Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

by J.K. Rowling

Scholastic, 759 pps. $34.99

WARNING! Contains Spoilers!

The seventh and final installment of the Harry Potter saga provides explanations, revelations, showdowns and resolutions; contrary to Rowling’s assertions, however, it does leave room for more stories. Not everybody dies.

At the conclusion of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore, before he is killed by Severus Snape, charges Harry to find and destroy all of Voldemort’s Horcruxes – magical objects in which He Who Must Not Be Named has stored part of his living essence, so that as long as even one is intact, he cannot be killed.

The only way to destroy Voldemort is to first destroy these artifacts. Dumbledore also told Harry not to try this alone – Ron and Hermione should be told, but no one else. This underscores a fundamental difference between Voldemort and Harry we have seen all along: Voldemort has servants; Harry has allies. But he loses two of them very quickly. When Harry turns 17, the spell of family protection expires, and Voldemort sends his followers to kill Harry at the Dursley’s home. Harry and the other members of the Order of the Phoenix take steps to ensure the safety of the Dursleys, but moving Harry himself to a safe haven is dangerous business, and Death Eaters don’t bother with spells like Stupefy or Immobilus. The survivors regroup at the Weasely’s home.

At 17, Harry Potter is an adult in the wizarding world. And, true to his word, he does not return to Hogwarts School for what would have been his final year, even though many of his friends, including Ginny Weasely, Neville Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood do. Instead, he, Ron, and Hermione embark on their quest to find and destroy the Horcruxes, so that the Order of the Phoenix will actually have some chance of defeating Voldemort once and for all.

The nature of the Horcruxes invites comparison to other literature in which artifacts play a prominent part, especially Russian fairy tales of the Deathless One, and The Lord of the Rings. Ron, Harry, and Hermione all suffer from the baleful influence of one Horcrux, when they make the mistake of wearing it around their necks, just as Frodo and Sam are affected by the one ring. For artifacts aren’t easy to destroy. The only reason Harry succeeded in destroying Tom Riddle’s diary in Chamber of Secrets is because he stabbed it with a basilisk fang. Finding the damn things is hard enough – they quickly figure out that Sirius Black’s brother Romulus was the one who replaced one Horcrux with a fake, but when they interrogate the Black household elf, Kreature, it is only to find out that the real one was stolen by the thievish Mundungus, and sold to the Ministry of Magic. This necessitates a raid in disguise, during which they play a disruptive role in the grand inquisitions presided over by another nemesis of Harry’s, Dolores Umbridge herself. Then for months the three of them are porting around the Horcrux that contains Voldemort’s heart essence, on the run and in hiding from the Ministry of Magic and the Death Eaters who have subourned the Ministry, trying to figure out some way to unmake the thing. Rob proves the most susceptible to its insidious influence, and there is a horrible falling out. But one of the most wonderful aspects of this book is that Harry has really learned he can’t always go it alone, and not only does he not want to be the hero, he has realized that sometimes other people need to be heroes. When it comes time to finally destroy the Horcux that has caused them so much suffering, that task is Ron’s. After all, he was its primary victim – he needs to be the one to subdue it.

Throughout the series, naming Voldemort has been problematic for everyone except Harry and Albus Dumbledore. In this book, you find out why. There is also an encounter with a mysterious patronus in the form of a doe, whose origin is revealed near the very end of the book, in the scene that finally answers THE question of the books – whose side is Snape on, and why? This was the part of the book that had me in tears. I had foreseen it, for Rowling was generous with her clues, but it was no less powerful for being anticipated.

Another revelation is the nature of the connection between Harry and Voldemort: why, and how, are they linked? It turns out that when Voldemort tried to kill Harry as a baby Voldemort, inadvertently and unknowingly, made Harry his seventh Horcrux.

The real surprise in this book is Dumbledore’s past. He did not come to his wisdom and kindly ways easily; he paid a terrible price along the way worthy of its own epic telling. And Rowling continues the tradition of Shakespeare and other writers of the magical, drawing clear parallels between what goes on in the realm of magic and the mundane world. Dumbledore’s involvement with a wizard named Grindelwald corresponds to Britain’s war with Germany, culminating in a decisive battle in 1945 and involving an artifact of invincibility.

It turns out that Grindelwald’s wand of invincibility, the Elder Wand, is one of the three Deathly Hallows of the title: artifacts associated with three brothers in a wizarding fairy tale. The other two are a stone of resurrection, and… a cloak of invisibility. These three Hallows all come into Harry’s hand, and the use he makes of them is vastly different from anything Voldemort would have done – or even Dumbledore.

If Voldemort seems extraordinarily inept or some readers, there is a reason for this. In making the Horcruxes, he actually gave up that part of himself he invested: his heart, his memories, even his wit. All that is left of him is a megalomaniacal determination to conquer and a refusal to die. Harry Potter just wants what Odysseus wanted in The Republic of Plato: a quiet life, a family. And it seemed to you that Harry, Ron, and Hermione spend an inordinate amount of time dithering in hiding, there is a reason for that too, two reasons, actually. One, as anyone who has been in a war can tell you, there are long stretches of tedium and inactivity in any campaign. But more significantly to the story, the time that passes is crucial for something to happen. It allows for a wizard to be born.

What happens to whom? I’m not going to spoil it, but some of my favorites joined Severus and Dumbledore on the other side of the mirror. If it is any consolation, they all die valiantly.

Before I read this book, I, like millions of readers, entertained myself with speculations. I predicted that Harry would become a Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor at Hogwarts, and eventually Headmaster; Ron would become the Quiddich Captain of his favorite team, and Hermione would become either the Head of Ravenclaw House or in charge of the Ministry of Magic. But Harry already was the de facto instructor in the fifth book, and Ron, it seems, outgrows the game – or maybe Rowling just couldn’t stand to describe another match, let alone a career in Quiddich. As for Hermione, well, maybe she still ends up in charge of the Ministry. It isn’t ruled out. She would certainly be the one, along with help from Harry, to reform relations between wizards, magical creatures and muggles alike. You go, girl! – Chris Paige