[spoiler warning: The book is discussed in total, and particularly focuses on those things which were not already known from prior books as well as the implications of the ending. If you have not yet finished reading it, I highly recommend you do so first.]

This has been a few days in coming, for a variety of reasons - wanting the book to settle a bit, giving others a chance to finish reading it for themselves, and recovering from the side effects of Harry Potter Week. I had originally envisioned a full week embargo for spoiler avoidance, but I believe everyone I know that was reading it is now finished. Moreover, I really need to start thinking about other things, and instead I keep finding partial analyses of the book rattling around upstairs.

For the record, after the initial overnight recess on Sunday, I picked Deathly Hallows back up that evening with the determination to read it through to the end instead of spending each subsequent day in silent dread of overhearing forbidden information. So I reached the epilogue right about 6:30am on Monday morning, happy but exhausted. Had I been able to ensure a Cone of Silence during the first part of the week, I would have liked to stretch it out over another day or two, and I expect I will do just that when I re-read it in the near future. Also in contrast with the process for the previous books, I did not take notes or pull quotes as I went through, with the exception of a running list of mini-predictions (e.g. what’s in the Snitch?). All of this means that this review will be based primarily on my impression of an extended first reading, drawing from memory, and dealing with the act of reading it as well as what it contained.

Before breaking down the story into its many components and other literary vivisections, I wanted to begin by emphasizing just how engrossing the book was. While book 6 felt at the time, as I wrote previously, unpleasantly like holding one’s breath in icy waters, the pacing and stepped-up danger quotient in book 7 had a much more invigorating effect (Ennervate!). Knowing that the answers awaited just ahead, and recognizing the full sweep of dramatic options available when an author declares the end of a series (cf. Serenity - we miss you, Wash!), the everpresent menace served to keep me much more in the present rather than racing ahead. The change in scenery from familiar Hogwarts, the unleashing of the full powers of the trio as they came of age, and the constant march towards an inevitable-but-imminent confrontation all served to ratchet up the tension and spectacle, without giving up opportunities for tenderness and the mercurial moods of adolescence. I distinctly remember that when McGonagall declared that Hogwarts would be defended to give Harry time to find the Ravenclaw artifact, I felt a fierce happiness burning inside of me and I think I might even have jumped up and down a little bit. For any quibbles and could-have-beens that may come after this, I want to declare just how much I loved reading the book to its conclusion (maybe not so much the epilogue, but we’ll get to that). It is that sort of transcendent reader’s journey that is so hard to communicate, but inspires us to push favorite books on others, insisting, “You’ll love it!” when we really mean “I loved it, and I want you to experience that same feeling of breathlessness as I did when I first discovered it, and then we will share a kinship in its revelry and wonder.”

Now to the story itself. The structure is almost identical to that of Goblet of Fire - a prelude of sorts that shows us where Voldemort is and what he has begun to undertake, and then the now-classic bookends of 4 Privet Drive and Platform 9-3/4. We learn that the protection enjoyed by Harry by virtue of his mother’s blood in Aunt Petunia has a second limitation other than his coming of age - when he leaves for the Burrow with no intention of returning, it will no longer be designated ‘home’ and thus end. That this further puts the Dursleys in mortal danger, for those who might mistake Harry’s only natural family as a sentimental target, is another oversight on my part. The unreadable expression by Aunt Petunia at their parting is consistent with her mixed feelings, since even though she has acted consistently to bedevil Harry’s upraising, the fact remains that she took him in at Dumbledore’s urging with the awareness that to do otherwise would mean his probable death. While we might say that it takes only the basest emotion of sympathy to act to prevent the death of another, it does redeem her slightly that she entered into the contract nonetheless. The great surprise, of course, is that ‘Big D’ Dudley has developed some kind of favorable regard for Harry as well. Is he grateful for Harry rescuing him from dementors two years before? Does he truly grasp that Harry is heading off into danger’s way while the Dursleys are being kept safe by the very world they despise? Or is he, as I originally thought, either Confunded or Imperiused into acting in a totally uncharacteristic way? His concern must be taken as genuine, and if things could not seem stranger, we have yet a long way to go. At least we bow out the Dursleys in as genteel and reconciled fashion as could be hoped, indeed more than expected.

Where we first get the sense that the governor is cut and the throttle is wide open is when the volunteer Harry doppelgangers (and isn’t seven the most powerfully magic number?) first leave the grounds. We have some forewarning that an attack is likely due to Snape’s unnamed source, which contradicts the false trail laid through the crumbling Ministry. But the sheer abruptness of the Death Eaters’ mass appearance and the brutality of the battle and its consequences that follow get the message across clearly: Nothing is safe anymore. Not in Harry’s world due to Voldemort’s influence, and not in our reading because we have no more books in which characters must survive to reappear in. Like the last episode of a television series reaching its scripted end, we no longer have any presumed guarantees that the writer will have to safeguard anyone for the future. Even this early on, certain characters are more at risk precisely because they no longer have any critical role to play and thus become narratively expendable - compare this to the case of the Star Wars prequels, where we know enough about all of the main characters that their futures are essentially blessed, which in turn means that only someone like Qui-Gon can truly be at risk, in a sort of a time-limited predestination bubble. Only Harry has that kind of protection in this book, and then only until he finally faces Voldemort; everyone else is fair game for casualties of war. And so we see the first to fall.

