Hi ForeverBookers, I hope you’re all doing well.
I’ve just finished “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” for the first time and I LOVED it! It took me some time to get through because it’s a long book, as well as the last in the Harry Potter series, so I wanted to make sure I payed proper attention to the plot points. We’re following Harry again, of course, as well as Ron, Hermione and a multitude of other characters as they try to defeat Voldemort once and for all? Do they succeed? You’ll have to read to find out!
I took a long break from reading Harry Potter. Last year I was doing pretty well reading one book a month from the series but I’ve only just finished the series now. I think this was a good thing, though because it made me more hyped to actually WANT to read it to see how it ended. There were some twists that I didn’t see coming too, as well as one particular twist that I would have LOVED to have happened but didn’t (I’ll mention it briefly below in the spoiler section).
There are various deaths and a few torture scenes in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Some I didn’t care about as the characters were pretty minor but some hit me hard. I’ll mention them below in the spoiler section.
I read “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” for a few readathons, again. Those being:
The Cardcaptor-a-thon - The Bubble - Read a book with bubbles on the cover - There’s a bubble on the cover with Voldemort’s snake, Nagini inside on my edition of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”
Reading Rivalry - A Paranormal Book - It’s Halloween month so that’s why this was a prompt I think. There are obviously witches and wizards involved.
PopSugar Reading Challenge, 2021 - A book everyone seems to have read but you - I was really late to the game reading the Harry Potter series but I’m VERY glad that I’ve now read it! I now see why it was so popular back in the late 90’s/early 00’s!
Spoilers Below...
“I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be.”
The beginning of the story involves Lord Voldemort, the main antagonist of the Harry Potter series. He’s telling the Death Eaters, his cronies and followers/supporters, that he must be the one to kill Harry. He’ll only think he’s been successful if he’s the one to kill him. My hatred of Voldemort grew throughout “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” it’s got to be said. I didn’t absolutely hate him in the other books, he wasn’t nice but there was something redeemable about him. However, in “The Deathly Hallows,” no, I hated him, as I’m sure was the authors goal!
In chapter two, we see Harry as he’s getting ready to go on an adventure. We really don’t see much from Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia or Dudley in this last book at all. I think it’s because Harry has grown up and is now virtually an adult so doesn’t really need his Muggle family anymore. This didn’t bother me because I didn’t like Vernon, Petunia or Dudley, much anyway as they’re some of the non-magical or Muggle antagonists. I did like how Dudley was a little friendlier towards Harry, though, as they bid each other farewell. “But where’s he going to go?” This is Dudley worrying for Harry. I thought it was kind of cute in a protective kind of way!
The Order of The Phoenix come one night to collect Harry and take him safely to hide from Voldemort.
“The real Harry thought this might be just the most bizarre thing he had ever seen, and he had seen some extremely odd things.”
Mad-Eye Moody makes several of the members of the Order drink a potion that will turn them into fake Harrys. This is to give him more cover. The real Harry goes with Hagrid.
“...He only hoped they would continue to work: he imagined Voldemort, a hundred years above them as they spoke, looking for a way to penetrate what Harry visualised as a great, transparent bubble.”
Voldemort does work out which is the real Harry, of course, and goes after him but can’t get to him because of a magical forcefield protecting the real Harry. Harry imagines Voldemort trying to create a hole in the barrier to get and kill him. This doesn’t happen, though. It would be an incredibly short story if it had played out like this.
One death that I didn’t really care about was that of Mad-Eye Moody. He only came into the series in book 4 and wasn’t mentioned in books 5 or 6, I don’t think so I never really got very attached to him. He was a good guy but as I said, I didn’t really care one way or the other about him dying.
“Dumbledore would have believed him, he knew it. Dumbledore would have known how and why Harry’s wand had acted independently, because Dumbledore always had the answers; he had known about wands, had explained to Harry the strange connection that existed between his wand and Voldemort’s ... but Dumbledore, like Mad-Eye, like Sirius, like his parents, like his poor owl, all were gone where Harry could never talk to them again. He felt a burning in his throat that had nothing to do with Firewhisky ...”
This shows how depressed Harry is by the losses that have already taken place over the seven books. Dumbledore had explained to Harry that his wand and Voldemort’s wand were linked but without him there to explain again, Harry feels at a loss.
“What we really need to decide,” said Hermione, tossing Defensive Magical Theory into the bin without a second glance and picking up An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe, “is where we’re going after we leave here. I know you said you wanted to go to Godric’s Hollow first, Harry, and I understand why, but ... well ... shouldn’t we make Horcruxes our priority?”
“If we knew where the Horcruxes were, I’d agree with you,” said Harry, who did not believe that Hermione really understood his desire to return to Godric’s Hollow. His parents’ graves were only part of the attraction: he had a strong, though inexplicable, feeling that the place held answers for him.”
Harry, Ron and Hermione are going to leave together on the quest to find the Horcruxes, the things they hope will bring Voldemort down, once and for all. Hermione decides this while going through her books and chucking out ones she won’t need on the quest. I really liked this sense of camaraderie. It was nice to see characters working together for a goal, rather than against each other. Hermione is in charge, like in the other books and Harry and Ron follow her. However, a little later in the book tensions flare between Harry and Ron, who decides to leave.
The novel spent a little too much time on finding the Horcruxes, I thought. It could have been cut down by around 100 pages, I expect and still have been just as good. That’s not to say I didn’t still love it, because I clearly did, there were funny bits in the non plot sections.
