’s going to live, but then she dies. ”

“No!”

“What can you do?” she said with a shrug.

“You can do something! You wrote it! You can make it all better! This is a nightmare!”

“You wanted to know,” she said. “Also, Diagon Alley? That burns down. And the Hogwarts Express? It gets eaten by a dragon.”

“Does anyone survive?” I asked, horrified.

“Sure. Kevin Whitby does.”

“Kevin Whitby again,” I said. “A minute ago you didn’t even remember him.”

“I was testing you,” she said. “To see if you remembered who he was. You passed with flying colors.”

“So, you’re saying that absolutely everyone dies, except Kevin Whitby, and maybe Snape, who’s naked. It’s just rubble, bodies, Snape’s naked butt, and Whitby. What about Voldemort?”

“Have you ever seen Kevin Whitby and Voldemort in the same place?”

“What?”

“Just kidding,” she said.

I opened the window and gestured towards it.

“I think you should leave,” I said.

She shuffled over very reluctantly.

“I like you,” she said, as she climbed back out.

When she was gone, I cleaned up the kitchen and sat down to think it all over. I could hear Rowling scratching at the window, wanting to tell me more spoilers, but I did not let her in. I thought of poor Alan Rickman, running for his life, possible naked, as she barreled down on him in her plane. Power had driven her mad.

But she is kind of right about Alan Rickman.

HARRY POTTER SECRETS REVEALED!

Guys, you will never guess what happened to me.

I stopped in Starbucks this morning while I was out, and I noticed a woman in the corner. She was wearing what seemed like an obvious disguise—an oversized sweatshirt that said “I love London,” a floppy wool hat, sunglasses, and a fake moustache. At first, I thought I was imagining things. Though she was clearly trying to hide, I could tell it was J.K. Rowling.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Just because you are in England dosn't mean you will see J.K. Rowling. But she has to be SOMEWHERE, doesn't she? And apparently, somewhere happens to be in the Starbucks at the end of the road.

To be honest, I was surprised to see her in this state—disheveled, obviously nervous, sitting around in a Starbucks in the middle of the day with fake facial hair on. I bought an extra coffee and approached her carefully. She started when I came near, but when I set down the coffee and identified myself as a fellow author, she relaxed a little. We authors have an unspoken bond like that. She snatched the coffee and drank it in big, sloppy slurps, then glanced around the room with frightened eyes.

“I can’t take it anymore, mj,” she said. “Do you have any idea what it’s like? Everyone in the entire world wants to know what happens in Harry Potter seven. And you know who knows the answer? Me, my editor, and two other people who set the pages. This morning? A van came around, took my editor away. They say she’s being kept in a volcano until the release. They killed the other two. I heard they fed one of them into a woodchipper, and the other was encased in cement. That's how much keeping this secret is worth. I just escaped this morning. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it in. I won’t last until the 21st.”

I wasn’t sure if any of this was true, but I had to admit, it is a lot of pressure.

“Relax, J.K.,” I said, coming closer. “I am the soul of discretion. Tell me all about it and get it off your mind. What happens in the last book?”

She took off the sunglasses and looked me in the eye.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell you. Maybe that’s the only way I can stay sane. But once I tell you, you’ll be in danger, too.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I have plans to get a stun gun. Lay it on me.”

The following is all 100% true. Please don't spread it around too much, or the book will be ruined for everyone.

DRACO AND NEVILLE

“Let’s start with Draco,” I said. “When we last saw him, he was punking out his job. He couldn’t kill Dumbledore. What was with that?”

“You must know where Draco’s headed,” J.K. said.

“Hell? In a handbasket?”

“Try Paris. Milan. New York. Draco goes into fashion.”

“Fashion?” I repeated.

“Draco has always had an interest in labels. You’ve seen him on Diagon Alley. His eventual goal is to design upscale handbags, sunglasses, and footwear. He does all of the outfits for the final battle between good and evil . . . you know, because no more Hogwarts, no more school uniform. Part of this final battle takes place on the catwalk. Guess who does the outfits for good! Go on! Guess!”