Hedwig’s abrupt death is the first shock. While I could rationalize it - Harry is no longer at Hogwarts, and his main potential correspondents are already dead, making Hedwig more of a potential hindrance during the Horcrux Quest - I still did not think to put her in the ‘at risk’ circle. It is a major jolt to Harry’s confidence to lose something familiar and sever another skein connecting him to lost ones like Sirius; Hedwig had been his lifeline for outside news and encouragement. It further demonstrates his resolve to act out of expediency, as when he explodes the sidecar containing her cage in their running escape, a cavalier act despite his mourning. An ever greater shock is when Hagrid launches himself off the motorcycle as they approach the Tonks’, plunging to the ground below and lying unmoving at the chapter ends. For a moment I could only think of the selfsame sacrifice that titles the first chapter to the unreleased sequel to The Princess Bride, “The Death of Fezzik.” In it, Fezzik - that story’s friendly giant - falls to his death while defending Buttercup’s baby. Like Hedwig, I had not anticipated Hagrid’s life being seriously in jeopardy, and here we’ve not even made it to the Burrow! Fortunately, come chapter next we get a reprieve, but we are still left to wonder at the fate of everyone else who participated in the evacuation plan. When they take the portkey and find they alone have arrived, we are set to wait and see who else will not return.

Mad-Eye Moody is a safe choice - after Goblet of Fire, Harry has never really spent much time with the real Moody, although he did serve as part of the guard escorting him in Order of the Phoenix, aided in the fight in the Department of Mysteries, and, um, identified a boggart in the dressing room. Still, he can represent a material loss to the Order while leaving the majority of the roster intact for the greater battles yet to come. And the Disapparition of Mundungus lets us wonder at the traitor - could it have been Mad-Eye, whose body is never found? Mundungus, who has always been disreputable but is given credit for the 7-Harry deception that effectively confounds the Death Eaters? The latter’s disappearance has another effect - if he can escape that way, why couldn’t Harry just be taken directly to the Burrow by Side-Along Apparition? A brief mention is made of Apparition being monitored by the Ministry’s Department of Magical Transportation plus the Order’s suspicion that it has been infiltrated, but Remus Lupin says that it is impossible to track without physically touching the Apparator (as happens later to Hermione during their flight from the Ministry). Obviously the pat answer is “because it makes them have to go through a big battle scene and risk everyone’s lives, which is much more dramatic,” but perhaps on a closer reading I’ll run across a better explanation. We also lose George’s ear, although after the initial horror (and Fred’s uncharacteristic moment of shocked silence), they make such light of it that it’s easy enough to accept.

Once at the Burrow, we engage in that most faithful of fantasy tropes, the bestowing of key gifts-whose-worth-we-know-not-yet. Harry receives a flesh-imprinted Golden Snitch, Ron the Put-Outer, and Hermione a runed bedtime story collection. Oh, and the Sword of Gryffindor, except that’s held up in probate court. Harry comes of age, and naturally celebrates by poking his eye out with his glasses and tying his shoes almost permanently. For his birthday, Harry also gets a Mokeskin bag to keep bits of broken trinkets in - although it has nothing on Hermione’s Bag of Holding, er, Undetectable Extendable Charm on her beaded handbag - and a book on charming witches whose advice presumably shows up in Ron’s somewhat smarmy ministrations to Hermione. We learn the seriousness with which both Ron and Hermione are taking their pledge to help Harry on his Quest, to the extent of Ron making his own ghoulish stand-in (a la The Last Starfighter) and Hermione changing her parents’ identities, erasing their memories of her very existence, and sending them off to Australia. Oh, and yes, we learn that Ginny’s devotion to Harry has not flickered in his absence as he gets a very passionate, if tragically foreshortened, birthday present.

Then it’s time for a wedding! Fleur’s glamour and veela heritage is such to make even Bill’s scars disappear as they stand enraptured before the minister. We get some happy and light moments among the assembled throngs, plus salacious gossip on Dumbledore’s past as intimated by Rita Skeeter’s exposé, and observe a curious symbol worn by the even odder parent to Luna, Xenophilius Lovegood. And then Kingsley’s lynx Patronus arrives with its succinct warning: The Minister dead, the Ministry overtaken, and…they are coming. Death Eaters arrive, our trio escapes - fortunately with everything already stowed in the amazing beaded handbag. And now our Quest truly begins.

With all that as warmup, the search for the horcruxes has a somewhat lackluster beginning. With the locket as the only real starting point, and with the trio on the run after happening to encounter a pair of Death Eaters at a coffee shop in Tottenham Court Road, they go to 12 Grimmauld Place. And despite a rocky start, they accomplish - at Hermione’s urging - the remarkable conversion of Kreacher from defiant lackey to genuine ally. She sees to the truth of Kreacher’s behavior, that he does not really heed the pureblood mantra of his former Black masters so much as follow the lead of those he loyally serves who in turn treat him well - Sirius’ mother, Narcissa and Bellatrix, and most importantly, young Regulus. We could have guessed that Kreacher was the one who aided Regulus in retrieving the true locket from the cave, but not that he was used by Voldemort to place it there initially (at the cost of having to drink the potion) or that Regulus sacrificed himself upon retrieving it and called upon the house-elves highest calling to help Kreacher escape. Again, we find a level of magic that Voldemort does not comprehend because he disdains those who use it. And with a simple act of compassion, Harry wins Kreacher’s loyalty and becomes a true master of the house, justifying at last Hermione’s many stymied efforts at improving human/elf relations. It is unexpected, and surprisingly gratifying, to learn that Kreacher was reacting more to Sirius’ disfavor and mistreatment than some affiliation to the cause of the enemy, and is redeemed simply by sympathy and respect.

