Harry Potter: 10 Most Shocking Reveals From Pottermore
7. Florean Fortescue Was Almost Hugely Important
Casual Potter fans can be excused for scratching their heads at the name Florean Fortescue, but he is actually the only character that JK Rowling has admitted to feeling guilty about killing off. The owner of Diagon Alleys ice cream parlour whom Harry first encounters in the Prisoner of Azkaban, Fortescue was once pencilled in for a sub-plot that linked him with the all-important Elder Wand. As it happened, the ice cream man who provided Potter with free ice cream sundaes while he was staying at the Leaky Cauldron during the summer of 1993 ends up getting dragged out of his place of business kicking and screaming by Death Eaters, who then abducted and murdered him. Now, via Pottermore, you can read JK Rowlings reasons for going to the trouble of setting up a character that she then unceremoniously killed. What she revealed is that she had originally planned to use Florean as the conduit for clues that needed to be passed on to Harry for him to succeed in his fight against Voldemort, the reason she established their relationship early on. The problem, she admitted, was that when she came to write the key parts of Deathly Hallows she changed her mind and decided that Phineas Nigellus Black was a much more satisfactory means of conveying the clues Harry needed, and so poor old Florean ended up as cannon fodder for the Death Eaters.