If author J.K. Rowling decides that Harry Potter will die in the seventh book of the series on the young wizard, it would be a "betrayal" to fans according to a university professor.

"I think that we've seen the story through Harry Potter's eyes and we've watched his moral development," Professor Daniel Nexon, co-editor of the book "Harry Potter and International Relations" told CTV's Canada AM.

"It would both be both a betrayal of the fans to kill him off now and also, I think to make sense of what's happened in the novels, he needs to be there in the aftermath and experience the aftermath of the novels."

At least one major character will die in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final book in the series. Fans are so fearful that the bespectacled lead character will be killed off when the book hits shelves on July 21, many have signed a 'Save Harry' online petition.

The frenzy surrounding the end of the Harry Potter series is underlined by the fact that the first six books in the series have sold over 325 million copies and have been translated into 65 languages. The fifth movie based on books from the series "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" opened in movie theatres Wednesday.

"It's not really a surprise how popular the books have become," said Nexon, an Assistant Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University. "They have rich characters (and) a compelling plot. They're funny, they're scary, they're exciting. They've sort of got everything for everybody. And after the initial success of the first book, a lot of marketing forces went behind pushing them. In that sense it's not very surprising."

"On the other hand it's a little interesting because if you think about the books, they're basically are an updated English boarding school genre combined with fantasy. It's fairly interesting that that particular very British and European sense of plot and elements has become so successful in all sorts of places like China, Japan, Thailand etcetera."

Because of the overwhelming worldwide appeal of the Harry Potter books, Nexon believes that J.K. Rowling's books and characters could soon take their place alongside literary icons of the past.

"I certainly think there's good reason to believe they'll be up there with (Arthur) Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" or the "Lord of the Rings" or maybe even Dickens," he said.