NEW YORK.- This file photo taken on April 4, 2016 shows a letter of provenance from the author next to a chair used, and later decorated, by author J.K. Rowling while she wrote the first two Harry Potter books on display at Heritage Auctions in New York. The chair on which British author J.K. Rowling sat to write the first two volumes of her best-selling "Harry Potter" series sold at auction in New York on April 6, 2016 for $394,000.The modest, 1930s-era oak chair was part of a mismatched set of four that Rowling was given for free when she was a single mother living in subsidized housing in the Scottish city of Edinburgh. William EDWARDS / AFP.