J.K. Rowling reveals her favorite 'Harry Potter' chapter -- and it's a weeper - Los Angeles Times
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J.K. Rowling reveals her favorite ‘Harry Potter’ chapter -- and it’s a weeper

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For many Harry Potter fans, choosing a favorite passage from the seven book series would be an impossible task.

But J.K. Rowling, the creator of the boy wizard, had no trouble naming her favorite chapter, and it’s no surprise that it’s likely the most climactic one possible.

A Twitter user named Rob McCarter asked Rowling to pick her most beloved chapter, and she responded one minute later with her pick: Chapter 34 of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which is titled “The Forest Again.”

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The chapter is a particularly intense one. Harry realizes that he must sacrifice himself in order to kill his archnemesis, the evil Lord Voldemort. Before he confronts the dark wizard, he opens a “Golden Snitch” given to him by his mentor, Albus Dumbledore, and is greeted by the ghosts of his deceased family.

(Spoiler alert: Harry does not, in fact, die, but Voldemort does.)

Another Twitter user reacted to Rowling’s revelation with shock, writing, “[R]eally? Because I bawled...” Rowling tweeted back, “So did I, but it was the culmination of 17 years’ work and the most cathartic piece of writing of my life.”

Rowling has previously discussed the chapter, which has become famous among Potter fans. In 2007, the author told “Today” show host Meredith Vieira that the chapter was “the passage that I found hardest to write of all of them in all seven books, and the one that made me cry the most.”

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“And it’s the part that when I finished writing, I didn’t cry as I was writing, but when I finished writing, I had enormous explosion of emotion, and I cried and cried and cried,” Rowling said.

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