Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final of the Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was released on 21 July 2007 by Bloomsbury Publishing in the United Kingdom, in the United States by Scholastic, and in Canada by Raincoast Books, ending the series that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The novel chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and the final confrontation between the wizards Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.

Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in January 2007. Before its release, Bloomsbury reportedly spent GB£10 million to keep the book's contents safe before its release date. American publisher Arthur Levine refused any copies of the novel to be released in advance for press review, although two reviews were submitted early. Shortly before release, photos of all 759 pages of the U.S. edition were leaked and transcribed, leading Scholastic to look for the source that had leaked it.

Released globally in 93 countries, Deathly Hallows broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever. It sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours following its release, including more than 11 million in the U.S. and UK alone. The previous record, 9 million in its first day, had been held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The novel has also been translated into over 120 languages, including Ukrainian, Swedish, and Hindi.

Major themes in the novel are death and living in a corrupted society, and critics have compared them to Christian allegories. Generally well-received, the book won the 2008 Colorado Blue Spruce Book Award, and the American Library Association named it a "Best Book for Young Adults". A two-part film based on the book began showing in November 2010, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 was released; Part 2 was released on 15 July 2011.

Plot introduction

Throughout the six previous novels in the series, the titular character Harry Potter has struggled with the difficulties of adolescence along with being a famous wizard. When Harry was a baby, Lord Voldemort, a powerful evil wizard, murdered Harry's parents but vanished after attempting to kill Harry. Harry immediately became famous, and was placed in the care of his Muggle (non-magical) relatives Aunt Petuniaand Uncle Vernon.

In Philosopher's Stone, Harry re-enters the wizarding world at age 11 and enrolls in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He makes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Harry also meets the school's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, and Professor Severus Snape, who dislikes him. Harry fights Voldemort several times while at school, as the wizard tries to regain a physical form. In Goblet of Fire, Harry is entered in a dangerous magical competition called the Triwizard Tournament. At the conclusion of the Tournament, Harry witnesses the return of Lord Voldemort to full strength. During Order of the Phoenix, Harry and several of his friends face off against Voldemort's Death Eaters, a group of Dark witches and wizards, and narrowly defeat them. In Half-Blood Prince, he learns that Voldemort has been using "horcruxes" to become immortal. These objects are fragments of a person's soul placed within an object so that when the body dies, a part of the soul remains and the person can be regenerated or resurrected.^[2] However, the destruction of the creator's body leaves the wizard or witch in a state of half-life, without corporeal form.^[3] Two horcruxes have already been destroyed, one by Harry in the events of Chamber of Secrets and one by Dumbledore shortly before the events of Half-Blood Prince. When returning from a mission to discover a horcrux, Dumbledore is murdered by Snape, a former Death Eater whom Harry suspected of secretly remaining loyal to Voldemort. At the conclusion of the book, Harry decides to leave school, find and destroy Voldemort's remaining horcruxes, and defeat the wizard.

Plot summary

Following Dumbledore's death, Voldemort continues to gain support and increase his power. When Harry turns seventeen, the protection he has at his aunt and uncle's house will be broken, so before that can happen, at Mad Eye Moody's suggestion, he flees to the Burrow with his friends (many of whom use Polyjuice Potion to impersonate him so as to confuse any Death Eaters that pursue). They are attacked, but make it to the Burrow safely. Harry, Ron, and Hermione know they cannot return to Hogwarts School for their seventh year, instead they finish the quest Dumbledore started: to hunt and destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes, objects in which he has hidden parts of his soul for the purpose of being immortal. They isolate themselves to ensure their friends and families' safety. They have little knowledge about the remaining horcruxes except the possibility that two are objects once belonging to Hogwarts founders Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuffand a third may be Nagini, Voldemort's snake familiar. The whereabouts of the two founders' objects is unknown, and Nagini is presumed to be with Voldemort. As they search for the Horcruxes, the trio learn more about Dumbledore's past. Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour are married, but the wedding is disrupted by the news that Voldemort has taken over the Ministry of Magic.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione flee into London and soon to 12 Grimmauld Place, where they learn from Kreacher the whereabouts of Salazar Slytherin's locket. They successfully recover this Horcrux by infiltrating the Ministry of Magic and stealing it from Dolores Umbridge. Under the object's evil influence and the stress of being on the run, Ron leaves the others. Harry and Hermione travel to Godric's Hollow, Harry's birthplace and the place his parents died, where they meet the eldery magical historian Bathilda Bagshot, who turns out to be Nagini in disguise and attacks them. They escape into the Forest of Dean, where a mysterious silver doe leads Harry to the Sword of Godric Gryffindorat the bottom of an icy lake, one of the few objects able to destroy horcruxes. When Harry attempts to recover the sword from the pool, the horcrux attempts to kill him. Ron reappears, saving Harry and using the sword to destroy the locket. Resuming their search, the trio repeatedly encounter a strange symbol, that an eccentric wizard named Xenophilius Lovegood tells them represents the mythical Deathly Hallows. The Hallows are three sacred objects: the Resurrection Stone, with the power to summon the dead to the living world; the Elder Wand, an unbeatable wand; and an infallible Invisibility Cloak. Harry learns that Voldemort is seeking the Elder Wand, but is unaware of the other Hallows and their significance.

