'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' to Rule the World at Midnight

With just hours to go before the final Harry Potter book is released, the world is putting on their wizard hats. (Courtesy Scholastic)

Amid Internet leaks and early reviews, nothing can deter the tour du force that is, Harry Potter. And, as they rub their hands together in anticipation, publishers are unfazed by the controversy.

''This happens all the time. With such a famous book about to release, there are people who claim they have read it and are ruining the wait for many others,'' said Thomas Abraham, CEO and President, Penguin.

So what will become of our young wizard? Reviews promise that his fate, unlike Tony Soprano's, will appease fans. The consensus is that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, like the conclusion of an epic odyssey, ends with full and satisfying finality according to the pre-publication reviews that controversially appeared Thursday in the New York Times and Baltimore Sun along with purported spoilers. Both papers managed to nab early copies of the seventh and final Potter book, which goes on sale at 12:00 tonight.

The New York Times reviewer, Michiko Kakutani, offered this summation: "ends not with modernist, Soprano-esque equivocation," she wrote, "but with good, old-fashioned closure: a big-screen, heart-racing, bone-chilling confrontation and an epilogue that clearly lays out people's fate." The ending possesses "a convincing inevitability."

The leaks, early reviews and rumors have not knocked this wizard of his proverbial broomstick, as children and adults are expected to dress in full wizard gear to line up for their copies at bookstores all over the world.