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       Cinderella

      Rowling is often portrayed as a Cinderella figure, a kind of female Harry who lived, if not in a cupboard, at least in very reduced circumstances. This has caused many myths to grow up about her pre-fame days, some of which are rather humorous. One story alleged that she wrote her first book on table napkins, as if she was unable to afford a notepad. ‘The next thing’, she joked, ‘they’ll be telling me I wrote it on used tea bags.’

       Cleese, John

      Cleese does an idiosyncratic turn as Nearly Headless Nick in The Philosopher’s Stone. (So what else is new?) Rowling is an avid fan of the Monty Python series in general and Cleese in particular. She greatly enjoyed the dizzy lunacy he brought to the role of Nick.

       Coffee

      Endless cups of espresso gave Rowling the adrenalin to continue pushing her pen across the page when she was drained from mothering duties. She often talks about her days trying to manoeuvre Jessica’s buggy down the stairs of Nicolson’s café in Edinburgh, her knees trembling from the caffeine fix.

       Colloportus

      Hermione uses this spell to seal a door when she’s trying to stop the Death Eaters from escaping after they grab Harry.

       Coltrane, Robbie

      This genial Scot, best known for his role in television’s Cracker, plays Hagrid in the film versions of the Harry Potter books. The special effects department obviously worked overtime to make him look Hagrid’s size but he’s hardly wasting away anyway, even without the camera tricks. One of his problems with car seatbelts, he says, is trying to get the lap strap on! He has expressed a wish to join Overeaters Anonymous. He wants to be able to call a counsellor whenever he feels peckish so that he can be talked out of it.

       Columbus, Christopher

      The director with the same name as the man who discovered America made the first two Harry Potter movies. Rowling appreciated how he handled child star Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. He also made Mrs Doubtfire with Robin Williams and worked as a screenwriter on children’s films such as Gremlins, The Goonies and Young Sherlock Holmes.

       Comic Relief

      Rowling took time out from the Potter series to pen two books for this charity, both published in 2001. They’ve raked in over £20 million to date. They’re called Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The former comes with a glowing Foreword from the redoubtable Professor Dumbledore, who cites it as one of the most popular titles in Hogwarts library. Rowling has fun with the book, but on the back page reminds us that the charity she’s supporting is ‘even more important and astonishing than the three and a half second capture of the Golden Snitch by Roderick Plumpton in 1921’. Indeed. The US edition is priced in Sickles and Knuts.

       Confidentiality

      Rowling guards her plots with fierce privacy for obvious reasons. When she gave the completed text of The Philosopher’s Stone to Christopher Columbus, who was about to direct the movie version, he wasn’t even allowed to show it to his children. After Rowling’s seventh and last Harry Potter outing had been completed, the text was kept under lock and key in a vault as secure as Vault 713 at Gringotts Bank.

       Conjunctivitis Curse

      A spell that affects the eyes of the victim. Viktor Krum uses it in The Goblet of Fire.