J.K. Rowling releases first post-Potter book
November 2, 2007

After the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, fans of the wand-wielding wizard soon came to a stark realization... it's all over. After reading all 700+ pages of the seventh and final Harry Potter novel, there's no more. That's it. That's all she wrote.

Until now...

J.K. Rowling has announced that Beedle the Bard - you know, that book that Rowling briefly acknowledged in Deathly Hallows - was completed. The book is set to have illustrations hand-drawn by J.K. Rowling herself, and the entire thing was also handwritten by the popular Harry Potter scribe. But, as you can imagine, there's a catch - and here it is: Only seven copies of Beedle the Bard exist, and six of them have already been spoken for.

In an interview with the BBC, J.K. Rowling admitted that, "Six of these books have been given to those most closely connected to the 'Harry Potter' books during the past 17 years. This seventh book will be auctioned." Don't worry Potter fans, if you do manage to scrounge up enough money to purchase the single copy, your money will go to a good cause. J.K. Rowling stated that the proceeds will go to a charity in Europe that has since become close to Rowling's heart. Then again, it's not like she needs the money - the Harry Potter novel series has already made J.K. Rowling a rich beyond belief, with over 350 million books sold worldwide...and counting.

Regarding the charity that will receive the proceeds from the auction, Rowling stated, "I could not think of any person with less of a voice, more disenfranchised than a child with mental health issues or mental illness or mentally handicapped who has been taken from their family or given by their family to a mental institution and then placed in a cage."

Rowling also noted that the reason for the creation of Beedle the Bard was to say good-bye to Harry Potter once and for all. "I've been writing about the world, about Harry, Ron and Hermione, but it comes from that world. It's been partly, I didn't expect it to be, but it's been therapeutic in a way -- a nice way to say goodbye."