TheHarry Potter

Journey

The Making of ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’

Patricio Tarantino

Volume 1

The Harry Potter Journey - Volume 1

www.theharrypotterjourney.com

This book is not written, prepared, approved, or licensed by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Scholastic Corporation, Raincoast Books, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, The Blair Partnership, or J.K. Rowling, nor are the author or the publisher in any way affiliated with Warner Bros. Entertainment

Inc., Scholastic Corporation, Raincoast Books, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., The Blair Partnership, or J.K. Rowling or any other person or company claiming an interest in the Harry Potter works.

Harry Potter characters, names and all related indicia are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Harry Potter Publishing Rights © JKR

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

The copyright of illustrations and photographs belongs to the respective owners.

Author: Patricio Tarantino

Cover Illustration: Florencia Valenzuela

Many thanks to Germán Gallo for his photographs.

Why are there books about the Harry Potter movies? Why are there books about J.K. Rowling’s personal life? But why aren’t there any books focused solely on the Harry Potter books, in Rowling’s work, in the core of the phenomenon? The answer to the question I still don’t know, but the question itself was the first step into this book.

As The Beatles have the marvelous ‘The Beatles Experience’, a museum in Liverpool which relates the events of the band, I always thought Harry Potter deserves something alike. A place to reunite memorabilia and facts of the seed of all the trademark, franchise, marketing, movies and fandom: the books themselves. They are what started it all. They are the central characters in the story of why Harry Potter has gained worldwide recognition.

After a lot of interviews, trips and doing research, this is what I always imagined. Take it as the virtual edition of the museum, or the leaflet that you could take at the entrance of the place and keep it as a souvenir.

With a little luck, maybe in a few years this museum could be real, and this leaflet could be flying with the wind of Edinburgh or London. For now, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did doing it – the research was fun - and it is not only looking for old newspapers. One of the facts was discovered after looking meticulously to the weather record of the 1990 decade. Could you spot which one?

I want to thank Laurent Garcia, Allison Cola, Starr Sackstein and Dan Napsha for their help in the making of this book.

This book is to Belén Salituri, who is an author of this book as much as I am.

The STory

The girl with blue eyes left the entrance of the building and started walking towards Manchester Piccadilly Station, while the summer breeze ruffled her dark red hair. She left the flat of her boyfriend of five years in Manchester, as she had done in the last weekends when she visited him and went back to London on Sundays. This girl didn’t know -she couldn’t have- that a simple twist of fate was waiting for her. The next time she saw her boyfriend, she would tell him all about a new project, something new she was writing, something that could be publishable. But it was going to be some months before that text could meet other eyes than hers.

She walked by a newsstand where the front pages of the newspapers were showing economic problems throughout the United Kingdom. British Ministers were agreeing that recession was affecting most of Britain, despite Margaret Thatcher’s denial. The “Iron Lady” was going to lose her position at the end of November 1990, not so far from that moment, considering June had already arrived in the United Kingdom.

That afternoon, when the blue-eyed girl finally reached Manchester Piccadilly Station, she boarded the full train, but it was only after departing that a problem with the engine was discovered, which delayed the journey for four hours.

If those mechanics hadn’t taken so long to fix the problem, a lot of shelves would have different books today. That extra time was perfect: her mind seized the moment, and while she was staring at some cows through the windows, a new idea came to her mind: “Boy doesn’t know he’s a wizard – goes off to wizard school”. She asked herself why doesn’t he know about his abilities, and the answer was “dead parents”. Harry Potter, the character as we know it, was introducing himself to Joanne Rowling, a graduate student from Exeter who wasn’t looking for any inspiration but received the most significant idea in her entire life.

It was impossible for her to know in that very moment the impact it would have in the future. Hundreds of ideas come to people’s minds, and it is unfeasible to know beforehand how they will affect each person- and how they will affect the world. Even the people who shared the coach with her won’t remember that they had witnessed the birth of one of the (if not the) most important literary phenomenon of the last century.

“[I was] thinking of nothing to do with writing and the idea came out of nowhere and I could see Harry very clearly; this scrawny little boy and it was the most physical rush of excitement. I’ve never felt that excited about anything to do with writing. I’ve never had an idea that gave me such a physical response. So I’m rummaging through this bag to try and find a pen or a pencil or anything. I didn’t even have an eyeliner on me. So I just had to sit and think. And for four hours, because the train was delayed, I had all these ideas bubbling up through my head.”

When the train finally arrived at Euston Station, she couldn’t take the idea off of her mind. She got to her flat at Battersea and started to write until late night. The main concept was already in her head. She put pen to paper and wrote a first chapter –which never saw public light- completely different to the one it is widely known. What J.K. wrote that night was never published. In fact, the first chapter of the first book was going to be rewritten fifteen times before the final version.

The next months were not easy. Her boyfriend convinced her to move to Manchester, where she kept writing. It was during this time that she created the barrier that makes possible for wizards to reach the Hogwarts Express.

The story behind Platform 9 ¾ dates back to a tale that happened before her own birth. Jo’s parents, Anne and Peter Rowling, met at King’s Cross. It was a special place for her because of all the stories she had heard about it during her childhood. So, when she had to choose a train station, she didn’t doubt it. But her poor memory confused Euston Station’s appearance with King’s Cross’. Coincidence or not, Euston was the station in which her delayed train arrived in June, where she had the magical idea.

December came and with it, Christmas. Jo spent that time of the year in Church Cottage, Tutshill, visiting her mother, Anne Rowling, who suffered from multiple sclerosis. Anne was ill and died at the end of the year, without knowing about Harry Potter.

