British author J.K. Rowling was nearly forced to be separated from her hefty manuscript of the final "Harry Potter" book when she was told she couldn't bring it on a flight as carry-on baggage. The author was told she would have to check it with other luggage, meaning handing over her handwritten Book 7 of the wizard's tale to airport baggage handlers - and have screeners look at her top secret notes!
Had security agents not relented, she said on her Web site, she might not have flown. "I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't — sailed home probably," she wrote.
The author had participated in a book reading for charity on August 1 with fellow writers Stephen King and John Irving. Since security has been tightened after August 10 when British police intercepted a plot to blow up airliners, airports in the UK and US are still restricting passengers hand luggage.
"The heightened security restrictions on the airlines made the journey back from New York interesting, as I refused to be parted from the manuscript of book seven. A large part of it is handwritten and there was no copy of anything I had done while in the U.S."
Eventually, she added, "They let me take it on, thankfully, bound up in elastic bands."
