Oh you bastard! You just gave away the ending!!

Advance warning: this post contains SWEARING. Young Harry Potter fans should probably stop reading now. It does not, however, reveal the ending (or supposed ending) of the book.

You know how it is. You’re planning to see that new movie you've been wanting to see for ages, and you mention it to a friend, who promptly comes out with "Oh my God! Yeah! I saw it last night and - you know the hero DIES at the end, don't you? And of course you didn't know. And you very much didn't WANT to know.

Well that's how it is with me and Harry Potter. You may already have realised that I am planning to be VERY CAREFUL when I go out and buy the book on the 21st, so that I don't inadvertently hear some 8 year-old screaming out the ending while I'm in the queue at Dymocks. And how I'm planning to put myself into COMPLETE ISOLATION once I get hold of the book, and not come out until I've finished it.

Well.

I just went Googling to see if I could find anything about the Embassy dispute with the movie distribution company and I saw a couple of search results saying something like "Hacker claims to know the ending of the final Harry Potter book"...

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I slammed Google shut in a hurry so I couldn't even read the headline properly. Fuckfuckfuck. I have been SO determined not to find out the ending before I actually read the book, and I KNOW it's a virtual impossibility that I can avoid hearing what this FUCKING hacker claims to have gotten hold of. It'll be in the paper or on the news or someone'll mention it or send me an email and I'll see it before I realise what it is, and by then it'll be too late.

I know that most grownups don't care one way or the other what happens at the end of some stupid kid's book, but I happen to care quite a bit, and I've enjoyed reading the first 6 books so much - I was really looking forward to reading the 7th book without having any idea of what was about to unfold...

I can't see any way of avoiding finding out what this hacker reckons they've discovered. 10 days is just too much time. I can't lock myself away from the world for 10 days!

It's not even that important whether or not they're telling the truth. If I find out what the ending is supposed to be it will colour my first reading of the book, whether or not it turns out to be the real ending. And that's gonna take some of the fun out of the experience.

Fuckfuckfuckityfuck.

Sometimes people just piss me right off.

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PS On reflection, I realise that I have no way of knowing how recent this story is, because I shut down Google so fast, you just wouldn't believe. So I could possibly be freaking out for no reason at all.

Which is potentially embarrassing as I've already emailed Shift's communal Fun email list requesting that no-one reveals the hacker story by way of the list. And the story might potentially be MONTHS old. I'm blushing just thinking about it. And of course I can't go check because it might NOT be months old and I might accidentally read the supposed ending while checking just how old it is.

I crack myself up at my intensity sometimes - I really do :)

Technorati tags: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Book 7, Harry Potter, hacker, ending, final book, kids' books, spoiler, hacker claims, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.