London, June 28: For anyone who is tired of five days of Pottermania to add to a spellbinding previous six years of the golden glow, Harry Potter's Muggle mother, J.K.Rowling is offering unexpected 'lumos' at the end of the tunnel: it may all be over in a few years and the boy wizard may meet his Maker before he gets to adulthood.
But the distinct possibility that Potter may never graduate beyond the Ministry of Magic's strict rules on "underage sorcery" is likely to prompt a collective gasp of horror from Potter fans around the world.
With 4,000 pairs of reproachful children's eyes watching her in London's Royal Albert Hall on Thursday, Rowling said there may never be a grown-up Harry. Asked by a young fan whether she might go beyond the previously-announced seven-book series and write about an adult Harry, Rowling said: "You have to wait and see whether he survives to be a grown-up".

Then in an attempt to soften the blow, she added: "I'm not saying he won't but I don't want to give anything away."
Rowling's intimation of mortality for the child of her imagination comes less than a week after the fifth of the Potter series, The Order of the Phoenix, was launched around the world.



The book release, which became an international event of magical proportion, has been followed by tentative statistics to suggest it may soon set a record as the fastest-selling book in much of the English-speaking world.



But Rowling would not be the first celebrated author to kill off the main protagonist of her only success story. The literary world is abuzz with comparisons to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle more than a century ago. Doyle, who became irritated by the clamour for more adventures featuring his cerebral detective Sherlock Holmes, conveniently killed off his hero in a good vs evil struggle at the Reichenbach Falls.



Later, he was forced by public demand to bring him back to life, a tricky resurrection with many improbable sub-plots and twists in the tale. That was before the internet and 24-7 television.



Rowling may have been warned.