SYDNEY (AFP) - Thousands of Australian Harry Potter fans braved a winter chill to secure the final instalment of the boy wizard's adventures Saturday, with one avid reader even contracting hypothermia. Emergency services in Canberra said a 21-year-old man lost his pre-purchase receipt for "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows" in the capital's Lake Burley Griffin late Friday and dived into the waters to try to retrieve it. A security guard had to drag him out of the frigid lake before he was taken to hospital for treatment, emergency services said. The fan failed to find his receipt but it is believed a doctor at the hospital where he was treated contacted a local bookstore to ensure he could secure a cope of J.K. Rowling's seventh Harry Potter book. In Sydney, two steam engines dubbed Hogwarts Express left a city station carrying more than 1,100 children clutching wands and trailing wizards' capes. The two trains travelled to a nearby suburb where the children arrived at a bookstore to pick up a copy of the book at the global release date of 2301 GMT. Train organiser Roger Mackell, manager of Sydney store Gleebooks, said many of the young fans arrived with their parents in the early hours of Saturday. "They weren't going to risk missing this," Mackell told AFP. He said sales for the latest Potter book had been selling faster than the previous six instalments. "It's a phenomenon we'll never see again." "It's a bit sad that it's coming to an end, it's been a great boost for the book trade." Elsewhere, a red London double-decker bus festooned with supernatural paraphernalia took shrieking youngsters to a bookshop selling the latest Harry Potter adventure at Leura, in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Potter fan Callum Liasides said he and his school friends had spoken about little else but the fate of Harry and his friends in the week leading up to the book's release. "I really hope he doesn't die like people have said," the eight-year-old told AFP, admitting he really preferred the Potter movies to the novels. Ruth O'Neill, a more mature Potter fan at 29, said she decided to queue for the book for the first time because she was concerned spoilers on the Internet and in newspapers would otherwise reveal the plot. "I'm just going to sit in over the weekend and read it," she said. "I'll avoid television and the Internet because I don't want to know what's going to happen." At least the guy got his book....
Hahahaha...u know... yesterday when i went shopping... i saw someone in a witch outfit in front of a book shop... i was like ehhh? But then i realized....OOOH harry potter...hehehe
i don't get it!!! this is stupid..ppl dressing up and waiting from like 7am to midnight just to b first person??? just a BOOK!
i don't know ... went to the store today about 1200pm ... there were still stacks of the new Harry Potter books. Maybe I shld have bought a couple and sell them on ebay ...
Just finished the book, bought it at 5 o clock after work and its 1 o clock now and im done.. hahaha only took a 25 minute break for supper... and btw, what this kid did is exactly like a passage in the new book where harry dives into a lake to obtain blank which he can use to destroy the blank. seriously lol
Haha, the things people would do to secure a copy of the latest HP book, lol...crazy sometimes, hehe...
i fink its cause my englsih isnt too good, i've read the 1st and 2nd book but never seem to get teh urge to kepp reading (no offense to harry potter readers) well, maybe i wouldnt even leap to get a book i really wanted, and thats if i even ever wanted to read a book. i jsut read skool nominated (compulsory books)....haha