Kreacher also retrieves Mundungus Fletcher, last known holder/fence of the locket. In turn he tells of proffering it as a bribe to a certain toadlike woman flaunting her Ministry connections, which of course refers to Umbridge. And that means breaking in to the Ministry to retrieve it, made all the more difficult because of the many changes undertaken via Voldemort’s control there. Here we come to another oversight - I did not give Voldemort credit for learning from past mistakes, and taking a different tack in subjugating the masses than just outright terrorism. Where I envisioned the Ministry paralyzed by internal struggles for self-preservation amid a growing mass panic, instead we have the calculated coup d’état of the Ministry by first overtaking the Department of Magical Law Enforcement (the closest to a military branch) by means of the Imperius Curse and then a surgical strike on the Minister himself. This accomplishes a number of aims simultaneously -

• it co-opts the primary mechanism for resistance,
• grants the Death Eaters carte blanche in their efforts e.g. to locate Harry,
• creates a public relations front for these efforts by casting FUD surrounding the events of Dumbledore’s death on the Astronomy Tower,
• provides the pretext for returning Snape to Hogwarts, and even appointing him as Headmaster,
• and most chilling, legitimizes a platform of purging all Muggle-borns from the Wizarding community, through efforts of registration, intimidation, and criminalization.

All of these measures serve to make Harry’s tasks and the struggle of the Order that much more difficult, but the last has ominous repercussions beyond the plot. Here we have the full incarnation of Voldemort’s self-hatred laid bare in his pogrom against those, like himself, guilty of impure birth. While pureblood children are mandated to attend Hogwarts so that the Ministry can ensure their proper indoctrination in the ways of the new regime, all those of ‘inferior’ birth are required to register and be judged. For those proven to be unworthy of wizarding stock, the dementors await with their deathless kiss. The historical examples abound, and have been mentioned in reviewing prior books, but it is in the annals of fantasy that this Muggle-Born Registration Act has even more resonant examples. The superhuman registration acts of The Incredibles, Powers, Marvel’s Civil War, and especially the X-Men’s Mutant Registration Act have all tread this ground of “what you fear and despise, catalog and bury within the pitiless gears of bureaucracy.” The additional replacement of a relatively benign meritocracy with some elements of cronyism within the Ministry with a hierarchy based solely on the twin pedestals of loyalty and blood-purity serves to realign the power base and further distract those within from pursuing any kind of overt or covert action against Voldemort’s plans. After all, per Pump Up the Volume, “your file is under review.”

The perversities of the Ministry were such that, just in considering this section of the review, I felt compelled to go back and watch V for Vendetta and focus on all of its similarities in portraying a government at war with its citizenry and zealously demonizing the Other, or as Valerie puts, “different became dangerous.” The hateful rhetoric of Lewis Prothero, foam-spittled pronouncements of a righteous Adam Sutler, and the simple tagging of those out of the mainstream as ‘undesirable’ all find their parallels in a Ministry in the throes of enacting its own program of “strength through purity” (as it was in the original novel, although changed to “strength through unity” for the movie version). Though they come to power through stealth and manipulation rather than the false catalyst of a staged terrorist attack, the Voldemort contingent does manage to capitalize on the fear spread by Voldemort’s return (effectively playing both sides), as well as demonizing their opponents, especially ‘Undesirable No.1,’ that notorious troublemaker and possible murderer, Harry Potter.

That Umbridge would be the appointed head of such efforts to drag down those of accomplishment in the name of party loyalty retrenches her personification as ‘mundane evil,’ or in the parlance of D&D alignment perhaps, ‘lawful evil.’ Whereas Voldemort and the majority of Death Eaters act solely out of puerile self-interest, Umbridge performs acts of cutting cruelty and revels in the discrediting of others deemed to belong to an underclass (half-breeds, Muggle-born) through the pitiless execution of an evil mandate. The depiction of her feline Patronus, purring as it walks back and forth in a clammy dungeon cell surrounded by dementors, is particularly chilling as she joyfully considers the fate of people guilty only of suspect heritage. That she further aims to bolster her own apparent blood superiority through the misrepresented Slytherin locket reveals even deeper dissympathies - one wonders if she conjures up this unadulterated vitriol, like Voldemort, out of profound self-loathing over her misbegotten ancestry. And it is curious in retrospect that her wearing the locket does not appear to have the profound subversion of mood shown later when worn by our heroes.

