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‘Harry Potter’: The Embargo Breaks in Baltimore! Plus, We Don’t Know How It Ends, But [Redacted]!

Courtesy of Scholastic

Harry Potter’s American publisher, Scholastic, has spent millions of dollars on safeguards to ensure that everyone will share that same “magic midnight moment” when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released Friday night. Needless to say, they never counted on the unmatched efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service!

At least one Maryland resident received his copy of Deathly Hallows in the mail yesterday from DeepDiscounts.com, who shipped the book from its Chicago warehouse on Friday, using USPS in-transit estimates as a guide. “Oh, that’s never good,” said DeepDiscounts.com’s director of merchandising, Rob Broggi, in the most awesome quote of the day.

And the Baltimore Sun announced in the same article that it will have its review of the book online later this afternoon, written by reporter Mary Carole McCauley, “who has gotten her hands on an early copy.” Presumably this review will hold to traditional book-review standards and not spoil the ending.

So who will? Our money’s on Matt Drudge, which is why we aren’t visiting his site between now and Friday. But it is fascinating that with the ending, presumably, somewhere on the Internet, no major media outlet — or even mid-size blog — has given it away. We guess they all, like us, know how many readers are living this week petrified that they might accidentally find out the end.

So if you’re the type of person who just wants to know how things end, who loves to be spoiled, who can’t wait until Friday, [HUGE SPOILERS!] click here [HUGE SPOILERS!] to visit a site that will tell you how Deathly Hallows ends. And for God’s sake, don’t be an asshole, and don’t spoil your friends. And don’t spoil us! We had to have someone else track down that link and vouch for it; no way in hell will we visit that site.

[Update! The hard-hitting and handsome lawyers of Scholastic, Inc. have politely requested, wands at the ready, that we remove this link. So, um, we did.]

‘Harry Potter’: The Embargo Breaks in Baltimore! Plus, We Don’t Know How It Ends, But [Redacted]!