What Jo says about...
Magical animals, Beings & creatures

Please note: unless you see quotemarks, these are summaries, and not JKR's words themselves. Please see the linked article for the actual text.

• Aragog will appear in later books. [Read the exact quote from Barnes & Noble chat #2, 1999]
• The name 'Mrs. Norris' [Filch’s cat] comes from Jane Austen. [Read the exact quote from WBUR interview, 1999]
• The twelfth use of Dragon’s blood is oven cleaner, but JKR has "very good reason" for not telling us the rest. [Read exact quote from the San Francisco Chronicle, 1999]
• Jo says she does a certain amount of research into creatures and magic that people used to believe in, when she is writing about them. About a third of the stuff that crops up people used to genuinely believe in, the rest is made up by Jo. [Read the exact quote from the Diane Rehm Show interview, 1999]
• JKR speaks of researching specific ghosts, implying that one or more of the ghosts in the books are based on ghosts from folklore. [Read the exact quote from the Diane Rehm Show interview, 1999]
• The characters she created the very first day were Harry, Ron, Nearly Headless Nick, Hagrid and Peeves, then she developed Hogwarts. Conversations with JK Rowling, p.37-8
• "Gnomes eat the roots of your plants, and make little heaps of earth, like moles do. They are also a bit of a giveaway that wizards live in a house." [Read the exact quote from Scholastic chat #1, 2000]
• Is there something more to the cats appearing in the books than first meets the eye? (i.e. Mrs. Figg's cats, Crookshanks, Prof. McGonagall as a cat, etc.)
  JKR: Ooooo, another good question. Let's see what I can tell you without giving anything away ... erm ... no, can't do it, sorry. [Read the exact quote from the Scholastic chat #2, 2000]
• Dementors are a description of depression. [Read the exact quote from The Times, 2000]
• ‘Hedwig’ was a saint [Read the exact quote from the eToys interview, 2000]
• Goblins manage to get muggle money back into circulation after muggles have changed it into wizard money at Gringotts. (They are like "Fences" [British & American slang]). [Read the exact quote from the AOL chat, 2000]
• Dementors don’t breed, but grow like fungus where there is decay. [Read the exact quote from The Canadian Press, 2000]
• You can’t domesticate a dragon! [Read the exact quote from the Raincoast Books interview, 2001]
• Harry might get a different pet "at some point." [Read the exact quote from the Raincoast Books interview, 2001]
• Fluffy is roaming the Forbidden Forest, since "anything that is dangerous is released to the forest." [Read the exact quote from the BBC Blue Peter interview, 2001]
• Neville’s toad is "still lurking." [Read the exact quote from the BBC Red Nose Day chat, 2001]
• She named the 'Dementors' by experimenting with Latin words. [Read the exact quote from "Harry Potter and Me," 2001]
• To see the Thestrals, the death that you have witnessed has to have "sunk in." One of the reasons for this is that JKR didn’t want to have to introduce them at the end of GoF and not explain them. [Read the exact quote from Royal Albert Hall, 2003]
• Winky will "never be entirely cured of her Butterbeer addiction." [Read the exact quote from World Book Day, 2004]
• The phoenix is her favorite magical beast. [Read the exact quote from World Book Day, 2004]
• House-elves have "powers wizards haven't got (but wizards have also got powers that house-elves haven't)." [Read the exact quote from World Book Day, 2004]
• Crookshanks is not an animagus, but he is not pure cat either. The answer to what he is lies in the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• Why couldn't Harry see Thestrels before book 5? JKR: It is only after he sees Cedric die that Harry "really feels what death means." [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• Crookshanks is half-kneazle.[Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• Wizard portraits are not living or thinking entities, they are only a "distillation" of the real person. This "aura" can give advice or repeat catchphrases but not much more. [Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
• Ghosts can communicate more effectively with people than the portraits. [Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
• Ghosts were people who were very afraid of death. [Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
• Grawp will continue to become "more amenable to human contact." [Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
• Jo would have fun being "someone like Peeves, causing mayhem and not bothering." [Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
• If a teacher is head of a Hogwarts house, we can assume they were in that house; that goes for ghosts as well. [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• JKR: "Peeves isn't a ghost; he was never a living person. He is an indestructible spirit of chaos, and solid enough to unscrew chandeliers, throw walking sticks and, yes, chew gum." [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• JKR: "House-elves are different from wizards; they have their own brand of magic, and the ability to appear and disappear within the castle is necessary to them if they are to go about their work unseen, as house-elves traditionally do." [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• Hedwig's name was taken from St. Hedwig, which JKR found in a book of medieval saints years ago. [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• Dementors are based on hooded, gliding figures from Rowling's childhood nightmares. [Read the exact quote from the Prisoner of Azkaban DVD, 2004]
• JKR envisions Flitwick as "a very small old man;" she was surprised that he looked so goblin-ish in the movies. He does have a "a dash of goblin ancestry." [Added 6 April 2005] [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• Peeves "comes with the building" and doesn't really answer to Dumbledore. [Read the whole quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• Dobby did not know about the prophecy; he only knew what he could pick up in the Malfoy household. [Read the entire quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• Petunia knows about dementors because she "overheard a conversation" between Lily and someone else. But there is more to it than that; we will earn more in Book 7. [Read the whole quote from ITV, 2005]
• Fawkes has always been owned by Dumbledore. She will not answer a question about his role in the next book "which probably gives you a big clue." Fawkes is Dumbledore's possession, not a Hogwarts possession. [Read the whole quote from ITV, 2005]
• Mrs Norris is not an unregistered Animagus, but an intelligent (and unpleasant) cat. [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]