Harry Potter fans are patiently awaiting the seventh and final book in the series, which I have been told hasn’t even been started yet. Although it has been finished – JK Rowling has long said that she had written the final chapter of the final book years and years ago (the last word of the book, she has said, is “scar.”). But even that chapter isn’t immune to revisions, and two characters in the series aren’t immune to being knocked off.
"The final chapter is hidden away, although it’s now changed very slightly,” Rowling said on a British talk show. “One character got a reprieve. But I have to say two die that I didn’t intend to die… 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."
And could one of those characters be our hero, Harry Potter? "I can completely understand… 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’."
I would say that there’s no way Rowling would kill off Harry, except for two things: she’s shown that she has a mean streak in the books, and she’s already the richest woman in England, so if she has even a sensible savings account she shouldn’t have to come crawling back to write a book 8.
Of course at this rate we could all be dead long before book 7 ever hits…