Though PW’s Claire Kirch tries and tries to find a loophole that would enable someone from the printer responsible for preparing the 12 million-copy first printing of HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, but doesn’t get very far. At first, Scholastic wouldn’t even divulge where the books are being produced, buy two reliable sources in Crawfordsville, Ind., a rural community of 15,243 residents 50 miles west of Indianapolis, told Kirch that the book is being manufactured at the R.R. Donnelley plant. “HP books are being printed right here in itty-bitty Crawfordsville,” a local resident, who requested anonymity, reported. “We’ve been hearing midnight trains on that seldom-used track to Donnelley’s for weeks now. That’s really the giveaway: middle-of-the-night freight trains on a track that rarely gets used. This is just like last time.” Last time, of course, being 2005, when HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE was published.

But when Kirch called the Crawfordsville production plant to inquire what security measures, besides lunch box searches and cellphone bans, are being taken to safeguard what’s being termed, tongue-in-cheek-style, as the “MLK project”, a Donnelley security representative responded, “I can’t discuss that,” and hung up. A corporate spokesperson for Donnelly wouldn’t comment. And then Kirch went back to Scholastic’s spokesperson, Kyle Good – who after first wondering how Kirch got Donnelley’s name, then hearing about the frustration in getting some sort of comment, “wished this correspondent a happy Fourth of July.” Nice…

It was bound to happen, and I suppose the only thing I’m wondering is that it took this long for some would-be hacker to try to get into Bloomsbury‘s computer systems and retrieve the manuscript of HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – if you believe, of course, that such a thing took place and the hacker wasn’t trying to draw attention to himself and make shit up. I’m leaning towards that direction solely because I first heard of the story via press release and then when I followed the link to the posting in question (because I’m a spoiler kinda girl, what can I say) my skepticism increased after reading the hacker’s alleged explanation: “we did it by following the precious words of the great Pope Benedict XVI when he still was Cardinal Josepth [sic] Ratzinger. He explained why Harry Potter bring the youngs [sic]of our earth to Neo Paganism faith.” Perhaps more accurate, if there’s any accuracy to be had, is the follow-up reason: “we make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring.”

But now that Reuters has gone and picked up the story, voila! Legitimacy, or at least the fanning flames of speculation. There’s the obligatory “no comment” from Bloomsbury while Kyle Good, a spokesman for Scholastic, would not say whether the posting was accurate, but did warn readers to be sceptical about anything on the Web that claims to have inside information on the book’s plot. “There is a whole lot of junk flying around,” she said. “Consider this one more theory.”