You guys.

Well, ambiguity is inherent to writing novels unless you take things to a serious extreme. Like—without spoiling it—you could argue that the very end of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle is unambiguous, but that’s the only novel I can remember reading that doesn’t end with some ambiguity.

Ron and Hermione are married? Okay, but when do they die? When do their children die? When does the world end? Does the world end for wizards and muggles alike or only for wizards? What happens to the house elves? Do they go to war for independence? There are always questions that a reader can ask about what happens after the end of a story; there is always more to tell. For me, that’s one of the pleasures of reading.

I try to leave my characters in a place that is fair to them and fair to the reader. I feel like that’s the best we can do in a world that’s so defined by its unknowns.