Watch this Harry Potter-themed tribute to a victim of the Orlando massacre
JK Rowling sent flowers and a personalised note to the memorial service for Luis Vielma, an employee of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Luis Vielma was one of the 49 people killed when a gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday. He was an attraction operator and ran the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride at the Universal Studios theme park.
We can see Universal Orlando and guests gathered to pay tribute to Vielma in the video above. He was remembered as “one of the bravest and best Gryffindors the world has ever known” and that “he was kind and he was brave and he was one of the kindest souls you will ever meet in your life.”
She wasn't there, but Harry Potter creator JK Rowling, was also among the mourners. She tweeted:
Rowling also sent flowers, along with a note, for Vielma's memorial service.
"To Luis, who died for love," Rowling's note reads, "You will never be forgotten. J.K. Rowling."
Her famous 2011 Harvard Commencement Speech saw her drawing on the idea of empathy and how human beings can be stretched beyond their own boundaries to feel for another. She said:
“Unlike any other creature on this planet, human beings can learn and understand without having experienced. They can think themselves into other peoples’ places. Of course, this is a power like my brand of fictional magic that is morally neutral. One might use such a power to manipulate or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or peer inside cages. They can close their hearts and minds to any suffering that does not touch them personally. They can refuse to know. I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think that they have any fewer nightmares than I do.”
Rowling has supported victims of gun violence in the past and has been openly supportive of gay rights in public.