KEY POINTS:
There will be no missing the star of the show this weekend. J.K. Rowling, the world's most-successful author, will be the centre of attention for 1700 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 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.
Little, a 65-year-old grandfather, has been content to remain behind the scenes, rarely speaking in public and seldom photographed.
But when he signed Rowling, he reportedly struck a deal under his usual terms: 15 per cent of gross earnings for the British market and 20 per cent for merchandising rights, films, the US market and translation deals.
With the author's fortune now standing at more than £540 million ($1.4 billion), Little's return is estimated to be at least £50 million.
"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.
"He has run the brand admirably. He had to build an organisation to defend and promote and advance his author's rights and it's all been done very tastefully."
The son of a coroner who served as a World War I fighter pilot, Little grew up in West Yorkshire. Little spent most of the 1960s and 1970s in the shipping industry in Hong Kong before returning to London to set up a recruitment consultancy called City Boys.
His switch to the literary world happened by accident in 1979. A schoolfriend and fellow Hong Kong trader, Philip Nicholson, had written a thriller and was seeking representation. Little agreed to take him on, and the book, Man on Fire, was published under the pseudonym A.J. Quinnell.
The agency, run in "cramped" and "near-Dickensian" offices in Fulham, southwest London, was cash-strapped until touched by Potter's magic wand. 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.
Bryony Evens, Little's office manager at the time, said Rowling's manuscript went straight into the reject basket because "Christopher felt that children's books did not make money".
But its unusual black binding caught her eye, prompting her to read the synopsis and show it to Little. He recalled: "I wrote back to J.K. Rowling within four days of receiving the manuscript. I thought there was something really special there, although we could never have guessed what would happen to it."
He managed to sell it to Bloomsbury for £2500, but later reaped huge rewards from international rights and won a reputation as a brilliant deal-maker for Rowling.
According to those who know him, Little, divorced with two sons, is unchanged by his wealth and a breed apart from the flamboyant agents and literati who frequent London's West End restaurants. Ian Chapman, chief executive of Simon & Schuster and a friend of Little said: "He's very Yorkshire, very honest ... still the same fellow he's always been."
- Observer
