Few adult fans think Harry Potter will die: poll

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Harry Potter can breathe a sigh of relief. Only one in five adult fans think the boy wizard will die in the final book of J.K. Rowling's hit series, according to an opinion poll released on Thursday.

The Zogby Interactive survey was conducted as speculation over which characters will be killed off in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" runs wild on the Internet before the book's July 21 release.

Rowling has said two characters will die in the seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series.

The survey of 1,373 U.S. adults who plan to read the book found only one in five -- or 20 percent -- believed one of those two characters would be Potter.

Nearly half, or 47 percent, don't believe the main character will meet that dire fate, while 32 percent admit they can't guess what surprises they might find in the final book of the series and are unsure if Potter will die.

Harry Potter fan sites on the Internet, which tend to be visited by a younger audience, throw up a slightly different scenario with less certainty over his fate.

On www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, one of the biggest Potter sites, 13,760 people who took part in an online poll expected the boy wizard to die in book seven, while 13,477 believed he would live. More than 3,000 were undecided.

With Pottermania starting to spread in the countdown to the book's release, Zogby also asked adult fans how much they would be willing to pay to get a copy of the book early.

The Zogby pollsters found that the anticipation of waiting for the book was part of its magic, as 78 percent said they would not be willing to pay anything extra for an early copy.

They found 17 percent would pay a little more but their limit would be less than $100, and only 3 percent would be willing to pay more than $100 for an early copy.

The Zogby Interactive poll conducted between June 19-21 carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

(Additional reporting by Mike Collett-White in London)