J.K. Rowling’s biggest regret is that her mother never saw her Harry Potter books.
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The 42-year-old author began work on the worldwide best-selling stories about the boy wizard in 1990, but her mum Anne died before J.K. – real name Joanne – had the chance to tell her about them.
Speaking in a new documentary about multiple sclerosis – the disease Anne died from aged 45 – Rowling said: “I started writing Harry six months before my mum died. That’s obviously a real regret. I never told her I was even writing it.
“She knew I wanted to write. I’m not sure how seriously she took it, but she never knew anything about Harry Potter at all.”
The author is now patron of the Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland and has donated millions of pounds to the charity, as well as making a “significant”
donation to set up a multiple sclerosis research centre at Edinburgh University in 2006.
Meanwhile, fans are reportedly paying up to £1,000 a night to stay in the hotel suite where the author finished writing the final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Room 552 at Edinburgh’s The Balmoral Hotel has now been renamed the J.K. Rowling Suite.
The suite – costing £965 a night – includes the writing desk used by Rowling as well as the queen size bed she slept in, as well as the marble bust she signed after completing the novel.
The sculpture of Hermes has been scribbled with the words: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11th Jan 2007.”
A source at the hotel, said: “As J.K. Rowling finished her book in this suite we thought it would be a nice way to honour this.
“The room is exactly the same as when Ms. Rowling finished her book there. Fans from across the world book the hotel and specifically ask for the suite.”
The Harry Potter books have sold more than 375 million copies worldwide.