Before we embark on the complex, Mission: Impossible style infiltration of the Ministry to reclaim the locket,we first confront an ill-at-ease Lupin, on the run seemingly from his own self-doubt and his responsibilities as a parent. Harry rebuffs his attempts to aid them, and in fact sends him rushing off with his metaphorical tail between his legs, in a staunch repudiation of Lupin’s attempt to make his abandonment seem more noble before rushing towards reckless dangers presented by Harry’s tasks. With that accomplished, it’s off to the Ministry and some judicious use of the Polyjuice Potion to procure the locket. Naturally, everything quickly goes wrong, with Ron off to fix an office rainstorm, Hermione escorting Umbridge down to the dungeons, and Harry left to wander around and thus come across the stunning blue of Moody’s Mad Eye embedded in Umbridge’s office door. I thought at this point that the magical eye must surely have some critical part to play in the story ahead, along with their many other artifacts, since it has been demonstrated as one of the most powerful means of seeing through enchantments and even Harry’s otherwise impenetrable Invisibility Cloak. But instead it serves only to raise the alarm and provoke a panicked escape from the Ministry, locket at least in hand, and a resulting squinch as Hermione gets tagged during Disapparition and shakes off their pursuer at the steps of 12 Grimmauld Place. This in turn closes off their comfortable refuge from future use, and puts them in the wild and truly on their own.

So we embark on their extended sojourn through the many woods and towns of rural Britain as the Quest begins to break down from lack of momentum. The lack of food owing to it being one of the five exceptions to Elementary Transfiguration makes for bitter company, made all the more fractious due to Harry’s insistence that they each take it in turn to wear the will-sapping locket horcrux. With descriptions eerily similar to that of Sauron’s One Ring, the locket acts like a portable dementor, siphoning away confidence and cheer and making the wearer sink ever deeper in despair. Why Harry cannot simply conscience to keep it in the Mokeskin bag (unless it has no more room) or Hermione’s handbag (which certainly does) is a bit of a mystery, unless one resorts to the same rationale as for the initial trip to the Burrow. Still, time drags on and tempers raise as we get no closer to finding another horcrux, or destroying the locket. We get a hint at least that the Sword of Gryffindor, now imbued with the power of basilisk venom, would serve for the latter purpose, if only they knew where Dumbledore might have left it for them. From here, the exact sequence of events becomes a bit murky to my recollection, so these may not all follow in precise order. I’ll try to keep to the highlights and see if we can’t sprint ahead somewhat to the meatier fare.

• Eventually Ron gets fed up and leaves. Hermione stays, but clearly at a dear emotional cost.
• Harry returns to his earlier fixation on the place he had first intended to visit - Godric’s Hollow, home of his parents and, we’ve since learned, that of the Dumbledores and Bathilda Bagshot, his confidante and author of A History of Magic.
• The visit to Godric’s Hollow goes disastrously, with Harry attacked by a giant snake (Nagini?), his wand broken, and no new information about Dumbledore since Bathilda has been dead for some time. We do, however, visit the graves of Harry’s parents as well as a couple of other notables (Ignotus Peverell, Ariana Dumbledore) and get a copy of The Life And Lies of Albus Dumbledore for free.
• The Life and Lies provides one version of Albus’ early years, including the mystery of his sister Ariana and his brief friendship with Grindelwald before his rise to power.
• Harry follows a silver doe Patronus to the sword of Gryffindor, hidden beneath the ice. Ron returns, just in time to save Harry from drowning in an icehole, and proves his valor by retrieving the sword and using it to destroy the locket after some choice taunting over his deepest anxieties.
• Ron tells of being ambushed by Snatchers (a term right out of The Borribles) which nets him a spare wand for Harry.
• We get news of the outside world through a couple of chance encounters - first with the roaming party of refugees including Dean Thomas, Ted Tonks, and Griphook the Gringotts goblin from book 1; and then once Ron finally guesses the password to Potterwatch on the wireless. (The latter has already doubtless been the cause of at least one new podcast, fansite, or other outlet starting to take up the moniker.) The contributors to Potterwatch all take the expedient step of adopting R-titled aliases, although Remus could really have done better than to choose his namesake’s brother, Romulus.
• Harry moons over Ginny, watching her dot move silently around the Marauder’s Map at Hogwarts.
• The trio visit Xenophilius Lovegood to learn more about his curious symbol, which he reveals as representing the Deathly Hallows - three more artifacts to find! Hermione reads the Beedle’s version from her runed book, and Xenophilius fills out the story, which takes on the dimensions of a Grail Quest or something like the secret society which pursued Charlemagne’s chess service in The Eight, alchemical examples all. We have already seen two of the three (Harry’s cloak and the stone of Gaunt’s ring), and Harry now guesses that the third, the Elder Wand, is what Voldemort has been pursuing in hopes of overcoming his inability to kill Harry. We also learn that Luna has been taken hostage.
• Finally Harry invokes the Taboo by saying Voldemort’s name (which Ron had conveniently overridden since their first escape from Tottenham Court Road), arranging for their capture by Fenrir Grayback and henchmen and thus their being ferried to the Malfoy estate for some providential eavesdropping.

A quick aside on the Taboo: it is fitting that such a stalwart notion from both magick and religious history as the ‘forbidden word’ makes its appearance in the commitment of Voldemort’s name as a formal taboo, and frightening that the power of Ministry is such that it can be used to detect the utterance of a single word anywhere within a wide sphere of influence and immediately acted upon. It is like a supernatural equivalent to infamous NSA programs like ECHELON that track for certain keywords, or else daemonic names that conjure up their counterparts from the nether hells to serve or menace those foolish enough to utter them. Like the underage Trace we learn about leading up to Harry’s birthday, one wonders just what other powers of surveillance are available to the Ministry.

