"I tried very hard to soften it, I suppose," Jo said. "Just because someone had a view on Harry/Hermione didn't mean they weren't genuine, or that they were necessarily misguided. In fact, I will say this, Steve Kloves who has been the script writer [on the Potter films], who is enormously insightful on the series and a very good friend, after he read book seven he said to me, 'You, know, I thought something was going to happen between Harry and Hermione, and I didn't know whether I wanted it or not.'

"I had always planned that Harry's true soul mate, which I stand by, is Ginny, and that Ron and Hermione have this combative but mutual attraction. They will always bicker, there will always be rough edges there, but they are pulled together, each has something the other needs."

I stared at her, sensing she wasn't finished, and a sense of foreboding crept in around the edges.

"[Kloves] felt a certain pulll between them at that point. And I think he's right. There are moments when [Harry and Hermione] touch, which are charged moments. One when she touches his hair as he sits on the hiltop reading about Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and [two] the moment when they walk out of the graveyard with their arms around each other."

I was holding my breath at this point. She wasn't done.

"Now the fact is that Hermione shares moments with Harry that Ron will never be able to participate in. He walked out. She shared something very instense with Harry.

"So I think it could have gone that way."