LONDON, July 9 A British bookstore chain hopes to conjure up some magic by urging Harry Potter fans to sign a petition asking the boy wizard's author to continue the series.
The series finale, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," hits the bookshelves July 21.
Waterstone's officials said they hope to gather 1 million signatures in its "Save Harry" campaign to change author J.K. Rowling's mind, the BBC reported Monday.
"We are not asking J.K. Rowling to start work on another novel tomorrow, we are just asking that she doesn't rule it out," said Wayne Winstone, who oversees Waterstone's children's books.
Noting the global popularity of Harry and his friends Hermione and Ron, Winstone said "aiming for a million signatures may prove to be conservative."
Rowling revealed that two characters in "Deathly Hallows" will die and one line of thought has Potter being one of them.
Since Potter is a fictional character, he "can't ever really be killed," Winstone told the BBC.
"Arthur Conan Doyle famously killed off Sherlock Holmes, yet brought him back after years of demand from his fans and publishers. Couldn't the same happen for Harry Potter?"
Copyright 2007 by UPI