Once at the Malfoys, we start off a flurry of events. We find Luna, Dean Thomas, Ollivander, and Griphook sharing the dungeon beneath the floor. Bellatrix’ torture of Hermione takes on new urgency when she spots the sword of Gryffindor among the spoils, and she demands to know how they have infiltrated her bank vault (a-ha!). Harry’s fragment of Sirius’ two-way mirror serves to call help in the form of Dobby. Wormtail redeems himself with the merest moment of hesitation, resulting in his being strangled by the enchanted hand granted by Voldemort. And Harry overpowers Draco, stealing three wands including Draco’s own. Sadly, in the slow-motion conclusion to their escape, Bellatrix’ silver knife flies through the air and claims the life of valiant Dobby. Now at Shell Cottage, Harry endeavors to bury Dobby by hand, which seems to work in his favor in convincing Griphook to cooperate in their planned bank heist. Meanwhile, Harry makes the fateful decision to put horcruxes before Hallows, interrogating Griphook first in seeking the means to retrieve whatever Bellatrix feared they had already discovered. By the time he meets with Ollivander, Voldemort is already well on the way to retrieve the Elder Wand from Dumbledore’s Tomb, although we learn something of the vagaries of wandlore - that wands innately possess some amount of sentience or will, that they choose the wizard (as we had first seen in his shop in book 1), and that the manner of their passing to a new owner affects their efficacy. Having wrested Draco’s wand by force, for example, Harry has earned its obedience in a way he never achieved with the blackthorn, which had been stolen by Ron.

We now embark on yet another thrilling break-in attempt, this time the seemingly impregnable Gringotts and into a high-security vault to boot. The untimely appearance of another Death Eater provokes Harry’s first use of the Imperius Curse, and we learn that goblins have a sick sense of humor in how they trap their vaults against thieves. Griphook makes off with the Sword of Gryffindor, foiling Harry’s plan to pull the “didn’t say when” gambit (which makes me think, of all things, of Prostho Plus - Piers Anthony’s tale of a space dentist who avoids a deadly fate through a similar loophole). Their escape by dragonback is likewise reminiscent of Joel Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame, with its evocative emancipation of the slave dragon. The retrieval of Hufflepuff’s cup thereby takes us up to the limits of our foreknowledge of the available horcruxes - after the locket and the cup, we know only that one more item remains, apart from Nagini. And it is by the simple expedient of reading Voldemort’s mind, in his panic apparently forgetting to employ Occlumency against Harry’s intrusion, that we learn that the final artifact resides at no less a place than Hogwarts, and perhaps even in Ravenclaw Tower.

After confirmation of Aberforth’s identity as the barman of the Hog’s Head (which always smelled of goats), here begins the run-up to the apparent final battle between the massed forces of Good and Evil, suitably enough back at the grounds of Hogwarts. We discover that a defiant Neville has been leading the charge against the oppression within the school, through the adroit use of the full power of the Room of Requirement. The remnants of Dumbledore’s Army await them, and thus emboldened, Harry makes his way with Luna to Ravenclaw Tower in search of the last founder’s artifact. He runs into one stationed Death Eater, then after the arrival of Professor McGonagall, yet another and makes a disturbing display of the Cruciatus Curse in dispatching the latter. But at the invocation of Dumbledore’s name in announcing his intentions, Harry gains the complete loyalty of McGonagall and its staff (Snape fleeing the scene) that Hogwarts can put to its defense to buy him time to complete his task. And so the Battle of Hogwarts begins.

Although Rowling provides tremendous fan service in the ensuing battle (while Harry wanders about, asking questions of ghosts), it seems like nothing would be enough to satisfy our appetite. We get the arrival of the full Order plus Ginny, and the long-awaited return of the prodigal son, Percy Weasley, who announces his failings and joins his brothers. Grawp and Hagrid wreak their normal giant-sized havoc, while Professor Sprout and Professor McGonagall demonstrate the most ingenuity in employing the resources of the castle and grounds itself into their defenses: we cheer when the transfigured statues all march off as one, or desks rush from the gates into melee, or Neville rushes past with arms full of Snargaluff Pods and Mandrakes to rain down on the invaders from the ramparts. One wonders just how much an enriled Professor Flitwick is capable of, as he begins casting an enchantment of immense complexity (Protego Horribilis) within Ravenclaw Tower. The house elves make their stand with Kreacher at their head, rushing to fight with pots and a form of magic that has thus far shown no restraints. Perhaps most thrilling is the full force of a mother’s rage unleashed when Bellatrix nearly kills Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley flies to her defense with a cry that is nearly an echo of Ripley facing down the Alien Queen (Aliens) in protecting her own adopted daughter, Newt: “Get away from her, you bitch!” But at some point we may be disappointed as the battle dissolves into the usual exchange of jets of colored light, with the occasional Shield or Disarming Charm thrown in.

