'Never say never' to Harry's return: JK Rowling

LONDON: A campaign launched on Monday to extend the globally popular Harry Potter series received a boost after author JK Rowling declared 'never say never' about writing another book.

Rowling has maintained that 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,' which will be published July 21, is the last in a seven-book series, but said through her publisher Bloomsbury that she might reconsider.

"Never say never," said the statement in response to a 'Save Harry' on-line petition that aims to collect one million names.

Rowling had disclosed that two characters will die, fuelling speculation that one of them will be Harry himself.

But fans are not deterred.

In a world of magic and wizardry, Harry could be brought back from the dead in an eighth book, they suggest.

Bookseller Waterstone's has launched the Save Harry campaign.

The petition at www.waterstones.com/saveharry launched on Monday reads, "We, the undersigned, petition JK Rowling to write more new adventures for Harry Potter and his friends no matter what happens at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

Waterstone's argued that there is a precedent for resurrecting a literary hero, pointing to the case of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes.

In 1893, weary of his work, Conan Doyle wrote 'The Adventure of the Final Solution,' in which Holmes apparently falls to his death during a violent struggle with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty.