The “Harry Potter” book series by J.K. Rowling has sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, quickly making Harry Potter one of the most popular fiction icons of all time.
The seventh and final installment of the series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” is due to arrive on July 21.
Local kids weigh in with their projections about the plot:
“There?s going to be a really huge battle in the end. I think J.K. Rowling is going to put a big twist to it, and Harry might die,” said sophomore Isabel Wen of Perry Hall High School, Perry Hall.
Travis Roenigk, a sixth-grader at Dunloggin Middle School, Ellicott City, holds the same belief.
“I think that Harry will die, but not before he kills Voldemort first. The fight scene between them might occur in the graveyard again,” he said.
“The seventh book might start where Harry is in the graveyard where his parents are buried. It?ll probably end with him killing Voldemort. Ron or Hermione might be seriously injured, but they probably won?t die,” said Tad Marschner, a sixth-grader at Burleigh Manor Middle School, Ellicott City, who began reading the books when he was 6 years old.
Emily Abdow has a complex theory planned out. “Harry is going to find the other Horcruxes and he?s going to destroy them so that Voldemort can?t come back again. He will defeat Voldemort, but he?s going to have another powerful wizard help him out. I think it?s going to be Sirius Black?s brother, Regulus,” she said.
Although J.K. Rowling is a successful writer today, just 12 years ago she was straining to make ends meet. She received several refusal letters before her publishing company, Bloomsbury, finally bought the book.
“J.K. Rowling?s [personal] story points out why the novels are so fantastic and yet so dark. The struggles she has endured give us deeper insight into the mind of Harry himself, as they reflect his own hardships,” said Ashley Henderson, a senior at River Hill High School, Clarksville.
Tina Zou is a graduate of Centennial High School in Ellicott City. She is an intern for The Examiner.