Yet amidst all this chaos, Harry manages to identify the location of the diadem of Ravenclaw, and discovers that Ron and Hermione have managed already to destroy the Hufflepuff cup through the simple expedient of having Ron emulate Parseltongue to re-open the Chamber of Secrets (which must have been a hoot to witness). We also get Ron and Hermione’s first ‘on screen’ kiss, when Ron expresses concern for the welfare of the Hogwarts house elves, evidently having learned as much as Harry from the transformation of Kreacher as well as the sacrifice of Dobby. We encounter a not-so-friendly Draco and his thoroughly evil minions Crabbe and Goyle within the Room of Hidden Things, who conveniently manage to destroy the diadem by Crabbe’s unwise conjuration of Fiendfyre. Leaving a cowed Draco in their wake, the trio set off again to the Shrieking Shack, where Voldemort is holed up with Nagini, now the last remaining horcrux (we yet know of). Here they witness Snape’s summoning, and prescribed death by Voldemort in an attempt to gain mastery of the Elder Wand (although it begs inquiry why Voldemort would choose Nagini as the instrument of Snape’s dismissal rather than his usual Avada Kedavra, the better to win the Elder Wand to him, although we must suspect that slow death by poison simply provides the requisite time). In his final moments, Snape extracts his hidden memories (fortunately not hidden elsewhere to protect them against Voldemort’s Legilimency) and thus provides us with the final answers to his true nature, the justification for his actions, and the secret of Harry’s scar that Dumbledore had kept from him.

From this point forward until the story’s end, the ensuing events become somewhat tangled and confusing and describing them is nigh impossible without also critiquing them or making an attempt at forceful explanation. So we will therefore dispense with a straightforward summary of events, and approach them instead with the clues and insight provided us.

1. Harry is a horcrux, containing a fragment of Voldemort’s soul just as his skin contains the protection of his mother’s blood. Dumbledore foresaw this, and thus arranged for Harry to be prepared for the sacrifice he will have to make in order to truly accomplish Voldemort’s defeat.
2. The protection provided by Lily’s blood magic is infused with Voldemort, as a result of his taking Harry’s blood in the graveyard to accomplish his resurrection at the end of Goblet of Fire.
3. The three Deathly Hallows are reputed to make their owner a “master of Death,” although the exact extent of this mastery is not described, as all mention of it has been corrupted by legend and fairy tales.
4. While Harry possesses 2 of the Hallows (the Resurrection Stone and Cloak of Invisibility), Voldemort holds the Elder Wand, which Dumbledore captured from Grindelwald.
5. Harry chooses the path of the horcruxes over the Hallows while at Shell Cottage, i.e. he seeks to end Voldemort’s reign at the peril of his life. In this sense, he has conquered fear of death, although he can not be said to seek it out willingly.
6. Harry enters the clearing in the Forbidden Forest to sacrifice himself, both to protect all those he cares about who remain at Hogwarts and to destroy the horcrux he carries.
7. Voldemort casts the Killing Curse at Harry using the Elder Wand, thinking he has won its allegiance through killing Snape, who had killed its former master, Dumbledore.
8. Harry is temporarily free of his body, and meets with a representation of Albus Dumbledore in a place like Purgatory (or Limbo aka Mobil Station of The Matrix Revolutions, a place between two worlds) that appears to him as King’s Cross, which for Harry stands as the interface between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. With him is the scrabbling fragment of Voldemort’s soul. Harry is given the chance to ‘move on’ or go back to his body to continue fighting Voldemort.
9. Like Aslan exploiting the loophole of Deep Magic in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Harry is resurrected through the purity of his sacrifice, but also by the merit of his soul remaining bound to life through his mother’s blood, and by the inability of the Elder Wand to act against its true master (although his willful sacrifice appears to have allowed it to act to briefly separate his soul).
10. Once his body is again ensouled, Harry’s mercy towards Draco is repaid by Narcissa’s deceit towards Voldemort in declaring him dead.
11. Although feigning death, Harry is not affected by Voldemort’s Cruciatus Curse, again because the Elder Wand cannot harm him.
12. At Harry’s insistence, Neville challenges Voldemort rather than swear fealty (a feint seen recently in 300), and kills Nagini with the Sword of Gryffindor, which has come to one truly worth of it through his Sorting Hat, just as Harry received it in the Chamber of Secrets. This leaves Voldemort exposed in his body.
13. Challenging Voldemort to a duel with Draco’s wand, Harry recites the chain of ownership of the Elder Wand - it was not Snape who defeated Dumbledore, but Draco, who first disarmed him on the tower (probably with Dumbledore’s acceptance, since the Elder Wand is supposed to be invulnerable when dueling). Harry in turn captured Draco’s wand while at the Malfoy estate, and we are meant to believe that a sort of transitive property applies, so that mastery thus passes directly to Harry.
14. In the final exchange, Voldemort’s Killing Curse rebounds on him again, as the Elder Wand still cannot act against its master (and now Harry does not wish for death). Harry’s Expelliarmus succeeds, and the Elder Wand spins to him, reacher its master at last.
15. Harry retires to the Headmaster’s Office, and declares before an astonished Ron and Hermione that he will return the Elder Wand to Dumbledore’s Tomb, where if it remains until Harry’s natural death, the chain of ownership will be broken. Likewise, he plans not to seek out the fallen Resurrection Stone, still lying at the edge of the clearing in the Forbidden Forest, whose shades once drove its first master to suicide. He will only keep his true heirloom, the Invisibility Cloak, and use it perhaps to hide from Death for a normal span of life, ceding it in time to his own offspring.

