Death lurks in final 'Potter' installment

NEW YORK, April 17 (UPI) -- Prognosticating what happens in the finale of British writer J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series is nearly as enjoyable as reading the books themselves.

Between now and the book's July 21 debut, Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," is fueling people's imaginations by distributing bookmarks that ask questions about the novel. The first week's talking point, also an online posting, is: "Who Will Live? Who Will Die?"

"Who dies is the No. 1 thing on people's minds," said Emerson Spartz, founder of mugglenet.com, one of the more popular Potter fan Web sites with about 20 million hits a month.

The question is so pressing that at least three books have been written about the final Rowling effort. Spartz and his colleagues penned "What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End?" Then there is "The End of Harry Potter? An Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries That Remain," by David Langford and "The Unauthorized Harry Potter: Everything You Wanted to Know About the Harry Potter Series" by Adam-Troy Castro.

So far, there's no word whether "Deathly Hallows" includes a Potter's grave.