J. K. ROWLING has come close to saying that she will kill off Harry Potter, the boy magician who made her a multi-millionaire.

The author said in a televised interview that both she and her daughter were having to resist pressure to reveal the plot of the last book, which will be published next year at the earliest. But she revealed that two principal characters would be sacrificed in the seventh and last book in the series.

“The final chapter is hidden away, although it’s now changed very slightly,” she told Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan.

“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. They don’t target extras, do they? They go for the main characters . . . well, I do.” Asked whether one of the casualties 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.

“I can completely understand . . . the mentality of an author who thinks, ‘Well, I’m gonna kill them off because that means there can be no non-author-written sequels’.”

She added: “Agatha Christie did that with Poirot, didn’t she? She wanted to finish him off herself . . . I admire people who go out when people still want more.” She refused to elaborate yesterday because she didn’t “want the hatemail”.

Her daughter, Jessica, 11, has been pestered at school, the author said. She had been metaphorically trapped against the school railings by children desperate to know Harry’s fate. “She’s been phenomenal and it hasn’t always been easy for her. You can imagine . . . your mother being J.K. Rowling.”