Will Harry die?

"A price has to be paid; we are dealing with pure evil here. They don't target extras, do they? They go for the main characters - well, I do."- Author J.K. Rowling says on how her phenomenal Harry Potter book series would end.

J.K. Rowling revealed the title of the last novel in her best-selling schoolboy wizard series as "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" - a name likely to fuel fears she will kill off her hero.

The revelation will whet the appetite of millions of fans worldwide for the seventh and final Potter installment, which will follow Harry and friends during their final year at Hogwarts, the school for witches and wizards.

A publication date has not yet been set by publishers Bloomsbury and, in typical style, Rowling's official website unveiled the title in the form of a puzzle.

Fans are invited to find a key to a locked door; inside the door lies a gift and inside the wrapping there is a hangman word game; and readers must guess which letters fill the gaps before the words "Deathly Hallows" are revealed.

The first six books in the Potter series have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide and been translated into 63 languages, making Rowling Britain's highest-earning woman.

The first four books have been adapted into hit films starring Daniel Radcliffe as the boy wizard.

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth movie in the series, is currently being filmed and is due for release next year.

In a British television interview in June, Rowling left open the possibility of Potter dying in the last book.

Saying she has known more or less how the series would end since around 1990, Rowling said: "One character got a reprieve. But I have to say two die that I didn't intend to die.

"A price has to be paid; we are dealing with pure evil here. They don't target extras, do they? They go for the main characters - well, I do."

Asked whether Potter himself would be a casualty, Rowling said she could understand authors who kill off characters "because that means there can be no non-author written sequels."

However, she admitted worrying about the hate mail that would follow.

Rowling, who shot to fame from humble roots, also revealed that she still writes in cafes and based the character of Potter's good friend Hermione on a combination of herself and her sister when they were young.

As for the future after Potter, Rowling said: "I don't think I'm ever going to have anything like Harry again. You just get one like Harry."

Rowling admitted on her website this week that she was under stress as she wrote the closing chapters of the final Potter novel - in which she has hinted that the beloved hero may be killed off.

"I'm now writing scenes that have been planned, in some cases, for a dozen years or even more," Rowling revealed.

"I don't think anyone who has not been in a similar situation can possibly know how this feels. I am alternately elated and overwrought.

"I both want, and don't want, to finish this book (don't worry I will)," she wrote. (Lachlan Carmichael, AFP)