[ApK]

Don't get all defensive, people, it's not about intelligence.
It's about effective marketing and effective story telling. I'm with Cromag. It was not Rowlings intention to make these books a vocabulary lesson. She wrote using words and expressions her audience would understand. She didn't go all Tolkien on them and create a new magical language for everything (spells aside). She didn't make her audience go learn a new term for "car park." She made the language familiar and accessible.
Scholastic ensured the same experience for American readers.

The UK editions are available to us if that interests folks.

And I agree with Pfeiffer and Worrall. If the Bond movie was called "License Revoked" we'd be picturing Bond (as played by Woody Allen) in traffic court arguing with a meter maid.
That's what that phrase invokes (or is it evokes?) here. "Kill" is a stronger word to attract audiences to an action movie.