When Ron does come back to his friends, they go to see Luna’s dad for answers. He is the writer of a rival paper to the Daily Prophet.
“I want to go and see Xenophilius Lovegood.”
He stared at her.
“Sorry?”
“Xenophilius Lovegood. Luna’s father. I want to go and talk to him!”
“Er — why?”
She took a deep breath, as though bracing herself, and said, “It’s that mark, the mark in Beedle the Bard. Look at this!”
Hermione wants them to go and see Luna’s father, Xenophilius Lovegood, to get answers about a mark she’s found in the book that Dumbledore left her in his will before he died. At Bill, Ron’s brother and Fleur’s wedding earlier in the book, Hermione noticed Xenophilius wearing a mark. She wants to go and question him about it. They do this but it turns out that Xenophilius is even more crazy than Luna is! However, in saying this he does help the trio work out an significant story to the overall plot of the book, regarding the Peverells, a trio of brothers who originally owned the Deathly Hallows. I thought that Xenophilius could possibly be a Death Eater. Is that the case? Or is there more to it? You’ll have to read to find out!
“That’s what he’s after.”
The change in his voice made Ron and Hermione look even more scared.
“You-Know-Who’s after the Elder Wand.”
He turned his back on their strained, incredulous faces. He knew it was the truth. It all made sense. Voldemort was not seeking a new wand; he was seeking an old wand, a very old wand indeed.”
Hermione believes that Harry should “forget the Deathly Hallows, we can’t afford to get sidetracked.” She is very much a non believer, unless she can see something with her naked eye. She therefore doesn’t believe that the Deathly Hallows actually exist! Harry, of course can’t believe this! Who is right? You’ll need to read to find out! Harry is sure the Deathly Hallows are the Elder Wand, that Voldemort is trying to find, his own Cloak of Invisibility and The Resurrection Stone. Not much is discussed about the latter of those, just that it’s held within the Stitch that Harry caught in his first Quidditch match. Harry is able to get his hands on the Cloak of Invisibility, as he already owns it and the Stitch, as Dumbledore left it to him in his will, it’s revealed, much like Hermione got The Tales Of Beadle The Bard. Ron got a Deluminator, that doesn’t really play into the plot as the other items do. It’s just the Elder Wand Harry needs to find...can he? Or will Voldemort beat him to it? You’ll need to read to find out!
Hermione gets tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange, one of Voldemort’s Death Eaters or his followers at Malfoy Manor when the Golden trio go to save Luna and Ollivander, who are both being held prisoner because Voldemort wants ALL the secrets he can get about the Elder Wand, and who better to ask than a Wand maker, right? These scenes aren’t focused on but we know what’s happening. Ron and Harry, of course want to save her. Do they? Can they? You’ll need to read to find out!
Nearer the end, we get answers about Snape. He loved Lily, Harry’s mother, it’s revealed. The twist that I would have LOVED to have happened is Snape being revealed as Harry’s father, instead of James, who, to be honest came across as a real bully! Snape had his faults, yes, but I always saw him as a good character, who was just sometimes on the wrong side of things. It would have been interesting to see Harry’s reaction if Snape had been his father.
“Snape’s Patronus was a doe,” said Harry, “the same as my mother’s, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children,” is what Harry says to Voldemort when he’s sticking up for Snape, who Voldemort killed in a jealous bolt of anger, when it’s revealed that Snape was in fact helping Dumbledore all along.
“That wand still isn’t working properly for you, because you murdered the wrong person. Severus Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand. He never defeated Dumbledore.”
“He killed —”
“Aren’t you listening? Snape never beat Dumbledore! Dumbledore’s death was planned between them! Dumbledore intended to die undefeated, the wand’s last true master! If all had gone as planned, the wand’s power would have died with him, because it had never been won from him!” is how Harry knows the Elder Wand won’t work properly for Voldemort. To properly own and use the Elder Wand, you have to have killed the person that was using it before. Harry knows that Dumbledore made a deal with Snape, and that the he was never truly defeated. Voldemort killed Snape for this reason, to seize true power of the Elder Wand, so that he could in effect beat Harry and rule the Wizarding world!
Overall then, I LOVED “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!” It had everything. I’m not even going to put it down for it’s slower parts as I think they added something necessary to the story. There was character development on every page. There were serious parts to the plot as well as character driven, funny parts, which I loved. I think my favourite part was Snape’s redemption. Even though he did die, I enjoyed seeing Harry realise that he wasn’t as bad of a guy as he first thought. Snape is my favourite adult character from the series because he has so many layers to him. I also enjoyed seeing characters turn up from other books too, like Mad-Eye Moody and Lupin and Tonks, who all meet their demise in this book. It seemed a fitting way to wrap up those characters. I’ll be sad to say goodbye to the Harry Potter world, but I think I’m going to hopefully read The Cursed Child next year at some point, even though I didn’t hear great things about it.
The Harry Potter series as a whole, I thought was superb! It certainly starts off as more middle grade but becomes young adult, the further you progress. I’d even go as far as to say that some of the themes in the last book are adult, as death and torture is discussed, as I’ve noted above. I think my favourite thing about the series is seeing our main characters grow into the people they become, as well as the humour. I think I read it at the right time, too. I’m an adult but that meant that I could appreciate the events for what they were as I’ve experienced some of what the characters go through at this point in life. If I’d read it when I was a child I don’t think I would have appreciated it as much for what it is. I don’t think I would have seen some of the nuances either as a child/teenager.
Stand by for my next review, coming soon...!
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