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Potter fans await `P-day'

Harry Potter fans line up outside Waterstone's bookshop in central London on Thursday to be some of the first to get hold of J.K. Rowling's new book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book was to be released just after midnight yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Thousands of would-be sorcerers and ordinary, non-magical Muggles lined up outside bookstores from Sydney to Seattle yesterday, eager to get their hands on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final volume in the boy wizard's saga.

In a now-familiar ritual that is part sales frenzy and part Halloween party, bookstores across Britain were flinging open their doors at a minute past midnight. Shops in Singapore and Australia were putting the book on sale at the same time; the US was to follow from midnight EDT.

Harry's creator, J.K. Rowling, was giving a midnight reading to 500 competition-winning children in the grand Victorian surroundings of London's Natural History Museum.

Book stores across Australia were scheduled to host wizards, fire-breathers, jugglers, owls and snakes to celebrate the countdown to the novel's release, with several even organizing Hogwarts Express-style train trips.

Stores in Taiwan and India were laying on "magic breakfasts" for early customers.

"This is the biggest `Harry Potter' party in Europe, so it's worth the wait."

Laura Halinen, a 23-year-old from Finland waiting in line outside Waterstone's bookstore in Piccadilly, London

In Bangladesh, where Friday is a holiday, customs offices were staying open specially to ensure fans got their delivery of the book on time, while in Thailand, the British ambassador was planning an early start to hand over the first copy of the book.

Workers at the Kinokuniya bookstore in Singapore were to dress up to hand out free drinks and specially printed bookmarks to Harry Potter fans, while staff at Dymocks' Hong Kong stores were planning to tour the city dressed as wizards.

Asia Books set up an outdoor movie screen in front of Bangkok's posh Emporium shopping complex where they will show the Harry Potter movies through the night.

For many of the keenest fans, the place to be was Waterstone's bookstore on Piccadilly in central London, a traditional hub of Pottermania.

An assortment of wizards, witches and at least one house elf, from as far afield as Finland and the US, staked out their places on the sidewalk -- in some cases days -- before the midnight opening.

Some of those in line passed the time by jotting predictions for the final novel in notebooks, while others encouraged passing drivers to "Honk for Harry."

"This is the biggest Harry Potter party in Europe, so it's worth the wait," said Laura Halinen, 23, from Kuusankoski, Finland.

Deathly Hallows is the last book in a series that began a decade ago with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the story of an orphaned boy who learns on his 11th birthday that he is a wizard. Since then, Rowling's books have sold 325 million copies in 64 languages, and the launch of each new volume has become a Hollywood-scale extravaganza.

Deathly Hallows has a print run of 12 million in the US alone, and Internet retailer Amazon says it has taken more than 2 million orders for the book.

Britain's Royal Mail says it will deliver 600,000 copies today -- one for every 43 households in the country.

Security has been tight, with books shipped in sealed pallets and legal contracts binding stores not to sell the book before the midnight release time.

Nonetheless, spoilers have sprouted on the Internet, including photographed images of what appeared to be all 700-plus pages of the book's US edition.

Publishers, however, refused to say whether the leaked pages were genuine.

Bloomsbury, the book's British imprint, said only that they were "unauthenticated."

As many as 1,200 copies were shipped early in the US by an online retailer, and the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun published reviews of the book earlier this week.

Rowlin, however, said she was "staggered" by the embargo-busting reviews.

"I am incredibly grateful to all those newspapers, booksellers and others who have chosen not to attempt to spoil Harry's last adventure for fans," she said.

New York Times book editor Rick Lyman defended the newspaper's decision to run its review before publication.

"Our feeling is that once a book is offered up for sale at any public, retail outlet, and we purchase a copy legally and openly, we are free to review it," a spokeswoman said.

In the Times review, writer Michiko Kakutani gives away some plot details, including roughly how many characters die and what "deathly hallows" means, but does not leak the big secrets.

Potter publishers will take comfort from the fact that the majority of fans do not know what happens in book seven, and do not want to until they get their hands on a copy on what has been dubbed in the media as "P-Day."
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