A TEENAGER has been left spellbound after the story of his meeting and subsequent letter exchange with Harry Potter author J. Rowling went viral.  Johnnie Blue, 16, who is a 5th year pupil at Garnock Academy, has spoken to the Herald about his encounter with the author, how he her talked to her on Twitter and her friendliness towards him.  Last week, Johnnie’s life got turned upside down after he was featured on popular viral site, Buzzfeed.  Now, after numerous interviews and TV appearances, the teen has spoken to the Herald about the whole experience.

Johnnie said: “It started last June, the night before the publication of the Silkworm, JK Rowling’s book under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith. I tweeted her saying does anyone else feel like an orphaned boy wizard when JK Rowling replies to other fans but not you?  “Me and a friend then had a conversation under the tweet and I sent her sad Dobby eyes and she replied, saying only because of the Dobby eyes.” Dobby was one of the houselves from the Harry Potter series, for those not familiar with the adventures of the world’s most famous wizard.  Johnnie, who lives in Dalry, added how lucky he was that his tweet was noticed. He said: “I think I was the fifth person to get tweeted by her.

"She wasn’t on Twitter much and there was a lot of notifications after that.  “A month later I met her in Harrogate.

"She doesn’t do many events, that was the first one in three years.

“We waited an hour or so, got her crime novels signed and I gave her a book that I got made for her out of copper that was designed by the Harry Potter cover artist, Jason Cockcroft.

"Inside it, I had given her a letter about how much Harry Potter meant to me and I reminded her that I was the Dobby eyes boy from Twitter and she said, ‘Of course it’s you, I remember you’.  “We asked if we could get the Harry Potter books signed and her agent and other people there tried to grab the book and she said, ‘No, I’ll do it but only because you’re the Dobby eyes boy’.  “She invited me back at the end of the event and we spoke for about 15 minutes and got photos as they were banned too.” The Hogwarts fanatic was noticed after he gave the letter to Rowling and he actually got a reply from the author.

He added: “The letter I gave her was inside the notebook and it was exactly a month later and it was emotional.

"I know a lot of people gave her letters but not many got letters back, just two or three people she replied to out of 1,000 odd people who were there.” Johnnie spoke frankly about his bullying in his younger years and the fact that Harry Potter helped during this makes the story all the more magical.

He said: “I read Harry Potter going up through primary school, which was difficult as I went through bullying quite a lot and reading the books was a good escape and I could go somewhere else. I think everyone loves Harry Potter.” Rowling’s reply to Johnnie, pictured, shows her passion and fondness for him and he hopes their relationship will continue.

He said: “The fact that she took the time to respond to every little bit.

"Especially talking about my handwriting, the notebook, my bullying at school and Arran.

"You can see she put so much thought in to it.

“I didn’t show anyone the letter until Buzzfeed released it and it went viral and we still tweet now and again but I haven’t replied to the letter yet, which is bad.”  Now Johnnie has met his idol, he isn’t stopping there.

He said: “I’m trying to meet the cast of the films too.

"I met Alan Rickman on Saturday outside a theatre at the Glasgow Film Festival, which was mental.

"I’ve also met John Hurt (Ollivander), Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood), Chris Rankin (Percy Weasley) and a few more.

"I’m trying to meet as many of them as possible after I met Jo, because that was the biggest one.” Johnnie’s story has been featured on Buzzfeed where it has had over 1.5million hits.

He was on STV’s Riverside Show and also featured on the Today Show in the USA.