lettersandsongs:

Anne Rowling died in 1990, she never knew about Harry Potter, or the phenomenal success her daughter was about to enjoy. The death of Joanne Rowling’s mother was to have a profound effect on her writing, in many ways the whole of Harry Potter is one giant attempt to reclaim a childhood.

“I’ve been writing for 6 months before she died. The weird thing is the essential plot didn’t change after my mother died, but everything deepened and darkened […] it seeped into every part of the books. I think in retrospect, now I finished I see just how much it formed everything.”

J.K. Rowling: A Year in a Life

For me, this combination of images and phrases is extremely powerful. Forgive me if I read far too much into this, but they (both creator and character) are essentially asking the same thing of the people they loved in their own worlds. In addition to that, due to the combination of the pictures and the sentences, Harry is asking his creator, his God, if you will, to stay with him. She didn’t give up on him throughout all of the other six books, and she will see him through the most tumultuous time in his life. In a way, they have one another - Harry holds the hand of the God that created him, and Jo holds the hand of one of the few (though fictional) people who really knows what it’s like to lose someone and to want them back, and to ask someone you love to stay with you, and to have someone who loves you promise to stay. Again, maybe I’m reading too much into this, but they are each asking the other this question: “You’ll stay with me?” and each responding “Until the very end.”

I think this is true with writers in general - your characters never leave you, and you essentially never leave them. It’s just a thought, but I wanted to explain why this makes me cry every time I see it without simply saying that I tear up. :)