JK Rowling lived in London briefly after university. Staying in a flat on Clapham Junction. Opposite Clapham junction station is Severus Road, a name familiar from Rowling's Classics studies.

they moved deeper into the deserted labyrinth of brick houses. At last Narcissa hurried up a street called Spinner’s End, over which the towering mill chimney seemed to hover like a giant admonitory finger.
Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince: journey to Snape's house
See the tower block in the distance, rising from the skyline? As Rowling strolled the streets of 'The Old Smoke' she breathed in a new world

London & Rowling's reinvention

Rowling completed a course to become a foreign language secretary. Launching into a career she said she was terrible at. She says she has great respect for secretaries because she is far far too disorganised.

She began for a time with Amnesty International in London. Rowling craved to be a novelist, Harry's heart beat in her belly, but it was a long shot and in the interim, like Hermoine, she was going to spend her life well.

While at amnesty the anguished howl of a refugee, being informed that his country's government had murdered his mother to punish his flight, was seared into Rowling's psyche. Perhaps you can hear the echo of that scene when Dumbledore gives news to Snape of Lily's murder.

Feeling the pulse of this over-abundance of fairness informed the facism of Harry Potter's Dolores Umbridge, fueling the brutalism towards the outsider-Mudbloods that culminates in the show trials of Voldemort's murderous Ministry of Magic.


I'm Sam, a Harry Potter guide in Edinburgh. If you're on a mission to experience Potter's Britain, grab your β‚²alleons! London has given me memories galore.

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MinaLima an exhibition of Harry Potter design in London
JK Rowling's Harry Potter play 'The Cursed Child'
The Cursed Child, what you need to know before you go
Design the ultimate visit to the enthralling addition to the Harry Potter saga
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Harry Potter's butterbeer at Warner Brothers studio tour London
Painting of Harry Potter's platform 9ΒΎ at Kings Cross station London
A Complete guide to Kings Cross Platform 9ΒΎ & its Harry Potter shop
How to make a day of it, scout the Potter shop & a quiz for the queue
Tour for Muggles, the Harry Potter tour, starts near London bridge
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Discover

JK Rowling's home Edinburgh  |  Harry Potter's Alnwick Castle