That’s quite a lot to take in, and hinges on some rather finicky aspects of wandlore and the esoterica of blood magic and the path souls take after death. It takes a lot of emphasis on the mastery of the Elder Wand to make sense of why Harry could triumph over Voldemort and his invulnerable wand while wielding Draco’s, so it makes sense to learn that Rowling had originally considered titling the book, Harry Potter and the Elder Wand. It also still raises a few questions for me, particularly about Harry’s interaction with Dumbledore at King’s Cross. Was he really meeting with the soul of Dumbledore at the antechamber to the afterlife, or was he somehow empowered in a Gnostic fashion to understand the greater pattern once freed temporarily of the trammels of the demiurge’s deception? Was it solely because of his soul remaining anchored to the mortal plane through his mother’s blood in Voldemort’s body that he was able to return to his own body (remembering that when Voldemort was first vanquished by his own Killing Curse, he roamed the earth as little more than spirit, his body having been destroyed by the curse), or through some intervention of the Elder Wand which less-than-killed him?

The issue of remorse and through it redemption also comes into play for many characters, yet not to the one I expected after first learning of Hermione’s discovery in Dumbledore’s secret library. Harry has shown it after harming Draco in book 6, and to some extent when he overcomes his instinctive revulsion and extends sympathy to Kreacher. Ron overcame bitterness and feelings of inadequacy and struggled to return to Harry and Hermione, guided by the Put-Outer for, as said by Harry, Dumbledore foresaw that Ron would “want to find them again.” Draco, Narcissa, and even Lucius at the last show a greater love of family and act to correct their mistakes in serving Voldemort. Remus Lupin returns to his family, and dies alongside Tonks in defense of their right to be a family. Percy overcomes his pride and loyalty to ambition and rejoins his family. But apart from a brief, almost mocking offering from Harry in their final confrontation, the one person who never truly considers remorse and its salvation is Tom Marvolo Riddle. Even though it could reverse the horcruxes’ damage to his soul, and provide him some possibility of an afterlife as more than a pitiable, helpless fraction of a person, his steadfast avoidance of Death to the last is his undoing. As he brought misery, pain, and death to so many who opposed or even served him, his final act is to condemn himself to a wrenching everlasting exile from grace.

In the aftermath, we can briefly mourn the loss of Remus and Tonks, parents to Harry’s godchild Teddy, as well as Fred Weasley and the unnamed 50 others who perished in the battle with the Death Eaters. Still, the toll seems less than we might have feared - Hagrid survives, as do the rest of the Weasleys, and the rest of the Order and staff from what we know. And what of the epilogue? Nineteen years have passed since the events of that night at Hogwarts, and we learn only that our trio are all parents, with significantly named children (well, maybe except for Hugo) on their way to Hogwarts themselves, in a world that seems to have weathered the scars of its past well. The only profession we explicitly hear is that Neville now teaches Herbology at Hogwarts. Yet some of this vagueness can be forgiven if we accept Rowling’s explanation that it was meant to be a gauzy scene showing mostly that life continues, and that the world is brighter and more carefree for all the labours Harry and his friends have undertaken. If I have any real disappointment of what is not shown, it is that moment when Harry finally goes to Ginny’s side, overcome as she is with Fred’s death, and shares with her a look or a silent touch. Something that reconnects them and gives us the hope that the world will indeed heal, and reintroduce those things as love and companionship that will provide the salve to all the pains they have endured. Having them instead only appear together again after almost two decades, with so much now assumed between them as the parents of three, we never get that wonder at seeing each other again when both thought their future lost. (Oh, and those last three words - augh!)

The Prediction

On the whole, I give myself some credit for doing what I could with the facts presented, given that the major plot turn surrounding wandlore is all new to book 7.

The Right

• The identity of the horcruxes is correct, although I can only take half-credit for the diadem of Ravenclaw, not having made the connection to the tiara in the Room of Hidden Things as some did (I forget how we may have already known that it was even a headpiece).
• Harry’s departure from the Dursleys and the subsequent wedding at the Burrow just after his 17th birthday are all valid.
• The Quest indeed starts at 12 Grimmauld Place, with the invaluable assistance of Kreacher, who did retrieve the locket with Regulus (RAB) from the cave.
• Hogwarts loses its Muggle-born population, and Neville leads the DA in a fashion, with Ginny’s assistance (such as in attempting to steal the Sword of Gryffindor) until she is taken into hiding after the holiday. Draco does not return until close to the Battle of Hogwarts.
• Sirius makes no appearance, and Dumbledore does not return to life, although he does appear both in the headmaster’s portrait (as guessed) and in the spectral King’s Cross (maybe a sort of ghost, and limited to providing information).
• Harry does not directly kill Voldemort - he attempts to disarm him, and Voldemort’s curse reflects thus killing himself (again).
• Snape is acting on Dumbledore’s orders, killed him at his command (although I hadn’t guessed that Dumbledore was already dying by other causes), and does so out of remorse for Lily’s death.
• Harry is a horcrux!
• Harry sacrifices himself to destroy this fragment of Voldemort’s soul.

