News-Record.com

Well, it's officially D-day for Harry Potter fans with tonight's official release of the final installment in the popular series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Will Harry die? Will Dumbledore return? Will Ron and Hermione live happily ever after? Will Snape show his true colors, and if so, what are they?

Those who read any of the illegally released copies on the Internet (or just read spoilers provided by accidental early mailings of the books) already know the answers to these questions and more.

For the rest of us, only one thing is certain: Harry Potter fans are about to become Star Wars fans.

By this I mean that the thing they love will finally be over (J.K. Rowling is too smart to roll out more and lesser sequels and spin-offs ala George Lucas, I think) but their love will last forever. It will become sort of weird and creepy as they get older, but the cottage industry that is Potter merchandise will probably continue for decades, allowing them to fulfill the desperate need for more "new" Potter stuff -- even if it's just new dolls based on the old stories, new video games or (and we're already seeing this, really) Internet fan fiction.

I don't worry about most of the cast of the films. They have two more movies to go and most of them are, as various friends of both sexes have pointed out, becoming too hot to be child stars much longer.

I worry for Daniel Radcliffe least. He starred in Equus in London's West End last year, playing a deeply disturbed young man who (among other problems) gets sexual gratification from horses. The part included a full frontal nude scene and he reportedly handled it (both the acting and the nudity) like a pro.

I offer you the following British TV interview with the young man who is Potter as proof he's going to be fine once he leaves Hogwart's. He's smooth, confident, mature and humorously (rather than uncomfortably) self deprecating.

(Warning - it's a British talk show and gets a bit blue. The host says he's seen the nude scene from Equus and can assure the ladies that "it's not just the Harry Potter books that have got longer as the years have gone on.")