Hey everyone, welcome to another instalment of Harry Potter Theory.

Today I've got something quite a bit different for you guys, as we're going to be diving

into a segment from the autobiography of J.K. Rowling, published over a decade ago on her old

website, where she discusses the

struggles she faced in life as she wrote the first Harry Potter novel. Among many other things,

we find out how she chose the name Potter, who the Chamber of Secrets was dedicated to,

how the book nearly failed completion, and how the book was eventually published.

Let's get into it. My mother and father were both Londoners. They met on a train traveling from

Kings Cross Station to Arbreath in Scotland when they were both 18. My father was off to join the

Royal Navy, my mother to join the WR.

N.S., the women's equivalent. My mother said she was cold. My father offered her a half share

in his coat, and they got married just over a year later, when they were 19. Both left the

navy and moved to the outskirts of Bristol in the west of

England. My mother gave birth to me when she was 20. I was a rotund baby. The description in the

philosopher's stone of the photographs of what appeared to be a beach ball wearing different

coloured bobble hats would also apply to the pictures of

my early years. My sister Dee arrived a year and 11 months after me. The day of her birth is my

earliest memory, or my earliest datable memory, anyway. I distinctly remember playing with a bit

of plaster scene in the kitchen while my father rushed

in and out of the room, hurrying backwards and forwards to my mother, who was giving birth

in their bedroom.

I know I didn't invent this memory because I checked the details later with my mother.

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