Dobby

About the Author

J.K. ROWLING is the author of the enduringly popular Harry Potter books. After the idea for Harry Potter came to her on a delayed train journey in 1990, she plotted out and started writing the series of seven books and the first, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was published in the UK in 1997. The series took another ten years to complete, concluding in 2007 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The Harry Potter books have now sold over 600 million copies in 85 languages, been listened to as audiobooks for over one billion hours and made into eight smash hit movies. To accompany the series, J.K. Rowling wrote three short companion volumes for charity: Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in aid of Lumos. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them went on to inspire a new series of films featuring Magizoologist Newt Scamander. Harry’s story as a grown-up was continued in a stage play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which J.K. Rowling wrote with playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany, and which is now playing in multiple locations around the world. She is also the author of a bestselling crime fiction series, and two stand-alone children’s novels, The Ickabog and The Christmas Pig. J.K. Rowling has received many awards and honours for her writing, including the OBE and Companion of Honour, and a Blue Peter Gold Badge. She supports a wide number of humanitarian causes through Volant and is the founder of the international children’s care reform charity Lumos. J.K. Rowling lives in Scotland with her family.

HELEN BRADY lives in a village in the middle of the English countryside. She has worked for many years as a make-up artist in TV, theatre and fashion, but has always had a passion for drawing. Helen first started reading Harry Potter when she was a teenager. ‘I’d meet my postman on the drive when each new book came out and then I wouldn’t be able to put it down, day or night, until I’d got to the end!’ Helen thinks she would probably be a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff, but she’d let the Sorting Hat decide …