Rowling Casts Spell on Big Apple

Those Muggles hoping to get some tidbits on the fate of Harry Potter better head to Manhattan, stat.

Ahead of her first readings in the U.S. in more than six years, J.K. Rowling revealed that she's "well into" writing the seventh and final installment in her hugely popular fantasy series and felt "the pressure" was off. But she remained mum on whether she planned to kill off the boy magician, despite prodding from fellow authors Stephen King and John Irving.

"It's the last book so I feel quite liberated. I can resolve the story now and it's fun, fun in a way that wasn't because finally I've reached my resolution," she told reporters at a Tuesday press conference in New York. "Some people will loathe it and some people will love it, but that's how it should be."

The Harry Potter mastermind is in town to join fellow publishing icons King and Irving for a benefit reading at Radio City Music Hall Tuesday and Wednesday night.

The event, dubbed An Evening With Harry, Carrie and Garp, was organized by King and Scholastic and promises to raise $500,000 for two charities: the Haven Foundation, which helps performing artists whose accidents or illnesses have left them unable to work; and Doctors Without Borders, which delivers emergency aid to victims of armed conflict, epidemics and other natural and man-made disasters.

The trio will read selections from their respective works and then field questions from the audience. Rowling said she plans to keep her selection shorter, partly because she often feels "uncomfortable" with such appearances and also because she realizes that many in attendance, particularly the younger Potterphiles, would rather she answer their gazillion questions about Harry.

The only queries Rowling was fielding--and dodging--from the press was whether her bespectacled hero would survive his highly anticipated final showdown with You-Know-Who.

"We're working towards the end I always planned, but a couple of characters I expected to survive have died, and one character got a reprieve," Rowling said teasingly.

Who is deep-sixed--Ron, Harry, Hermione?--is anyone's guess. But the author's answer resulted in pleas from her fellow scribes, who know a thing or two about axing their protagonists, not to do away with her orphaned hero.

"My fingers are crossed for Harry," said Irving, who noted that he makes a casualty list before he even writes the first word. Irving's best known works includes A Prayer for Owen Meany, the The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules, for which he won an Oscar for his 1999 movie adaptation.

King, who kills off characters with glee in such horror classics as Carrie, The Stand, 'Salem's Lot and The Shining, echoed the sentiment.

"I don't want him to go over the Reichenbach Falls," he said, referring to how Sherlock Holmes was dispatched by his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (Conan Doyle eventually resurrected the legendary crime-solver following a massive outcry from fans.)

"I understand why an author would kill a character from a point of view of not allowing another person to continue writing after the original author is dead," said Rowling. "I don't always enjoy killing my characters. I didn't particularly like killing the character that died at the end of book six [Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince]."

Rowling also said that once she's done with the final Harry Potter installment, she plans to finish a shorter children's book, which she indicated was only half-written.

The idea for the all-star reading came about after King gave a charity reading for Irving at an elementary school in Vermont and then invited the Cider House Rules author to return the favor and join King in New York to help raise money for Haven. That nonprofit holds special resonance for King since he was sidelined for months in 1999 after he was struck and nearly killed while walking near his home in Maine.

After Irving agreed, the two called Rowling, who hadn't given a reading in the U.S. in a half-dozen years due to two pregnancies and writing obligations. With her kids older, Rowling readily signed on and chose Doctors Without Borders as her cause celebre.

Joining the threesome onstage will be Oscar winners Whoopi Goldberg, Tim Robbins and Kathy Bates (the latter two starred in King's Misery and The Shawshank Redemption, respectively), along with Stanley Tucci, Jon Stewart and CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien.

Despite their considerable credentials, Irving and King said they know who the big attraction is.

"We see ourselves as warm-up bands for Jo," joked Irving, noting that many in the crowd will be much younger than the usual readers of their books.

To which Rowling responded: "I'm toughening them up for John and Stephen's works."