I know its not common but its not that rare either. I remember I read the fifth book on a PC as an ebook given to me on a floppy by a friend. I don't know where he got it, and I wasn't really that interested in knowing how he did get such a one. My focus was more on finishing the book, straining my eyes from staring too long on the monitor. I finished it in four days. I think. I still had school then.

I'm not in the habit of breaking international copy right laws. Besides, I wasn't the one who filched the .doc from whoever. I know for a fact that even if such a leak managed to spread around a considerable portion of the world, the book would still sell. And it did. Wonderfully, in fact. That's just how we muggles are.

I still got a copy of the book itself. Hard bound, of course. It was more the feeling of the book itself that I craved and not just the story. And I read it again from the book. I liked it better then, as I could take it and read anywhere. I found it more appealing than trying to snuggle between the throwpillows on our couch with my PC or dragging the monitor out on the swings.

I like my books as tangible as I can get them. I guess I'm just an old fashined kind of guy.

The seventh and final book is due to be released within 2 weeks. Advanced order have already been placed with Powerbooks and National and all the bookstores that got the license to distribute them. On the day itself, people will be flooding the same establishments to get a copy. I'm sure Bloomsbury and Scholastic has a well stocked inventory for that day.

Even if an advanced copy again got out early and started circulating the globe for those shrewd enough or resourceful enough to grab that (unauthorized) copy off the web, the release of the book itself will still create waves. Great waves.

After a little more than 7 years, the anticiaption is still there, and perhaps even greater. As the final chapter of a greatly-loved story closes, we all want to be there for it. We all want to be there for him.

Even me, who was none too shrewd or none too resourceful. Only somewhat lucky.

Would I even dare call myself lucky? I know mot of you would call me cad in less than a heartbeat. Some, Imagine, would call me even worse. But perhaps I am lucky. Perhaps if I look at it from the millions of people who have placed advanced orders on the book so that they would be the first ones to open them reverently, using sanitized pincers to turn every page, and read the entire night without blinking up to the last chapter, the last words, and then run around to school and their other cohorts who've done exactly the same thing and compare times as to when they finished and who finished first. Perhaps on that viewpoint, I'm lucky.

I'm lucky to be one of the first. One of the first to witness the end.

I don't know how many have actually read it in the same way, the same medium as I have. I don't know how may hands it travelled before the attachment was passed to me. And I really don't care. I'm just glad I was there, on the right place, on the right time.

Don't worry. I'm still going to buy the book. I would still like to be able to cuddle up in between my throwpillows with my dear and read the pages outloud to her. You just can't romantic like that with a PC.

I guess I'm just a hopeless-romantic kind of guy.