Testifying in court today in the ongoing the case of Warner Bros. and J.K. Rowling v. RDR Books, the British author nearly burst into tears as she defended her famed series "Harry Potter" from what she described as "wholesale theft".

"I really don't want to cry because I'm British," she said, looking just about to do that, "It means setting aside my children and everything."

The case, which Rowling stated is was not "about money," was started by the writer when RDR books attempted to publish a print version of a popular Harry Potter fan website, The Harry Potter Lexicon, created by Steven Vander Ark, who so accurately recounted the events in the books, that Rowling herself said she used the website to double check her facts while working on new material.

Rowling, who said she takes no pleasure in preventing the Lexicon's publication, adding that she feels "sad and disillusioned" the case ended up in court, claims in the lawsuit filed last year that there's too much of her own work in the Harry Potter Lexicon, including such things she invented for the Harry Potter series as spells, potions, magical creatures, Quidditch rules and wizarding history, and accused Ark of having "simply taken it and copied it."

"I think it's atrocious. I think it's sloppy. I think there's very little research It is sloppy, and it takes my work wholesale," she said in court today.

"What particularly galls is the lack of quotation marks. If Mr. Vander Ark had put quotation marks around everything he lifted, most of the Lexicon would be in quotation marks," she said.

"These characters meant so much to me - and continue to mean so much to me - over such a long period of time. It's very difficult for someone who is not a writer to understand. The closest I can come is to say to someone: 'How do you feel about your child?'," she tried to explain herself today.

"These books, they saved me - not just in a material way, though they did do that," she said. "I would have to say there were times when they saved my sanity."

However, RDR is not arguing against Rowling's copyright infringement claims, but rather insisting the book will serve a greater purpose, such as a scholarly pursuit.

On the other hand, Rowling also said not so long ago that she plans to write her own Harry Potter encyclopedia, which would include material that did not make it into the novels, but that she would donate the proceeds to charity.

Defending RDR, lawyer Anthony Falzone called the lexicon a reference guide, a legal effort "to organize and discuss the complicated and very elaborate world of Harry Potter," while also taking aim at Rowling's intentions of claiming "a monopoly on the right to publish literary reference guides, and other non-academic research, relating to her own fiction."

The fate of the book now lies in the hands of a New York judge who is set to decide whether the book, for which RDR said it would charge $24.95, will hit the stands in November as planned, or not, also taking into consideration Ark's own minor adjustments to the material.