Potter fans come out at midnight
NEW YORK – The age of Potter VI officially dawned Saturday, as millions of fans from sweaty New York to chilly Australia got their hands on “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and began the darkest of J.K. Rowling’s fantasy novels.
“I can’t believe that I have the first copy,” said 20-year-old Rachel Grandy, a student at Hunter College, who was first in line at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square, arriving early on a sticky summer morning and getting her book at midnight, some 16 hours later.
In Edinburgh, Scotland, Rowling emerged at the stroke of 12 from behind a secret panel inside a medieval castle, settled into a leather easy chair and read to a super-select group of 70 children from around the world.
“You get a lot of answers in this book,” Rowling said as she arrived at the castle before thousands of fans.
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is Rowling’s most mature story, marked by the death of a major character and the arrival of love in the land of Hogwarts. In London, events were muted by the July 7 subway and bus bombings. Book and magazine chain WH Smith scrapped a planned midnight launch at King’s Cross Station, from whose fictional Platform 9 3/4 Harry catches the train to Hogwarts at the start of each term. The deadliest of the day’s four attacks was on a subway near King’s Cross.
In Australia, 17-year-old Mohammed Jalili-Baleh was first in a line of hundreds at one of Sydney’s largest bookstores. He and a friend spent more than 12 hours waiting.
It was a kooky midnight countdown in New York’s Union Square, as a person in a white owl suit emerged from behind green curtains with a box and slowly walked over to a cash register. The owl handed the box to workers behind the counter and the first book was removed. Since Rowling introduced Harry in 1997, the books have become a global phenomenon, selling 270 million copies in 62 languages and inspiring a series of movies. Rowling is the richest woman in Britain estimated by Forbes magazine at $1 billion.