I see a Canadian newspaper has news about the online leak of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, including information on which characters live or die.

Nooo, I’m not going to link to the newspaper, I’m not going to link p2p that have the book, it’s not been that hard to find. As a reader I can appreciate fans are excited, and these things are not called spoilers for nothing. I noticed a spike in traffic, fans are, er, looking.

There have been elaborate fakes by fans, this appears to be the real deal. Only two more days, muggles, and the hard copy of the book will be available. I’ve not read the US editions, we get the British edition in Canada and one labour day weekend a friend lent me the series and I read all weekend. It was grand and I’m a Potter fan. So I get the excitement, the sense of anticipation, and why someone would risk imprisonment to leak it.

The files appear to be digital photographs of the American version of the book. Done by an amateur – whose hand is seen in some of the images holding the book open – the pages are somewhat unclear, but easily readable with photo viewing software. It appears to have every page of the U.S. Scholastic edition, including the title page with the Library of Congress number, the dedication and the “about the author and illustrator” pages in the back.

According to the data in the photo files, the shots were taken by a Canon EOS Digital Rebel Camera and are time-stamped as being taken on July 15 at approximately 8:40 p.m.

god-of-small-things has a fun post about all the serious security around release of the last book in JK Rowling and the Snarling Alsatians.

What would Harry do? He’d steal dozens of copies of the Deathly Hallows, settle down with some butter beers and chocolate frogs and read then with his friends, taking a few moments out to snog with Ginny, if he had the chance. Heck, he’d probably get Hermione to cast a spell that instantly copied the book and posted the whole blessed thing on the Internet, for free.

Now that would be a fitting ending to the Harry Potter epic, wouldn’t it?