Rowling's Preflight Potter Power
She almost had to resort to floo powder, but J.K. Rowling finally made it back to the U.K., the seventh installment of the Harry Potter saga safely in hand.
According to a posting on the bestselling author's Website, Rowling was concerned that she'd have to check her unfinished manuscript along with the rest of her bags before boarding a flight from New York to London last month.
The woman who gave us Quidditch, dementors and "He who must not be named" was on this side of the pond for a rare U.S. book reading Aug. 1 alongside The Cider House Rules author John Irving and fright-master Stephen King, neither of whom fielded as many questions as Rowling did. Mainly rabid young fans wanted to know whether Harry would survive book seven of the British author's phenomenally popular fantasy series.
That's to be determined, but our hero did survive his latest transatlantic crossing. Rowling said that she was allowed to tote her mostly handwritten pages, held together with rubber bands, onto the plane with her after a little bit of pleading with airport security.
"I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't [let me]," wrote the 41-year-old author, who said that she only had one copy of the work she had done on the story while in the U.S. "Sailed home, probably."
Turns out Rowling had nothing to worry about, unless she had stuck her pages together with hair gel.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration has "never implemented a ban on carryon luggage for flights originating in the United States," TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said. "A manuscript would certainly be allowed to be carried on."
Security was tightened Aug. 10 after British authorities announced they uncovered a plot to blow up airliners traveling between the U.K. and the States.
With Harry, Ron and Hermione safely back in Europe for the time being, Rowling's next mission is to decide between the two titles she has come up with for what is supposed to be the last Harry Potter book.
"I was quite happy with one of them until the other one struck me while I was taking a shower in New York," she said. "They would both be appropriate, so I think I'll have to wait until I'm further into the book to decide which one works best."
The Edinburgh-based writer has already admitted that two main characters are killed off in the novel's final chapter. But Harry Potter and the Death of So-and-So would probably be a giveaway.
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