Ever since Harry Potter was conceived, JK Rowling has insisted that his story was only seven books long – except that now it's over she's starting to wonder if it could stretch to eight.

By writing the final Harry Potter book at some point over the last 12 months, JK Rowling scored herself a runner-up spot on the Time Person of The Year List – she would have come first if it wasn't for that bloody Vladimir Putin – and that seems to have made her wonder out loud about writing another Harry Potter book. Don't get too excited, though, because the new Harry Potter book is at least a decade away – coming after the final Harry Potter movie, the opening of the Harry Potter theme park, the Harry Potter On Ice tour and the vastly unsuccessful Harry Potter Sings Julio Iglesias CD of Spanish language seduction ballads planned for March 2014.

If 2007 was the year that JK Rowling put an end to Harry Potter – finally publishing the last Harry Potter book Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – then 2008 will be the year that JK Rowling forgets about Harry Potter completely and moves on with her life, only limiting her mentions of Harry Potter to the times that she opens her mouth, writes stuff down or thinks about anything at all.

And it'll be a busy year for JK Rowling, because she's got several balls to juggle. There's her first adult novel to write, and some kind of 'political fairy tale' as well – plus Rowling needs to find adequate time to strut around her country-sized mansion in a dress made out of knitted rubies eating money sandwiches and pooing coins – but mainly she has to keep alluding to another Harry Potter book like some sort of awful tease.

After coming third in the Time Person Of The Year List – don't get jealous, you won it last year – JK Rowling has decided to announce her vague intentions to possibly write another Harry Potter book eventually if she feels like it and enough people want to read it. Speaking to Time, Rowling said:

"There have been times since finishing, weak moments, when I've said: 'Yeah, all right' to the eighth novel. If, and it's a big if, I ever write an eighth book about the (wizarding) world, I doubt that Harry would be the central character. I feel I've already told his story. But these are big ifs. Let's give it 10 years."

A Harry Potter book that isn't about Harry Potter? Surely not. So who could this new Harry Potter book be about? Not Dobby or Snape or Dumbledore or the owl or one of the Weasley twins or Voldemort because they're all dead. By our estimations, that means the new book will either be about the married adventures of Hermione and Ron, some sort of ghastly Son Of Harry Potter next-generation affair or a thousand-page book all about the zany adventures of that big moving painting of Dawn French from the third Harry Potter film.

You know what this means though – it means that everyone who signed that petition for more Harry Potter books last summer has been heard. We have a voice! Maybe now that we've convinced JK Rowling to write another Harry Potter book we can all gang up and try to convince another billionaire to earn more multi-million windfalls by cynically returning to franchises they promised us were dead because nothing they've done since has even been remotely successful in comparison. People power! Woo!

Read more:

Rowling 'may pen eighth Harry book' – Press Association