According to British media, the security bill for preventing the early release of seventh and final book in the Harry Potter saga is close to $20 million or 10 million pounds.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” will hit the store shelves in July 21 and besides being the last book, the fans are eagerly to find out who is going to die.

J.K. Rowling announced that in this final book two main characters will die, but she didn’t say who they are. Last year, speaking about “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, Rowling said: "One character got a reprieve, but I have to say two die that I didn't intend to die...A price has to be paid. We are dealing with pure evil here"

Asked whether one of the characters would be Harry himself, she said that she understood authors such as Agatha Christie killed off their main characters to prevent other writers from hijacking them. "Agatha Christie did that with Poirot, didn't she? She wanted to finish him off herself," said Rowling. She refused to elaborate, as "I don't want the hate mail or anything else".

This lead to rampant speculations that author JK Rowling decided to kill off her hero, boy wizard Harry Potter. JK Rowling completed the seventh and final book in February this year.

On Sunday the British newspaper reported that in order to guard the secret, publishers Bloomsbury have rented properties in London to store the freshly printed copies of the eagerly awaited novel and have put in place an operation "featuring an army of guards, satellite tracking systems and draconian legal contracts". Also for delivering the books to the booksellers Bloomsbury rented trucks with satellite tracking systems. The secret of book’s ending is known only to Rowling and 20 others (illustrators, editors and continuity experts).

"We have a litigation specialist poised 24 hours a day, seven days a week to deal with any breaches. It is our intention to enforce the embargo vigorously and seek an immediate injunction if required." a spokesman for Bloomsbury said for the British newspaper Telegraph.

US bookseller Barnes Nobles announced that pre-orders for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in the J.K. Rowling Harry Potter series, total more than 1.2 million, the largest number of pre-orders for any book in the company's history.

Under tight security, the company will begin shipping the Potter book to its stores starting on Monday, July 16th. Twelve million copies of the 784-page tome have been printed for the U.S. market alone.