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Speaking on Monday evening, Joanne Kathleen Rowling, 40, said she was
well on the way to finishing the eagerly-awaited seventh Potter book.
"I wrote the final chapter in something like 1990, so I've known
exactly how the series is going to end," she told a chat show on Channel 4 television.
"The final chapter is hidden away although it's now changed very
slightly. One character got a reprieve. But I have to say two die that I
didn't intend to die," Rowling said.
"A price has to be paid, we are dealing with pure evil here. They don't
target extras, do they? They go for the main characters -- well, I do."
Asked whether one of the casualties would be Potter himself, Rowling
said she had never been tempted to kill off the magician before the
finale.
At the same time, she added: "I can completely understand, however, the
mentality of an author who thinks, 'Well I'm
gonna kill them off because that means there can be no non-author written
sequels. So it will end with me and after I'm dead and gone they won't be
able to bring back the character' ."
The author said she did not want to commit herself either way on
Potter's fate, telling interviewers Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan: "I
don't want the hate mail, apart from anything else."
Rowling, who shot to fame from humble roots, also revealed that she
still writes in cafes and based the character of Potter's good friend
Hermione on a combination of herself and her sister when they were young.
As for the future after Potter, Rowling said: "I don't think I'm ever
going to have anything like Harry again. You just get one like Harry."
The first six books in the series have sold more than 300 million
copies worldwide and been translated into 63 languages.
The first four have also been made into blockbuster movies.
The seventh novel is reportedly due to be published next year at the
earliest.
(Agencies)
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