For Waterstone's, the end of Harry means the end of the guaranteed massive volumes of sales that they've made every time a new book in the series has been released. With no clear successor to the series on the horizon, I imagine that the company's strategy meetings are less than jolly these days as they scramble desperately to identify the next pot of mass market publishing gold.

So what if Harry's graduated from Hogwarts? There are so many millions of other lovely books to read. Rather than crying apocalypse and bullying JK Rowling to carry on doing something that she no longer seems to especially relish, perhaps Waterstone's could try to redirect some of the enthusiasm of its millions of petition-signatories? Instead of "Save Harry!" a slogan such as "Remember Take That? We Got Over It!" could be just the ticket to launch an inspiring movement for a long-overdue diversification of literary consumption.