When midnight strikes on Saturday, there will be no missing the star of the show. JK Rowling, the world’s most successful author, will be the centre of attention for 1,700 children at London’s Natural History Museum as she signs copies of the seventh and final Harry Potter adventure.

Throughout the canny construction of Brand Potter — books, films, video games, and now even stamps — one figure has been ever present, like a shadow glimpsed in the cloisters of Hogwarts school.

This enigmatic but utterly crucial influence is Christopher Little, literary agent, fierce protector of Rowling and, thanks to the boy wizard, now a millionaire many times over.

Little has masterminded Rowling’s career, from the moment he spotted the potential of her first manuscript to this week’s publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which guarantees him yet another jackpot.
Amazon, the online retailer, has already sold a record 1.8 million advance copies.

Behind the curtain
Little, a 65-year-old grandfather, has been content to remain behind the scenes, rarely speaking in public and seldom photographed.

But when he first signed up Rowling, he reportedly struck a deal under his usual terms: 15 per cent of gross earnings for the UK market and 20 per cent for merchandising rights, for film, for the US market and for translation deals. With the author’s fortune now standing at more than £540m, Little’s return has to be estimated as at least £50m.

“He was the luckiest agent ever — when something like that falls in your lap it is luck, but he made the most of it,” said Ed Victor, a leading literary agent.

The son of a coroner who served as a First World War fighter pilot, Little grew up in Liversedge, West Yorkshire, and gained five O-levels at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield, only to leave during the sixth form to join his uncle’s textile business in 1958.

By fluke
His switch to the literary world happened by accident in 1979.

In his only press interview, in 2003, Little recalled: “The literary agency was really a hobby which started through an accident. I was helping an old friend in his writing career. I had been running as a full-time business for about six years when Harry Potter arrived.”

The agency, run in “cramped” and “near-Dickensian” offices in Fulham, south-west London, was cash-strapped until touched by Potter’s magic wand.

Literary folklore has it that Rowling, then a penniless 29-year-old single mother, walked into a public library in Edinburgh, looked up a list of literary agents and settled on the name Christopher Little because it sounded like a character from a children’s book.

According to those who know him, the 6ft 3in Little, divorced with two sons, is unchanged by his wealth and a breed apart from the flamboyant agents.

But he reportedly spent £250,000 on his 60th birthday party at the Chelsea Physic Garden and has admitted: “I do love sailing, but I rent the boats when I want them — it does save a lot of hassle.”