Barry leaned back in his chair, watching his old partner like this, and couldn't help but smile.
You had the same expression when you last saw the word "finished".
"At least last time it had a complete ending," Christopher said, flipping through the stack of manuscripts. "But this time it's only halfway done!"
"You'll have to get used to it." Barry stood up and walked to the window, glancing at the completely dark night sky outside.
"He's the famous Allen Wayne, not one of those newcomers who submits a full manuscript on time. We can only wait now."
Christopher took a deep breath, neatly placed the manuscript into a brown paper bag, and smoothed the folded corner of the seal with his fingertip. "What about the second part? When will he give it to us?"
"He'll give it to me when he's finished writing it." Barry turned around, his smile fading slightly, replaced by a more serious expression. "But there's an even more important issue that needs to be confirmed now."
"What?"
"Release date." Barry walked back to his desk, pulled a calendar from the pile of messy documents, and turned to the September page.
When was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Part 1) published?
"September 1st," Christopher blurted out.
"Then it'll be September 1st this time too!" Barry slammed the calendar on the table. "At nine o'clock sharp, it will be available in all bookstores nationwide simultaneously."
"We need to follow the same path as the first one, but this time we need to go even bigger. We can't waste this opportunity."
Christopher glanced down at the handwritten title on the brown paper bag and nodded. "Then you go arrange for the printing."
Barry smiled, turned and walked towards the door, but stopped a step at the doorway and turned back to say:
"You're responsible for keeping those bookstore owners in check and preventing them from finding out the contents of the second part beforehand."
What if they keep pressing me about the author's background?
"Say the same thing as last time," Barry waved his hand. "Anyway, Allen Wayne won't show up, which is actually a good thing for us."
For the next two weeks, the pace within Bloomsbury Publishing was almost frantic.
When the first batch of proofs was delivered to the editorial team at the end of July, the entire third-floor office was quiet for a whole afternoon.
Everyone was reading the nine chapters of the manuscript; the room was so quiet that only the sounds of breathing and turning pages could be heard.
Finally, when the first person looked up, the first thing they said was, "And then?"
"There's no more." Barry stood in the corridor, looking at the pained expressions on the editors' faces, and spread his hands. "That's all for the first part."
"When will the next part be released?--"
"Have no idea."
A desperate wail echoed through the office.
But despite the complaints, the work still had to be done.
The poster cover design was finalized in early August. The poster design follows the style of the first film, but the color scheme has been changed from dark blue to dark green. In the center is an old-fashioned Ford car flying in mid-air, with a crooked trail of smoke trailing behind it.
The background features the silhouette of Hogwarts Castle, which gleams with a cool silver hue under the moonlight.
The label below the title reads in small print, "Officially released on September 1st."
The printing plant's machines began operating 24/7 in mid-August.
Christopher would visit the printing plant almost every three days to personally check the paper quality, ink color, and binding process.
In the third week of August, as the first batch of finished books rolled off the assembly line, Barry stood in the warehouse and randomly picked one up to open.
He finally breathed a long sigh of relief as he smelled the mixture of new paper and printing ink.
"Looks good." Christopher appeared behind him unnoticed, flipping through a sample copy. "It's a bit thicker than the first one, but the price will remain the same."
" The Great Britain can handle it." Barry closed the book and tucked it under his arm. "What about the bookstore? Have you made contact?"
"We've already informed them—over 300 chain stores and over 400 independent bookstores nationwide—to stock the shelves at the same time."
Christopher paused, his gaze sweeping over Barry's shoulder and landing on the stack of new books reaching the ceiling. "Now we'll see how the market reacts."
By the end of August, the same banner had been displayed outside the main bookstores in almost every city, including London, Manchester Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Birmingham.
The deep blue background with silver lettering contrasts sharply with the red poster for the first film. The text on it is very simple:
" Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Part 1), will be released simultaneously throughout Great Britain on September 1st."
The flagship bookstore on Oxford Street has replaced the display windows with custom-made shelves for the second installment.
In the very center was an open sample book, and on the left and right sides stood two three-dimensional models cut from cardboard: one was the outline of Hogwarts Castle, and the other was an old-fashioned Ford car.
Alfred stood at the store entrance, hands on his hips, looking up at the huge new poster, and said to Mary beside him, "Go tell the publisher to give me twenty times the stock this time."
"Twenty times?" Mary held the notebook, her expression hesitant. "The last one had to be reprinted five times to make it enough, and they haven't even done that yet—"
"Twenty times," Alfred repeated, his tone leaving no room for argument. "If they don't sell out, it's on me."