“That guy who does the robes?” I offered.

“Neville,” she said smugly.

“Neville?”

“Yep.”

“Wasn’t Neville almost the Chosen One?”

“Yep.”

“And isn’t Draco the kind of evil Chosen One?”

“Yep. And here’s the exciting part. Their conflicting styles and viewpoints result in a tantalizing dance of fabrics and colors. They eventually team up to form the house of Longbottom and Malfoy.”

“Draco and Neville form a fashion company together? That’s really not what I expected.”

“That’s why I am a record-breaking author,” she said. “I give people the unexpected.”

She adjusted her moustache. I was feeling a bit weird about this news, but she was right. She does deliver the unexpected. I decided to move on to a character from a family I admire deeply—the Weasleys.



Draco hates what you’re wearing.

GINNY

“Ginny’s a robot,” J.K. said offhandedly, eyeing the cakes in the dessert case.

“But she’s Ron’s sister,” I replied with a start.

“Robot.”

“But . . .”

“Ron doesn’t know,” she said with a sigh. “That’s one of the major reveals. Ginny gets attacked, and her arm is blasted off and all of these wires come out. Cho Chang is too. All the girls Harry make out with or like are robots. All those French girls in the fourth book were robots. Every last one of them.”

“But . . . why? And how would Ron not know that his sister was a robot? And how would HARRY not know?”

“They are very sophisticated robots. She was adopted from a robot farm.”

“Did you just say robot farm?”

“I am J.K. Rowling,” she explained. “I can do what I want. Now get me a muffin.”

RON

I returned with two muffins. I let J.K. choose which one she wanted, because I wanted to get her in the right mood for my personal big question.

“Ron’s my favorite,” I confessed, giggling and going all pink.

J.K. looked at me with deep compassion. Or dislike. It was hard to tell.

“Then you won’t like what I’m about to tell you,” she said, clawing at the lemon poppy seed muffin.

I gripped the table.

“Please,” I begged. “Please, don’t tell me you killed Ron. That’s my worst Harry Potter nightmare.”

“I didn’t need to.”

“What does that mean?” I gasped.

“There is no Ron.”

I stared at her. She didn’t blink. For like two minutes. I began to wonder if J.K. was entirely human.

“Ron was all a dream,” she said.

I didn’t reply.

“It was obvious,” she went on. “The first person Harry meets. The one person no one else seems to see or talk to . . .”

“Everyone talks to Ron!”

“In Harry’s mind.”

“Ron is there,” I said firmly. “He drives the flying car into the Whomping Willow. He gets taken to the bottom of the lake in The Goblet of Fire and Harry has to rescue him. He becomes the Quidditch Keeper.”

“It’s all in Harry’s head.”

“You’re making this into a poor man’s version of A Beautiful Mind. And the ‘it was all a dream’ device is the worst ending ever! It doesn’t even make sense!”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t hear you over my millions and millions of fans. What were you saying?”

I cleared my throat, and she devoured her muffin in three bites.

“Let’s move on,” I said.

“Let’s,” she said.



Just a dream. A beautiful dream.

HERMOINE

“Well, then,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “What are you going to tell me about Hermione? You’ve covered robots and dreams, so what is she? A hologram?”

“Don’t be stupid,” J.K. said. “The fans would never buy that. Hermione is a normal girl.”

“So . . .”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

“Surprise me.”

“What, are you dumb?” she asked.

I refused to answer this question. She finally smiled a bit.

“She’s . . . Harry’s . . . sister.”

“You mean . . . like Luke and Leia in Star Wars?”

“What’s Star Wars?” she asked.

“Star Wars!”

“I don’t watch much television. What is that? A reality show? Like American Idol?”

“It’s a movie!” I exclaimed. “A very famous movie. Darth Vader, the Dark Side, the Death Star, may the Force be with you? Is any of this sounding familiar?”

