10 objects on which J.K. Rowling maybe wrote Harry Potter

NEW YORK, NY – NOVEMBER 10: J. K. Rowling and Eddie Redmayne attend the ‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them’ World Premiere at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on November 10, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

Consider: a table.

I know I said that J.K. Rowling doesn’t seem like the type to commit vandalism and carve things into tables, but… imagine if she was. She wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone longhand, sitting in cafés in the early 1990s. How many tables would it take to fit that entire story?

Imagine walking into a small café somewhere in Edinburgh and finding character outlines for Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Harry Potter. Rowling could have carved the Weasley family tree into a table for reference. Maybe she wrote the first chapter where we meet the Dursleys on a corner table, hidden from the rest of the café.

Of course, she didn’t have to carve it. She could have used a permanent marker. Depending on which café she chose, the baristas probably carried some in their apron pockets. Rowling could have asked to borrow one, then drained it writing out the protective tasks that The Golden Trio had to complete to get to the Philosopher’s Stone. Voldemort’s possession of Quirrell would have had to go on the leg of the table, or the base. Surely.

If she had, would a barista have been tasked with scrubbing away the ink, or maybe just painting over it? Would they have regretted it, once the book was finally published and Harry became an international sensation? Maybe the tables were simply thrown out, declared unsalvageable, and replaced with new tables that gave the café an entirely new look. Some lucky soul could have picked one up in a dumpster dive for their new flat and ended up with a priceless artifact from Harry’s earliest days. If only.