Editor's note: This story does not contain any details about how the Harry Potter saga ends, so don't worry about our spoiling the fun.
Fans read the latest Harry Potter book after buying copies at Waterstone's bookshop in London early Saturday.
(CNN) -- "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the final book in J.K. Rowling's seven-book series about a youthful wizard and his magical and darkening world, arrived at 12:01 a.m. Saturday local time around the globe.
Fans across the world lined up to get their copies -- that is, if they didn't have copies already, as some did because of delivery glitches. The series has followed Harry and his friends through their adolescent and teen years, and the big question for fans is who makes it through the final book alive.
Harry and his friends are ready for a showdown with Lord Voldemort, the ultimate evil figure of the wizarding world, and his followers.
Fans in London -- many dressed as their favorite characters -- braved the rain and waited in long lines outside for their chance to find out whether the young wizard and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger will vanquish the evil Lord Voldemort.
CNN's Becky Anderson reports that some had been waiting for three days and had come from as far away as Iceland, the Netherlands and Australia.
In the United States, a handful of people were camped out Thursday night outside a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-area Borders store to guarantee their spot at the front of the line. See fans line up around the world »
One had author J.K. Rowling's autograph tattooed on his arm.
In a Barnes and Noble store in Atlanta, Georgia, a line of about 50 people had formed by 5 p.m. to get wristbands allowing them to come into the store for the Potter festivities, which will conclude with the book sale.
Some people had called to reserve places on the store's Harry Potter list as long ago as February, said employee Matt Blind.
At midnight, after a night of Potter-related festivities and rousing countdown, the Atlanta crowd finally got their wish: their own copies of "Deathly Hallows." Other U.S. fans will obtain their copies as their time zones hit midnight.
But not everyone had to wait. One lucky fan in Maryland got the book Tuesday after a mix-up at an online retailer.
Danielle Sank, 17, is only halfway through the book, so she doesn't know what happens either -- but she says the book lives up to the hype.
"All of them are good, but this one just definitely tops it all," she said. Watch balloons fall, costumed shoppers cheer as book goes on sale »
The "Harry Potter" series, which has sold 325 million copies worldwide, is not like anything booksellers have seen before. And as with the previous "Potter" titles, retailers are pulling out all the stops. There will be magic shows, costume contests, musical performances, readings and -- last but not least -- book sales.
Taking in the crowd at the Atlanta Barnes & Noble, Bob Maffeo, the bookstore chain's district manager, smiled at the unlikely prospect of a jam-packed bookstore -- a scene the Potter books have created on a regular basis.
"This is the day we get to be rock stars," he said.
Not only is American publisher Scholastic Inc. doing a first printing in excess of 12 million copies -- another record for the series -- but a number of other merchandisers have jumped into the Potter game, with T-shirts, calendars, candy, outfits and games.
"There is much more product available this time because of the timing of the movie and book releases," Diane Mangan, director of children's merchandise for Borders, told The Associated Press.
Indeed, the movie version of the fifth Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," came out July 11, and like the books, the movie series has been a series of blockbusters, with each entry easily topping $200 million in domestic box office sales. "Order of the Phoenix" has earned more than $150 million in fewer than 10 days. (The movies are produced by Warner Bros., which -- like CNN -- is a division of Time Warner.)
Not bad for a story about what Rowling called a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy" which, according to the author, came almost fully formed on a 1990 train ride from Manchester to London. She spent four hours musing on the character and started writing "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (later retitled "Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States) that night.
Late that year, Rowling's mother died and, Rowling writes on her Web site, aspects of the manuscript "[became] much deeper." Finally, in 1994, she finished the book, often writing in coffee shops in her adopted hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland.
It took two years for "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" to find a publisher and another year for it to be released in Britain, but once it hit, it hit hard. Scholastic released "Stone" in the United States in 1998; by 2000, Harry Potter fever was rampant, with the now familiar stories of record print runs, top-level secrecy and midnight bookstore debuts.
By now, Harry Potter is part of the culture. Rowling is Britain's richest woman -- the first billionaire author, according to Forbes. The Potter movies have made stars of its young actors and given regular, colorful work to a generation of Britain's finest performers. And Potter is now a regular feature of academia, taught alongside Shakespeare, Dickens and Faulkner. 
See Potter 101 »
Gary Richardson, an English professor at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, has taught Potter in a course, "Harry Potter and Twentieth-Century Fantasy," since 2001. The course includes Rowling's first four books as well as works by J.R.R. Tolkien, Ursula K. LeGuin and C.S. Lewis.
Richardson, who started the class for a variety of reasons -- including sizing up young-adult literature while reading the Potter books with his children -- has watched the books' impact grow. Initially, he says in an e-mail interview, "the more immediate appeal [of the class] were works by Tolkien and Lewis, as many students had not read any of Rowling's work."
But as students who read Potter as children have entered college, Richardson's class has changed -- even if his focus hasn't.
"Now my classes are dominated by students who grew up reading the books," Richardson says. "My burden is to get them beyond adoration and enthusiastic appreciation to critical investigation and understanding. ... By and large, students leave the course with a much deeper appreciation for the literary art of Rowling and the uniqueness of her contribution to fantasy."
Potter has even spawned a tourist industry. In May, the Universal Orlando Resort in Orlando, Florida, announced the construction of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a 20-acre theme park scheduled to open in 2009.
Richardson says he has no doubt that the books will live well beyond Harry's final bow.
"[Rowling] is an excellent writer and one more attuned to her audience than almost any other writer I can name, even the fantasists against whom I read her in my course," he observes.
"[And] ... more adeptly than any other popular fantasist, she has shown herself adept at using fantasy to address social issues that frame her readers' experience and doing so in ways that are well suited to her core readership. Her books imaginatively raise issues of gender equality, social class, race, media culture, the self-serving nature of many politicians, the potential flaws of justice systems and a host of other satiric targets."
As for Rowling, who wrote the final chapter of "Deathly Hallows" years ago, she's relieved, if a little dejected, that the story has come to an end. Though she's left the door open (a tiny crack) for future adventures, she said it was time, according to the AP.
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