“Vaguely,” she said. “Is this one where, if you get the monsters wet, they multiply? All those little monsters with the cute names . . . Gizmo, Frodo, Bilbo. So they have to go back in time in a 1980s car to get rid of them?”

“That was Gremlins,” I said. “And the Lord of the Rings, and Back the Future. I’m talking about Star Wars. Does the word Jedi mean nothing to you?”

“Is it a kind of cheese?”

“Look,” I said. “Luke is the hero, and Leia is the heroine, and you eventually find out that they are brother and sister after they fight side by side against evil over the course of several stories. And there is a third member of the group, a kind of funny, unlikely hero called Han, not unlike Ron.”

“Completely different.”

“No it isn’t! And Star Wars might be the only thing more famous than Harry Potter!”

For the first time, there was a flicker of concern. Then she swung her arm wide and knocked my muffin to the floor.

“Looks like someone needs a new snack,” she said.

I grumbled and went to the counter for a new muffin. While I was up there, I heard frantic scribbling behind me.

“Like I was saying,” she said, brushing eraser scratchings off the page, “that’s so derivative. Hermione ends up with Ron.”

“You mean like Leia and Han.”

“Who wrote this War Stars, anyway?” she snapped. “And which one of us is getting their own theme park? Hmmm? I rest my case. Next question.”


Somehow related to someone, or possibly dating someone. No matter what, Obi Wan is her only hope.

HARRY

“We’ve reached the big one,” I said. “And I can barely wait to hear what you have to say about this.”

“Oh, right,” she said with a yawn. “Harry, right?”

“Right.”

“People seem so hung up on him,” she said. “I never understood why.”

“Maybe because you called the books HARRY POTTER.”

She nodded thoughtfully, as though she had never considered this before.

“So . . . what’s the story. Does he die or doesn’t he?”

She stirred her coffee for what felt like ages, until I “accidentally” kicked her under the table.

“Oh, sorry . . .” she said. “I was miles away. You were asking about Harry, right?”

“Yes . . .”

“And you wanted to know whether what? Whether he dies or not?”

“Yes . . .”

“Well, I have no idea.”

“What?”

“Harry’s not in the seventh book.”

I had to get up and go to the bathroom and put my head in the sink for a moment. When I came back, I caught the last sight of my muffin being hastily shoved into J.K.’s mouth.

“They cleared the table,” she lied, coughing out crumbs. “And your muffin . . .”

“Whatever.” I sat down and folded my hands on top of the table. “So, tell me. What possessed you to leave Harry out of the seventh book, and where might he have gone?”

“I’m so bored of him,” she said, slumping petulantly. “So I sent him off to do a year abroad. In Spain.”

“Spain.”

“Yes,” she replied. “He’s in Spain.”

“And presumably, since Ron is apparently a figure of Harry’s imagination, he’s not in it either.”

“No.”

“So who is in it?”

“The seventh book,” she said, “is mostly about Kevin Whitby.”

“Who is Kevin Whitby?”

“You know. Kevin Whitby. The last student to be sorted by the sorting hat in book four. He’s a bit of a mysterious one.”

“By mysterious, do you mean ‘not really in the books at all except for that one mention one time.’ Is that what you mean?”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like?” she asked. “That stupid name is all I’ve heard for the last ten years—and it took me seven years before that to write the first book. I am so sick of Harry Potter. So from now on, it’s all about Kevin Whitby.”

“Does Kevin Whitby have an exciting past involving Voldemort? A scar? A destiny?”

“No. He’s just looking for a girlfriend who isn’t a robot.”

“I see.”

We fell into an uncomfortable silence.

“I’m going to go,” I finally said.

“That’s probably for the best,” she replied. “You won’t tell anyone what I’ve told you, will you?”

“Never,” I said. “My lips are sealed until the 21st.”

When I last saw her, J.K. Rowling was running down the street, cutting in and out of traffic, and flipping off the cars that honked at her. I wasn’t sure whether or not I should reveal the contents of our conversation, but in the end, I decided that you had to know, just so you could brush up on your Kevin Whitby trivia.

You guys can keep a secret, right?