Harry Potter casts a spell on Indians

Mumbai/ Bangalore, July 6: Harry Potter has literally cast a spell on Indians, as thousands of fans are rushing to bookstores across the country to reserve their copy of the latest J.K. Rowling offering titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The seventh and the final book of the Harry Potter series is set to be released on July 21. Bookstores in Mumbai have received a heavy advance order for the book.

Vishant Raghuveer, the Manager of Crossword, Mumbai, said: "Crossword has been accepting bookings for the last two months. We received 6000 bookings from across India, and we expect 10,000 bookings till July 21."

Potter mania is at a peak and most want to know what happens in Rowling's last book.

Samantha, a Harry Potter fan, said, "I really want to know if all my predictions about Voldemort, Harry and Dumbledore coming back will come true or not."

"I have lots of expectations (from the book). I want to see how Harry fights Voldemort and where he has placed the seven horcruxes, I want to find all that," said Manisha, another Potter fan.

In Bangalore, a popular Internet portal has already received orders for thousands of books from across India and expects more by July 21.

"This time, there is huge response that has come for this product because it is supposed to be the last book in the series. We are expecting more them 10,000 people to pre-order the book," said Vaitheeswaran, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Indiaplaza website.

The book has been released in 65 languages and more than 325 million copies of the first six books have been sold across the world.

Publishers have gone to great lengths to protect the contents of the last Harry Potter book until its release, which promises to be one of the biggest events in the publishing history.

Last week, a computer hacker posted what he said were key plot details that he picked up by hacking a computer at the London-based Bloomsbury Publishing.

The four Harry Potter movies released till date have amassed around 3.5 billion dollars in worldwide ticket sales. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hits cinemas in early July.