Ghost of a flea

“For years now, people have asked me whether I ever dream that I am 'in' Harry's world,” Rowling wrote. The answer was 'no' until a few nights ago, when I had an epic dream in which I was, simultaneously, Harry and the narrator.

“I was searching for a Horcrux (a magical object in Rowling's books created through the use of the Dark Arts) in a gigantic, crowded hall which bore no resemblance to the Great Hall as I imagine it. As the narrator I knew perfectly well that the Horcrux was jammed in a hidden nook in the fireplace, while as Harry I was searching for it in all kinds of other places, while trying to make the people around me say lines I had pre-arranged for them. Meanwhile waiters and waitresses who work in the real cafe in which I have written huge parts of book seven roamed around me as though on stilts, all of them at last 4.5m high.”

She added: “Perhaps I should cut back on the caffeine?”

There are also many theories about the meaning of the new title. Some fans think that "Deathly Hallows" refers to horcruxes, says Mr. Spartz. Horcruxes are objects that contain pieces of a wizard's soul. When a wizard kills somebody, he can split his own soul and put a piece of it into an object. This makes the murderous wizard more difficult to kill: Not only does he have to die, but the remnants of his soul must be destroyed as well.

"Harry thinks Voldemort split his soul into seven pieces, which means that in order to defeat Voldemort, Harry has to hunt down and destroy all of the remaining horcruxes and then take on Voldemort in a final battle," says Mr. Spartz.

Horcruxes have to do with death, hence the reference to "Deathly Hallows," he adds. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word hallow as a noun can mean "a loud shout or cry" or "a saint." In the Potter canon, nothing is holier than a wizard's soul. It would make sense, says Mr. Spartz, to link the two words. "The new book will be about Harry hunting down and destroying Voldemort's remaining horcruxes," he says. A spokeswoman for Scholastic declined to comment on the book's content. It isn't known when Ms. Rowling will deliver the manuscript.