A new banner has also been hung outside Simon Bookstore in Manchester, and Simon owner himself carried a ladder up to secure one corner of the banner.
After he came down, he took two steps back, looked up and examined the area for a while, then nodded in satisfaction.
The shop assistant next to him craned his neck and asked, "Boss, how much are you planning to order this time?"
Simon dusted off his hands and grinned, "Last time I ordered two thousand copies, and they sold out in three days. This time I'm going to multiply that tenfold."
The shop assistant gasped. "Twenty thousand copies?"
"You think I'm joking?" Simon turned and walked back into the store. "You're not getting any time off in September."
Passersby stopped and looked up. Some took out their cameras to take pictures, while others flipped through the well-worn first volume of the book, whispering to their friends.
How many copies do you think the second movie will sell?
"The first book has already sold nearly ten million copies, the second one will definitely need to be—"
"Don't guess. You'll know when you buy it."
Despite their small size, the owners of independent bookstores are just as enthusiastic.
Duncan of Edinburgh wiped the windows of his little shop three times, then posted a handwritten notice in the most conspicuous place:
" Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Part 1) will be available for purchase starting at 9:00 AM on September 1st. Limited quantities available, while supplies last."
Less than two hours after the notice was posted, people peeked out of the store and asked if they could make a reservation in advance.
Duncan stood behind the counter, waving his hand to say he didn't accept reservations, while adding a string of zeros to his mental bill.
William, the regional manager of the Liverpool bookstore chain, convened a short meeting with the heads of seven stores that afternoon after receiving a notification from the publisher.
He stood in front of the whiteboard and wrote down a few numbers, his tone resolute. "Each store will initially stock 5,000 copies. If they sell out on the first day, we'll add more orders that day."
"Five thousand copies?" A shop manager frowned. "Last time, it took two days to sell out a thousand copies. Isn't it too risky to sell five times that amount this time?"
William glanced at him. "Last time it was the first one, this time it's the second. Have you seen the first one?"
The store manager nodded.
"Then why are you asking this question?" William put down the whiteboard marker. "No one who has seen the first one will miss the second."
The topic of this is being discussed everywhere – on the streets, in cafes, and at bus stops.
A middle-aged man in a dark gray suit was flipping through the day's the Times on the subway, his gaze landing on a two-line preview in the culture section:
"The second Harry Potter book, The Chamber of Secrets, will be released on September 1st."
He raised an eyebrow, folded the newspaper, and stuffed it into his briefcase, silently planning to take a short leave on September 1st.
In the teachers' office of a state school in North London, two teachers are looking at the newspaper announcement of the preview for " Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Part 1)".
The female teacher sitting on the left sighed, "My son started counting down the days last week, asking me every day how many days are left."
"My daughter is even more outrageous," the colleague on the right said, pulling her chair closer. "She's saved up all her allowance for the entire year, saying she's going to buy the whole Harry Potter collection."
"The full set? She's only nine years old."
"Yes, she even told her friends that she would buy every single Harry Potter book from now on, without missing a single one."
Similar sentiments echoed throughout every corner of this island nation.
People started queuing outside the bookstore. Although there were still several days until the release, some people were willing to go in advance to check if the posters had been changed or to ask the staff about the specific release date.
Vernon Dursley certainly saw the banners too. He was driving along Oxford Street that day, stuck in traffic, when he turned his head and saw the dark blue poster in the window of the flagship bookstore.
His expression changed, and he pressed the accelerator harder, causing the car to lurch forward and nearly crash into the taxi in front of him.
While shopping at the supermarket, Aunt Petunia overheard two women in front of her talking in line at the checkout:
Have you heard that a second book is coming out of that?
"Of course I heard. My husband bought a copy of the first volume and finished it in two days. Tsk tsk."
When Aunt Petunia got home, she said to Uncle Vernon with a nervous look, "They're going to make a sequel to that book..."
She glanced nervously upstairs. "Will locking him upstairs stop anything?"
Uncle Vernon frowned, and hesitantly said, "No way..."
"Think about it, the second book is called ' Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,' and locking him in a room is essentially creating a Chamber of Secrets, isn't it?"
"Perhaps the second book will be about him being locked in the room!"
Uncle Vernon deduced with absolute certainty, and Aunt Petunia nodded with a hint of doubt.
At the end of August, just as " Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Part 1)" was about to be officially released, a newspaper article stirred up a storm in the Muggle world.