Subhanwita Bhattacharyya is on tenterhooks. “How will they show Dumbledore’s death?” wonders the 24-year-old medical student. “Will the kiss between Harry and Ginny Weasley be just like in the book?”

The Potter movies, rues Subhanwita, never turn out as good as the books, but she still is “really looking forward to” Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, that hits halls on Thursday.

When the boy wizard was born on screen, he came to India with 95 prints. When he was 12, he arrived with 100 prints. At 14, he trooped in with 175 prints. And now, as he turns 16, Harry Potter is invading India this week with 350 prints.

In the middle of a blockbuster Bollywood season, Hollywood hopes to hit a home run with Half-Blood Prince, the sixth in the series and the biggest Potter release in town.

“Harry Potter is the big release this weekend, starting Thursday, with more shows than Jashnn, the only Bolly release,” reveals Captain Virendra Marya, the regional director (east) of INOX. “After how Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix did in 2007 (Rs 26 crore gross across India), for which we had six daily shows, we are now going with seven shows at each property.”

Calcutta will also be one of only three cities in the country, along with Mumbai and Hyderabad, to screen an IMAX 3D version of the film, at the IMAX screen in Mani Square. Jim Patterson, director of AerenR IMAX, says: “It’s our first big release in Calcutta. The first and last scenes of Half-Blood Prince are in 3D while the rest of the film is enhanced both in terms of image and sound. After the premiere on Wednesday evening, we will play five shows from Thursday.”

A high celeb quotient of Muggles is expected at Wednesday’s premiere in Mani Square. Actor-director Arjun Chakraborty says: “My daughter Suhasini, 16, introduced me to the world of Harry Potter and now I am hooked. We both can’t wait to catch the premiere; that it will be in 3D is an added attraction.”

Fame (South City) with its six screens in town will also go big on Potter. The failure of last Friday’s Bolly releases — Short Kut and Morning Walk — has helped create even more screen space for J.K. Rowling’s characters. New York and Kambakkht Ishq, after their mega first weekends, have also run out of steam.

A Harry Potter movie draws the adult in a child and the child in an adult, making it a complete family experience. But Half-Blood Prince needs to draw box-office blood fast before Imran Khan’s Luck, and then Saif-Deepika’s Love Aaj Kal strike.