book review of harry potter and the deathly hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

By j.k. rowling.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' is a very satisfying ending to the long-loved book series about the boy wizard Harry Potter. It does justice to the reputation of the entire series by telling the story of the finale with great finesse.

About the Book

Article written by Mohandas Alva

M.A. Degree in English Literature from Manipal University, India.

‘ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ‘ by J. K. Rowling is a very fitting ending to the seven-book series about magic, wizards, and witches by J. K. Rowling. It is also one of the most highly-rated Harry Potter books of all time. This book has been commended by many critics for how well the plot renders itself to Rowling’s masterful storytelling and how well the character arcs are completed in this book, especially that of Severus Snape.

Furthermore, ‘ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ‘ rewards readers with the long-awaited standoff between Harry Potter and Voldemort . Though these two have faced each other several times before in the series and even in this very book, it is the finality of the last duel that makes it more satisfying to read about.

Portrayal of Love

The most essential trope in the story of ‘ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ‘ has to be love because a lot of events that occur in this book are strongly influenced by it. Furthermore, the idea of love being a very strong form of magic that Voldemort never understood or even cared to find out about is very illustrative of his very psyche. Voldemort grew up never experiencing love, and that is why the lack of love got deeply embedded in his identity.

Instead of trying to overcome his fear of love and its uncertainty, Voldemort decided to take a different path that doesn’t require love at all. He intended to become the strongest wizard of his time and to triumph over what he thought was a paltry feeling. He believed that there was no need for love and also that just through fear, he could conquer anyone who stood in his way.

Harry, on the other hand, was brought up in slightly similar circumstances, where his aunt, uncle, and cousin never gave him affection or love. However, Harry grew up very empathetic and kind, despite how less loved he was, until his eleventh birthday when he found out that he is a very famous wizard already loved by the entirety of Wizardkind. Furthermore, his friendship with Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and even the others like Neville, the Weasley Twins, Luna, and Ginny, reinforced his belief in love. Harry is the embodiment of a kind and loving soul right from the first time he boards the Hogwarts Express.

When Malfoy tries to win Harry’s friendship through the promise of power and fame, Harry doesn’t concede and instead decides to stay friends with Ron, the boy who helped him get through the platform to board the Hogwarts Express. This is an illustration of how Harry is very sensitive to the idea of love and empathy.

Love, like this friendship that blossoms between Ron and Harry, is very simple and innocent. It sees and feels the most subtle depths of the human condition and is not easily tarnished by grandiose ideas like fame or power. Love does not require anything in return, and it is non-expecting and simply takes pride in giving freely without expectations of anything to be returned.

Love is also an essential emotion and theme that fuels Snape’s allegiance to Dumbledore, and Snape’s undying love for Lily Potter eventually helps Harry defeat Voldemort. Here too, love is given freely without any expectations.

Snape’s love for Lily Potter is unconditional, and despite her death and there being no reciprocity of any form for Snape’s actions that exhibit love, he continues on his mission to protect her son out of the love he has for her. ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ does a great job of showing this very strong and significant meaning of love through its characters’ actions. J. K. Rowling does a great job sticking to the writers’ adage “Show, don’t tell,”, especially in the case of ‘love.’

Another example of this trope is Molly’s vicious attack on Bellatrix, which seems to stem from her pure love for her daughter Ginny. Despite being a relatively tame witch with no field experience as an auror or a witch with any such combat experience, Molly Weasley musters all her might and becomes very vicious when her daughter Ginny is attacked by Bellatrix Lestrange, one of the most powerful witches present in that battle. Molly shows no signs of fear and attacks her back with all her strength, eventually defeating Bellatrix and killing her. This illustrates the strong effect that love has on people and how one can rise to great lengths when their love is threatened.

Although there are several instances of love portrayed in this book, one final example that is worth mentioning is the sacrifices of Dobby, Lupin, Tonks, Fred, Mad-Eye Moody, and many others. They all fight out of love for their ‘tribe’ even if it is worth losing their life over. Dobby dies due to a knife thrown at him by Bellatrix Lestrange when he is apparating with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the goblin Griphook at Malfoy Manor.

However, Dobby doesn’t show any regret when he dies in the arms of Harry. He is just very grateful for his life and happy that he is with his friend Harry Potter when he is dying. Lupin and Tonks die during the Battle of Hogwarts, and despite having a newly born son Teddy, they fight the battle because they believe in the cause they fight for and hope that their son can grow up in a world free from Voldemort.

Fred, too, dies during the battle, and he, too, is willing to sacrifice his life despite the consequences because of his love for his family and fellow beings. Mad-Eye Moody, one of the strongest wizards in the Order of the Phoenix, dies during the Battle of the Seven Potters, and he too is not afraid of death and faces it bravely because he is confident in the cause he is fighting for and is willing to risk a lot to see the end of Voldemort’s reign. All of these people are brave and strong because of how strong their love is for the cause they fight for.

‘The finale’ is an essential part of every story because it helps summarize the essence of the entire story and determine the deeper messages propagated through the story. It is not an easy task to write a finale for a large book series with a lot of details and plot points that need to follow continuity and stay faithful to the thematic structure of the series. However, J. K. Rowling does a great job in telling the finale of this story without there being any inconsistencies within the series.