The trio are captured and taken to Malfoy Manor, where Bellatrix Lestrange tortures Hermione. Harry and Ron meet Luna Lovegood, Ollivander, Dean Thomas, and Griphook also being kept in the cellar. They escape to Shell Cottage (Bill and Fleur's house) with Dobby's help, but at the cost of the house-elf's life. Harry knows that Voldemort robbed Dumbledore's tomb and procured the Elder Wand, but he decides to focus on the Horcruxes instead of the Hallows. With Griphook's help, they break into Bellatrix's vault at the Wizarding BankGringotts, where they believe lies another Horcrux. They are correct, and they retrieve Helga Hufflepuff's cup and escape with a dragon. Harry learns that another horcrux is hidden in Hogwarts, which is under the control of Severus Snape. Harry, Ron, and Hermione enter the school through Hogsmeade (being saved by Aberforth Dumbledore, who explains more about Albus's backstory) and with the help of the teachers Snape is ousted from the school. The Death Eaters and Voldemort assault the school, while Harry, Ron, and Hermione search for the Horcrux relating to Ravenclaw. Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione go to the Chamber of Secrets and destroy the cup. The trio find Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem (another Horcrux) in the Room of Requirement. The diadem is destroyed by Fiendfyre cast Vincent Crabbe in an attempt to kill Harry, Ron, and Hermione and ends up killing him instead.

Voldemort and his followers besiege Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, their allies, and various magical creatures defend Hogwarts. Several major characters are killed in the first wave of the battle, including Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, and Fred Weasley. Voldemort kills Severus Snape because he thinks doing so will make him the Elder Wand's true master. Harry discovers while viewing the memories of Snape that Voldemort inadvertently made Harry a horcrux when he attacked him as a baby and that Harry must die to destroy Voldemort. These memories also confirm Snape's unwavering loyalty to Dumbledore and that his role as a double-agent against Voldemort never waried after Voldemort killed Lily Evans (Harry's mother), Snape's one, true love. It is also revelaed that Dumbledore had less than a year to live when he died, and that his death by Snape's hand had been per Dumbledoor's request to to protect Draco Malfoy's soul. Harry surrenders himself to death at Voldemort's hand, using the Resurrection Stone to bring back his deceased loved ones for a short while, who casts theKilling Curse at him, sending Harry to a limbo-like state between life and death. There, Dumbledore explains that when Voldemort used Harry's blood to regain his full strength, it protected Harry from Voldemort harming him; the Horcrux inside Harry has been destroyed, and Harry can return to his body despite being hit by the Killing Curse. Dumbledore also explains that Harry became the true master of the Deathly Hallows by facing Death, not by seeking to avoid or conquer it. Harry returns to his body, feigning death and Voldemort marches victorious into the castle with his body. However, he shows that he is still alive while Neville Longbottom kills Nagini, the last horcrux, with the Sword of Gryffindor. The battle resumes, and Bellatrix Lestrange is killed by Molly Weasley.

Harry and Voldemort engage in a final climatic duel. Harry reveals that because he willingly sacrificed himself to death by Voldemort's hand, his act of love would protect the Wizarding community from Voldemort in the same way the sacrifice Harry's mother made protected Harry. Harry also reveals that Snape was never loyal to Voldemort and did not murder Dumbledore (Snape killed Dumbledore by Dumbledore's request). Voldemort, who murdered Snape, was not the master of the Elder Wand. Draco was the master of the Elder Wand after disarming Dumbledore, but Harry disarmed Draco at Malfoy Manor, making Harry the true master of the Elder Wand. The wand refused to kill the one to whom it had allegiance further protecting Harry. During the duel, Harry refuses to use the killing curse and even encourages Voldemort to feel remorse, one known way to restore Voldemort's shattered soul. Voldemort dies when his own killing curse backfires; he and his Death Eaters are finally defeated. The wizarding world was then able to live in peace once more.

Epilogue

The novel, the last in the series, closes with a brief epilogue set 19 years later, in which Harry and Ginny Weasley are a married couple with three children: James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna. Ron and Hermione married and had two children, Rose and Hugo. The families meet at King's Cross station, where a nervous Albus is departing for his first year at Hogwarts. Harry's godson, Teddy Lupin, is found kissingBill and Fleur Weasley's daughter Victoire in a train carriage. Harry sees Draco Malfoy and his wife with their son, Scorpius. Neville Longbottom is now the Hogwarts Herbology professor and remains friends with the two families. Harry comforts Albus, who is worried he will be sorted into Slytherin, and tells his son that one of his two namesakes, Severus Snape, was a Slytherin and the bravest man he had ever met. He adds that the Sorting Hat takes one's choice into account, like it did for Harry. The book ends with these final words: "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well."