LONDON -- Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, interviewed by children from around the world, said on Thursday she would love to become invisible so that she could write her books in a cafe as she used to before she became famous.

Rowling admitted she did not believe in magic but said she would love to look in a magic mirror like Potter does and see her late mother who died of multiple sclerosis in 1990, reported Reuters.

But the multimillionaire writer, appearing live at London's Royal Albert Hall in a webcast beamed to millions, warned that the world's most famous boy wizard may not survive until adulthood.

This provoked a gasp of astonishment from the 4,000 children in the audience.

Rowling, who now earns more than Britain's Queen Elizabeth, started writing the Potter books in an Edinburgh cafe when she was a penniless single mother. Asked what magic powers she would like to have, she said: "I would love the power of invisibility. It is a little bit sad but I would sneak off to a cafe and write all day." And quizzed about what she would like to glimpse in a magic mirror, she replied: "I would see what Harry saw -- my mother again." But Rowling confessed: "I don't believe in magic in the way that it appears in the books. I would want to believe in it but I cannot."

The author, whose latest book "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", the fifth in the series, came out last Saturday, is credited with introducing millions of children around the world to the joys of reading.

She was interviewed by British comedian Stephen Fry who then introduced questions from children around the world, some sent by e-mail and others filmed.

Rowling looked amazed by the frenetic cheers that greeted her appearance on the stage. "This is the nearest I shall ever get to being a Beatle," she said, referring to her favorite pop group. Asked about the villains in her books, she said: "I have met enough people I don't like in my life to have a fairly shrewd idea of what I want my baddies to be like."

But Rowling was giving nothing away about the next two books in the saga. One boy in Sydney asked if there would be any books about Harry as an adult. She teasingly replied: "You have to wait and see if he survives to be a grown-up. I don't want to give anything away at the moment."