I first decided to write this group of stories after re-reading The Dark Is Rising
around Christmas of 2001. Susan Cooper's story was my first real introduction
to the world of fantasy fiction, and it left a lasting mark on me. I devoured the
books when I was in grade school, and I actually cried when I came to the end
of Silver on the Tree. I knew the story was over, and I didn't want it to end so
soon. I couldn't bear to leave that wonderful, magical world behind.

After being introduced to the Harry Potter books several years later, I was
struck by the similarities between the two series. The same struggle between
good and evil, the same painful loss of innocence, the same combination of
humour and heartbreak. I knew that somehow I had to combine the two worlds,
primarily because the idea wouldn't leave me alone. So I sat down and thought:
"How can I bridge the gap between the world of Susan Cooper and the world
of J. K. Rowling in a plausible, believable manner, and yet do justice to both
series at the same time?"

So I fashioned a future for Will Stanton, the last and youngest of the Old Ones.
He had grown up in the interim between the end of Silver on the Tree and the
start of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. --a lapse of over twenty years.
Now in his mid-thirties, he had earned a doctorate in anthropology and
joined the faculty of his alma mater, the University of Cambridge. He maintained
a relatively normal life, but his duties as the Watchman of the Light ensured that
he would always guard against the threat of another Rising of the Dark.

In the meantime, the wizarding world had seen the terrifying rise and subsequent
defeat of Lord Voldemort at the hands of young Harry Potter. Over the course of
Harry's early school years, he faced the Dark Lord and his servants on several
occasions and survived. But Voldemort had a source of hidden power, a power
that the wizarding world was ill-equipped to face. It was only a matter of time
before the Dark would stage yet another Rising over Britain.

Will Stanton, however, was well aware of the menace to the wizarding world.
So when he received an invitation from a certain headmaster to present a
guest lecture that concerned Defence Against the Dark Arts and Muggle Studies....

I'm an older and slightly more neurotic version of Hermione Granger who has
a tremendous, hopeless crush on Will Stanton -- both canon and non-canon. I spend far
too much time sitting around dreaming up stories that concern the overly elaborate
post-Silver on the Tree timeline I've created for him. Really, that's all that need be said.