Laying odds in the Harry Potter dead pool

Warning: This story will speculate on who dies in the final Harry Potter book. If you don't want to be exposed to such opinions, don't read it.

A year or more from the final chapter in the Harry Potter series, the boy wizard can still make headlines. Author J.K Rowling recently let slip a particularly juicy piece of news — in the forthcoming book, two major characters will die during the final confrontation with the evil wizard Lord Voldemort — and Harry himself seemed especially likely.

Rowling has known for years how the series ends; the final chapter of the as-yet-untitled closing novel was one of the earliest she wrote. But in a June interview with the British TV talk show “Richard & Judy,” she revealed that she had changed her plans: One character she’d thought would die now survives, but two others die instead.

That’s the price, said Rowling, of fighting evil. Villains “don’t target the extras, do they? They go for the main characters, or I do,” she said. Not surprisingly, fans began speculating on the identity of the unlucky pair almost immediately, and the Internet gambling site WagerWeb.com even began offering odds.

It’s not the first time a major character has died. Harry’s grandfatherly mentor, Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, was murdered at the end of the most recent book, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” Or was he? It’s clear that more remains to be revealed about what really happened. Did Dumbledore fake his death? Is his apparent killer, Severus Snape, really evil, or a double agent? We have yet to find out.

In real life, death is permanent, but not always in fiction. Obi-Wan Kenobi of “Star Wars,” another mentor figure, is killed at the end of the first film, but reappears later as an advice-giving spirit. And in “Lord of the Rings,” the wizard Gandalf returns from the beyond even more powerful than before.

Odds favor Harry and Voldemort
Based on both online fan reaction and the bookmakers’ odds, the smart money seems to be on Harry and Voldemort. A poll on Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron had the two nearly tied, and well ahead of any other character as the most likely candidates.

NBC VIDEO RIP Harry Potter? June 27:  J.K. Rowling says she may kill off Harry Potter to prevent other authors from writing sequels. "Most" host Alison Stewart talks with Melissa Anelli of Leakynews.com. MSNBC

Nobody seems particularly perturbed at the idea of Voldemort getting the hook — after all, he’s the chief villain, and the series’ resolution almost requires his destruction. Harry is another story. Many readers are having difficulty accepting that the hero of the story would die — and worse, one who’s still a boy.

But Rowling has shown before that she’ll shock the fainthearted when it serves the story, even letting a child die at the hands of evildoers — Harry’s classmate Cedric Diggory is killed in “Goblet Of Fire.” As for offing the main character, there’s plenty of precedent. Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle got so tired of the detective that that he had Holmes thrown off a cliff  — only to be forced to bring him back when Holmes’ popularity raged on unabated. Rowling herself mentions that Agatha Christie killed her sleuth Hercule Poirot so that nobody else could write stories about him.

There’s good reason to think that Voldemort can only die if Harry does also. It’s well-known that the two are magically connected on a deep level because Voldemort’s sorcerous attempt to kill Harry as an infant backfired, destroying the dark lord’s body instead. Much of the subsequent plot has been driven by Voldemort’s return from this setback. Voldemort used Harry’s blood to regain a flesh-and-blood body at the end of “Goblet of Fire,” apparently strengthening that bond — and Dumbledore’s eyes had a “gleam of triumph” when he learned of it. Apparently Dumbledore thinks the connection can be used to defeat He Who Must Not Be Named.

But would Dumbledore have set a plan in motion that required Harry’s death? This is hard to believe — and one explanation for Rowling’s announcement of “a reprieve” for one character is that she thought of a way for Harry to survive.

So who will really get the axe? Here are some educated guesses.

Harry Potter, our hero.
Doom factor: Fairly high. Harry may need to sacrifice himself to rid the world of Voldemort. It certainly would make a noble and definitive ending. But I suspect that the character Rowling decided should survive is in fact Harry. He’s got too much to live for.
Odds of dying: 50 to 1

Lord Voldemort, our villain.
Doom factor: Voldemort is too dangerous to live. He’s killed hundreds of people, and is probably too powerful to be imprisoned.  
Odds of dying: 1,000 to 1 in favor

Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts headmaster.
Doom factor: Is he really dead? Sadly, I think so — but there’s probably a good reason Harry saw a phoenix over his tomb in the last book. But who returns from the dead just to keel over again 200 pages later? That’s just careless.
Odds of dying: Forget about it — he’s dead already, or he’ll survive us all.

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