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LONDON-The witching hour is almost here.Thousands of would-be warlocks, sorcerers and ordinary,non-magical Muggles lined up outside bookstores from Sydney to Seattle on Friday, eager to get their hands on "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,"the seventh and final volume in the boy wizard's saga.In a now-familiar ritual that is part sales frenzy and part Halloween party,bookstores across Britain were flinging open their doors at a minute past midnight Saturday.Shops as far afield as Singapore and Australia were putting the book on sale at the same time;the United States was to follow from midnight EDT.Harry's creator,J.K. Rowling,was giving a midnight reading to 500 competition-winning children in the grand Victorian surroundings of London's Natural History Museum.For many, the place to be was Waterstone's bookstore on Piccadilly in central London, a traditional hub of Pottermania.An assortment of wizards, witches and at least one house elf, from as far afield as Finland and the United States, staked out their places on the sidewalk hours-in some cases days-before the midnight opening. Some passed the time by jotting predictions for the final novel in notebooks,while others encouraged passing drivers to "Honk for Harry.""This is the biggest Harry Potter party in Europe,so it's worth the wait,"said Laura Halinen,23,from Kuusankoski, Finland.
To read more go to:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070720/D8QGC3OO1.html
As in the days of Noah...