The Wrong

• I did not imagine the Dursleys going into hiding or how dangerous the trip would be, especially the loss of Hedwig.
• The theft of the locket by Mundungus, the whole subsequent trip to the Ministry, reappearance of Umbridge, and the risk of entering the Ministry were all new.
• In fact, I totally whiffed on the state of the Ministry, it becoming a home base for the Death Eaters to act with impunity, carry out their extinction of Muggle-borns, and sever Harry from any outside aid.
• The Muggle world is never really mentioned, so the notion of them discovering wizards in their midst was wrong.
• Hogwarts becomes compulsory, so students do not attend according to their parents’ affiliation (with the notable exception of Muggle-borns, who have no choice).
• Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes sadly makes no appearance aside from the involvement of Fred and George in the Order and on Potterwatch.
• Harry’s Parseltongue has no bearing on the end of Nagini, and is even used against him at Godric’s Hollow (when he is fooled into thinking Bathilda still alive while inhabited by a snake). I did guess partway through the book that it would allow him to open the locket, but Ron emulating him to open the Chamber of Secrets was a complete surprise.
• Nonverbal spells have no significance. At all.
• Madam Maxine does not aid in the final battle, and Charlie Weasley plays no major role (doesn’t ride in on Norbert or anything).
• The final battle is held at Hogwarts instead of the Ministry, and thus the Love Room and Death Room have no role.
• Fred will not be participating in the expansion of Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes (sniff).
• Harry does not use any form of blood or binding magic on Voldemort (aww, no Amor Fidelis), and the prevalence of couples among his supporters has no greater import.
• Harry does not die, really.

I cannot say I am either surprised or upset that my ultimate prediction that Harry’s death would be permanent was proved wrong. I thought that Rowling might finagle a Mega-Happy Ending by some means, with Harry’s continued survival and a future full of happy children, but come the end of book 6, the signs seemed to pointing towards her taking the less precedented step of having her hero and titular character become a martyr “for the greater good.” That the “gleam of triumph” seen briefly in Dumbledore’s eyes at the conclusion of Goblet of Fire would amount to a free ticket out of oblivion was more than I expected, after the seriousness with which she seemed to take the march towards the abyss. And what of the careful wording of the prophecy? Perhaps it was only meant to achieve that nebulosity that gave real impact to the unfolding of events - after all, I went into book 7 thinking that there was a very good chance that Harry would die, even while looking to see if she could manufacture a plausible means for his escape from its clutches. Rowling has said, “I was very proud that people thought Harry’s death was a genuine possibility. I was very proud, because my story had to make the possibility of death real. I wanted the reader to feel that anyone might die, as in life.” The first time I realized that she would grant him a reprieve was, ironically, just after his death in the forest - looking at how much of the book remained, I thought, “clearly there is too much remaining to account for just the wrap-up and epilogue.” Harry hadn’t even taken any opportunity to say goodbye, so he would have to get at least one more chance among the living. The relative ease of his return might cheapen the significance of his willing sacrifice somewhat, but as with his decision to seek the horcruxes over the Hallows, and his determination not to rejoin the Hallows, he has shown a sort of mastery over Death after all - like Evey passing through the crucible of imprisonment and torture in V for Vendetta, Harry emerges with his integrity intact and no fear of death, which in turn enables him to embrace life fully. Death is no longer an unknown, and as Dumbledore suggests, it is the fear of the unknown that makes us dread both death and darkness, not the things themselves.

Aftermath

Having released myself from the bonds of self-enforced isolation during the reading, I have already run across several interviews with J.K. Rowling that go some ways to assuage some lingering concerns (for, as she puts, “some people will not be happy until we know the middle names of Harry’s great-grandparents”). As mentioned, the epilogue is meant to be nebulous as if seen from a distance or through a fog. She also gives details on the professions of Harry, Ron, and Hermione (who I imagined would have found something more challenging, such as revitalizing the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures) as well as Luna, and leaves the possibility of a relationship between Neville and Luna open after having scuttled it in the past. We also learn that the characters she spared were not so certain, such as Arthur Weasley being saved at the expense of Lupin and Tonks (creating yet another orphaned godchild), who had been meant to live. We also learn of the effect of her own mother’s death on the books, and her tentative plans to publish an encyclopedia that will fill in the histories and fates of other characters - but not, critically, any attempt to write more stories set in the world after Voldemort’s defeat as Harry and his friends grow to adulthood, which for her “would be an enormous anticlimax.” And I especially should not be one to complain that we are given less instead of more details at the book’s conclusion, having asked for that at the very beginning. And as for what’s next, she has already revealed that she’s working on two new books, outside of Harry’s world - one for children, one for adults. After the success of Harry Potter in bridging that gap, I wonder if it will make any difference to her readers which she releases first.

Vital Stats
Pages: 759 (Scholastic Hardback)
Chapters: 36+1
Starts: Malfoys’ Estate
Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher: Cursed in Ravenclaw Tower
Dumbledore Explains Everything In: King’s Cross (Purgatory)
House Cup: n/a
Exams: n/a
Ends: Platform 9-3/4

Final Score: Harry - 5, Voldemort - 4