The loss of her mother caused her a sort of sadness that changed her writing style, and also changed one of the main themes of the first book: the death of Harry’s parents gained more importance. The sequence of the Mirror of Erised is inspired on this. Harry’s first encounter with The Mirror of Erised is one of Joanne Rowling’s favourite moments in her books because she always felt identified with the way Harry misses his relatives.

The coldness of December didn’t go anywhere with the end of 1990, and all the hard moments in Joanne’s life weren’t going to disappear any time soon, but be intensified. The beginning of 1991 didn’t start off very well for Jo, either. Apart from her loss, the relationship with her boyfriend was on the rocks, even though they had moved in together in Manchester. In fact, one evening (anticipating the future break up), Jo and her boyfriend had a fight, and she left the flat to spend the night in a small room at the Bourneville Hotel in Didsbury, a Manchester suburb.

She carried her notebooks and spent the night doing what she enjoyed the most at the time: writing. By that time, Harry and his friends (and Hogwarts as well) needed a sport, and in that very same room, Quidditch was invented. Joanne confessed she wanted something that mixed basketball and football. The bludger balls were inspired in her boyfriend and their recent fight: her anger was canalized through those crazy balls and her wish to hit him with them.

In reference to coining the name, Jo explained: “The truth is that I invented the word for a totally whimsical reason. I just wanted a word that began with Q. Don’t ask me why. Just pure whim. I still have the notebook in which I invented all these words beginning with Q. On the page, you can see where I wrote Quidditch, and I circled it five times. I just really liked the sound of it.”

By the end of the first part of the year, her relationship with her boyfriend was done. It was June again, and it was a month of changes for her, so she decided to leave the United Kingdom. After replying to an ad on The Guardian, she got a job in Portugal to be a teacher of English.

Autumn was almost there, and in September 1991, Rowling left her country for Oporto, a northern urban city . During the flight, the name of Hogwarts’ houses came to her mind. Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were scribbled down for the first time on the back of an airplane motion sickness bag.

In Oporto, she lived with Aine Kiely and Jill Prewett, both of whom appeared later in the Harry Potter story. While living with them and teaching to teenagers, Jo Rowling finished the first three chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Although it is well known that she used to write in cafés in Edinburgh, that kind of ritual started in Oporto. Majestic Café, established in the 1920s, was the first café where Jo wrote in longhand, to later go to her work and type up the notes.

Majestic Café, in Oporto, Portugal

It was in 1992 that she met Jorge Arantes, who was going to become her husband –but only for a year- and the father of her first daughter, Jessica. Although the idea of this book is not to discuss Jo’s personal life, it is worth mentioning that October 16th was the date of their wedding. A few years later, when she was writing Prisoner of Azkaban, she seemed to somehow remember that date because October 16th is the date Lavender is afraid of, according to Professor Trelawney.

After a final fight with Jorge Arantes, Jo and Jessica left Oporto heading for Edinburgh on December 1993. She sought for her sister Di’s help, who lived in Scotland working as a nurse. Jo carried her notebooks and the first part (“one third of [the book]” in her words) of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

She was a single mother with no job, and just a book in progress. With her little daughter, Jo moved in with Di and her husband Roger, despite the fact the idea didn’t look so good to Jo. On January 9th, Rowling gathered up courage and showed the book she had been working on for the past three years. Di was the first person to ever read a draft –and that was later thanked in the dedication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Di liked the story and encouraged her sister to keep writing for the next months. It was what Jo needed to believe in her work.

Rowling’s place in Leith, Edinburgh

With some help from her friend Sean Harris (who later earned a dedication in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and weekly aid from the Scottish government, Jo was able to rent a small flat in Leith, an old area of Edinburgh. She lived there with her daughter, and it was in that place where a year later she finished the manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

The summer of 1994 had arrived and Roger, her brother in law, purchased Nicolson’s, a café downtown in the city. Only fifteen blocks away from her new flat, she resumed her habit of writing in cafés there. Sitting at her usual table by the window and with her daughter sleeping in the stroller next to her, Jo was able to stay for longer periods of time just by buying a single cup of coffee because everyone at Nicolson’s knew her.

Every free minute was spent writing. At lunchtime and late at night when her daughter Jessica was sleeping, Rowling would write. She described her almost obsession with working with the book: “I would make ridiculous excuses not to join my workmates for lunch and was so cagey about where I was going, one colleague asked if I was having an affair”.

The Elephant House is another café where she used to write. It may be the most well-known one because it is where Jo gave a few interviews and was filmed working.

The Elephant House

Inside The Elephant House

Nicolson’s Cafe, now Spoon Bistro

Inside Nicolson’s Cafe

She again chose a seat by the window, where she had a magnificent view of Edinburgh (thanks to the city’s geography, the café is several centimeters over the rest of the buildings on the block). In fact, a cemetery and a school can be seen through the window. The George Heriot’s School resembles Hogwarts, while the cemetery has tombstones with last names known by Harry Potter fans: Potter, McGonagall, Scrimgeour, and others. But the most visited grave in the Greyfriars Kirkyard cemetery by Harry Potter fans is the one of Thomas Riddle.

There are many other interesting anecdotes about Rowling writing in cafés. She described a particular moment when she wrote a part of the story without stopping: “Only once have I sat down, written something end to end, and let it stand. That was the chapter in The Philosopher’s Stone when Harry learns to fly. I remember vividly - the old story we’ve heard a million times - my daughter fell asleep, it was a beautifully sunny day, I sat in a café, and wrote that chapter from beginning to end. And I think I changed two words. That’s very unusual for me.”

Every café where Rowling wrote The Philosopher’s Stone has become famous. The Elephant House has a sign in its front window that says “The Birthplace of Harry Potter.” While Nicolson’s Café, which is now a bistro called Spoon, has put up plaques both inside and outside the place.

George Heriot’s School

McGonagall’s Tombstone Scrymgeour’s Tombstone