Rowling sets a clear path at the end of Book Four

As anyone who has been reading this blog will now, I'm very interested in the question of how much of the seven-novel story arc J.K. had planned from the beginning and how much sort of fell into place as the writing progressed.

As a writer myself, I'm fascinated by the writing process. As a writer myself, I'm in awe of Rowling's accomplishment with this fantastic series of books.

But I'm not convinced that she had anything but a vague idea of what the future novels might hold while she was writing the first book. I think she had in mind a seven-year cycle (one book for each year Harry was at Hogwarts) and she knew that the Potter-Voldemort story would form the backbone of the narrative as the books progressed.

I just don't believe that, beyond those basic principles, Rowling had much more of the story planned as she wrote the first, second and even third novels in the series.

Then we come to Book Four, The Goblet of Fire. This is where she started pulling things together and developing a clear plan of how the last three books would play out. I've just finished reading this fourth novel and I found the final scenes in the hospital wing to lay out an absolute route map for the final three books.

It is clear to me from these scenes that Rowling, by this point, had figured out the major events of the rest of her story.

In these hospital scenes, she carefully plants the seeds for the rift that develops between Fudge and Dumbledore in the following novel, the slow coming together of the armies of good and evil, the interference of the Ministry at Hogwarts and the challenges Harry faces at school in the coming years.

I think it is interesting as well that Snape is, at the end of the fourth book, so clearly on the side of Dumbledore that we should, if we as readers were thinking clearly, never doubt his allegiance again.

Faced with a disbelieving Minister for Magic and a dead Barty Crouch Jr., Snape rolls up his sleeve and shows Fudge his Dark Mark, explains what it is and what it means, and tries desperately to convince Fudge that Harry and Dumbledore are right in saying Voldemort has returned.

How can we ever doubt Snape again? And yet we do. And that's the brilliance of Rowling's writing.