New canon: Slytherin = "warped wizards?"

AQ reader Louise told us a few months ago about a 2001 interview in Candis Magazine, so we added it to our Fan Challenge list. Well, this week, AQ staffer Jules got her hands on a copy and has made us all a transcript. Big thanks to Louise and Jules! Here's the new canon we gleaned:

• JKR: "The Harry books are supposed to be full of surprises, but I try to make sure that they unfold in a realistic way."
• Slytherin house is the "home of warped wizards."
• Riddle, "twisted by ambition and lack of love," desires power.
• On the diary Horcrux: "Though he's supposed to have died years before, his malign spirit manipulates events through an enchanted diary."

Did you save clippings of articles we don't have on AQ? Well, you can be a Canon Niffler, too!

Updates to Jo's website

Jo has posted a new diary entry as well as two new FAQs ("Won't!") and a Rumour. She knows well how bittersweet it will be for us to have the final book in our hands. She says it's her favourite!

Poignant diary entry on JKR's website

Jo tells us today on her website that she is hard at work writing Book 7, but that she is "alternately elated and overwrought" to be writing scenes she planned as much as 12 years ago.

I know as a reader I have mixed feelings too. Reading the last book will be wonderful, but also like forcing yourself to say goodbye to friends and a world you know you won't see again. Jo has been firm that the series ends with this one with the possible exception of an encyclopedia of her wizarding world for charity.

Jo also wrote about a dream she had that may or may not give clues to how one hunts for Horcruxes.

In her "Rumours" section, Jo squashed another theory, but it wasn't one that had big play on the forums. It was a theory that was probably based on the alchemical interpretations of the stories because it proposed that Harry and Voldemort would combine into one being.