Harry Potter and the violent illness

Ros Taylor
Wednesday June 28, 2006
The Guardian

JK Rowling hinted this week that the seventh and final Harry Potter novel might see the death of her protagonist. Several draft plots have come to light, taking up the story after Dumbledore's death and Harry's decision to break up with his new girlfriend Ginny in order to devote his life to defeating the evil
Voldemort.

1 Harry embarks on a gap year teaching quidditch at Durmstrang, the German school of magic. The trip starts badly after his attempt to divert a Ryanair flight away from a cloud of Death Eaters is misunderstood by the Muggle authorities. Extraordinarily rendered to a detention camp run by Draco Malfoy and an army of house-elves, Harry spends months being tortured with Blast-Ended Skrewts. He manages to liberate the elves, but as they quarrel about whether freedom is worth the effort, Malfoy tips off the Muggles and Harry vanishes on board a dragon somewhere over the Atlantic.

2 After Harry and Ginny end their trial separation, a Hippogriff carries them to the honeymoon suite at the Three Broomsticks, now a gastropub. Neither suspects that the landlord is Voldemort, nor that he has laced Ginny's butterbeer. By the time an oak-aged merlot alerts Harry, Ginny has been kidnapped and transformed into a bad-tempered barmaid. In the ensuing standoff, the pub loses its pretensions, but something nasty emerges from Harry's rocket and he perishes along with a pan-fried chizpurfle.

3 With Hogwarts deprived of Dumbledore and descending into anarchy, the Ministry of Magic threatens to replace it with a City Academy unless new headmistress Minerva McGonagall improves the NEWT results. Harry tries to study, but becomes aware of a plot to steal the selection hat and allow a small number of Muggles to enter Hogwarts each year. In the ensuing struggle to maintain the school's exclusivity, Harry is pushed off a crumbling battlement by Malfoy, who uses the incident to prove that Hogwarts is unfit for purpose.

4 Muggle treasurer Gordon Brown threatens to release a number of Hebridean Black dragons unless the wizarding community pays tax on all magical objects. Meanwhile, Brown's arch-enemy - an oversized reptile with an ability to camouflage himself at will - persuades Harry to install a wind turbine on Hagrid's hut. But much to Harry's horror, the friendly reptile turns out to be Wormtail in disguise. Just as it seems that Lord Voldemort's return is inevitable, Harry wins back Gordon's trust with a hastily collected stealth tax and flies south to confront the reptile, which is eventually overwhelmed. The beast flees north and is confined to a glacier, but leaves behind the mysterious bill of rights, which Harry cannot help but open - and pays a terrible price for his weakness.

5 Harry reaches the quarter-finals of the Triwizard Tournament and is overcome by a strange sickness that leaves him unable to cast a spell. After Ginny confesses that she finds him repellent and plans to spend more time with the mysterious WaG, Harry learns the illness is irreversible from his only friend, a Shuffling Petricrouch. Summoning his inner magic and the help of a wild Roowain, Harry wins the trophy and the undying respect of his peers, but still ends up crawling into the forest to die after Ginny permanently withdraws her affections and expresses a desire to release a hit single.