What Jo says about...
Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ©2003

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

• We will find out the significant information about Harry’s mother in 2 parts: books 5 and 7. Both are "very important in what Harry ends up having to do." [Read the exact quote from WBUR interview, 1999]
• She says this about writing the death in book five:
  JKR: "Yeah. Well I had re-written the death, re-written it and that was it. It was definitive. And the person was definitely dead. And I walked into the kitchen crying and Neil said to me, 'What on earth is wrong?' and I said, 'Well, I've just killed the person.' Neil doesn't know who the person is. But I said, 'I've just killed the person.' And he said, 'Well, don't do it then.' I thought, 'a doctor' you know, and I said 'Well it just doesn't work like that. You are writing children's books, you need to be a ruthless killer.'" [Read the entire quote from the BBC Paxman interview, 2003]
• About what is going to happen in OotP:
  Couric: "Any snogging with Hermione?"
  JKR: (slight frown) "Hermione and Harry! Do you think so?"
  Couric: "No I’m kidding.
  JKR: "Ron and Hermione, I would say, have more potential (or did she say "tension") there" [some words were hard to hear]. [Read the exact quote from the NBC Dateline Show, 2003]
• Book 5 was a "turning point" for Neville. [Read the exact quote from World Book Day, 2004]
• Prefects can take points — Ron got it wrong on OotP. [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• Does the prophecy mean that both Harry and Voldemort need to die? JKR: "Both Madam Trelawney and I worded the prophecy extremely carefully" [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]
• JKR came close to using a chapter very like the opening one of book 6 in PS/SS, PoA and OotP. But it didn't fit properly until now. [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• We should be asking: Why didn't Dumbledore try to kill Voldemort in that scene at the end of book five? [Read the exact quote from the Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
• Alice Longbottom’s gum wrappers are merely a way of showing how extremely insane she is. She is not trying to pass secret messages. [Read the entire quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• The veil was created hundreds and hundreds of years ago at the same time the Ministry was created. It is only used for the research of death and not for executions. [Read the entire quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• JK won’t tell us if there will be another scene in the locked room in the Department of Mysteries. [Read the entire quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• Sirius' death was not arbitrary. Plot-wise, Harry needs to "go on alone and to give him too much support makes his job too easy." [Read the whole quote from ITV, 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]
• JK "always planned for [Harry] to want to be an auror." [Read the whole quote from ITV, 2005]
• "I think Phoenix could have been shorter. I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end." [Read the whole quote from Time Magazine, 2005]
• Harry had to have the near "breakdown" in book 5 to underline his humanness; however "he will rise from the ashes strengthened." [Read the whole quote from BBC-Radio4, 2005]
• Jo "drew a lot" on her sister's "grumpy" adolescence when she was writing scenes for Harry. [Read the whole quote from R&J, 2006]
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