The major element of this finale is the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist. Harry Potter and Voldemort have had a lot of history in this book series, but it is the eventual resolution of their conflict that ultimately assigns completeness to it. Unlike real-life events, which are meant to just occur on their own with no innate pattern or need for continuity, most books are written by authors with intent and are therefore expected to mean something beyond the mere nature of events occurring by themselves.

Voldemort’s cause for Pure-Blood supremacy is something that is inconvenient to most people and questions their freedom which is why living in harmony with each other is a better and more inclusive ideology to uphold. Therefore, Harry champions that cause and, along with his many supporters and friends, fights for this cause. However, Voldemort is a very powerful wizard with a large army of dark wizards and witches called Death Eaters and is, therefore, no easy challenge to face.

The way Rowling uses the plot as a means to illustrate the complexity of Harry’s growth from a boy to the ‘Chosen One’ who ultimately defeats Voldemort is what makes this finale all the more exciting to read.

Even in just ‘ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, ‘ Harry starts out strengthening his grudge against Snape with no clue about the Horcruxes and their whereabouts. He is confused, aimless, and has no real goal beyond a vague and abstract resolve that involves finding Horcruxes and destroying them. However, as the book progresses, a lot of things begin to change significantly.

Due to Harry’s connection to Voldemort’s mind, Harry begins to understand his foe better and make sense of how he is thinking and feeling. Even though he was explicitly told by Dumbledore, Snape, and even Hermione and Ron not to pay heed to this connection, Harry chooses his own path, takes a decision, and uses this connection to get a lot of important details he needs, including the identity of the last two Horcruxes. In the meantime, Harry, with the help of his friends and other random elements, makes great progress in his search for Horcruxes.

Furthermore, he uncovers nuanced details about the Deathly Hallows, something that wasn’t even on the cards until that point. This widens Harry’s horizon further, and Harry adjusts his ‘map’ to fit in this new detail. This keeps on going until Harry figures out further details from the Pensieve and Snape’s memories.

This changes him significantly, making him stronger and ready to face Voldemort, eventually facing him defenseless in the forest. Despite the killing curse being targeted at him, Harry is still alive. Finally, when all the Horcruxes are destroyed, Harry confidently vanquishes Voldemort.

It is this growth and significant change that makes this finale more worthwhile to read. Harry starts off from being a boy who lives in a cupboard under the stairs to the boy who brings an end to the rule of a tyrant that even the strongest of wizards couldn’t put an end to.

The prophecy is only a mere trigger for these events to have taken place and does nothing beyond giving the story an interesting side. It is Harry’s actions alone that let him transform into the boy that kills the Dark Lord. The finale of this book is a triumph because it allows the reader to witness true growth in its characters . This theme of growth can also be applied to other characters in this book, including Ron, Hermione, and especially Neville. Neville Longbottom , who was always a scared kid and got bullied constantly for his shortcomings, ends up eventually killing the snake Nagini, ending the need to destroy Horcruxes which is what helps Harry to eventually kill Voldemort.

Why is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a good book?

‘ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ‘ is a great book because despite being the final book in the Harry Potter book series, it not only works as a book that ends the story and plot drawn in previous books but also works as a standalone book with its own story. Furthermore, ‘ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ‘ does justice to all the themes portrayed in previous books and adds several interesting themes of its own that weren’t as obvious in previous installments. These include testing the friendship between the trio, digging deeper into loyalties and allegiance, and also revealing the true motivations of some characters like Snape.

Why is Deathly Hallows book so boring?

While a part of ‘ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ‘ is definitely slow-paced and lacks action like the rest of the book, it is by no means boring as a whole. While some readers might find this boring, from the perspective of the plot, this ‘limbo’ in the book serves as an illustration of the characters’ feelings themselves, and this phase eventually leads to Ron leaving the forest and going back to his house. If a reader feels bored, it is meant to induce that exact feeling to illustrate how it must have actually felt when the trio was wandering purposelessly and in search of Horcruxes they didn’t know where to find.

Is Harry potter dead?

No, Harry Potter is not dead in ‘ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows .’ He is said to be the Horcrux of Voldemort, which is why he is supposed to die if he wants all the Horcruxes to be destroyed. The reason Dumbledore stated that Harry must be killed by Voldemort himself is that Voldemort’s ‘rebirth’ in ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ occurs because Wormtail uses Harry’s blood, and as long as Voldemort is alive, Harry simply cannot die because he is still under the protection of his mother’s love. So, in the end, Harry Potter comes back alive and doesn’t die.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: A Wonderful Finale to the Book Series

Book Title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Book Description: 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' culminates the series with satisfying resolutions, from Snape's arc to key battles, leading to Voldemort's defeat.

Book Author: J.K. Rowling

Book Edition: First Edition

Book Format: Hardcover

Publisher - Organization: Bloomsbury Publishing

Date published: July 21, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-7475-8349-3

Number Of Pages: 607

• Writing Style
• Lasting Effect on the Reader

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows  is a wonderful finale to the book series. It makes great use of the plot and its characters to weave a very interesting story into existence. Furthermore, it also does justice to most of its character arcs, including that of Severus Snape who has been portrayed as a villain for most parts of the series, despite being crucial in the victory of the protagonist Harry Potter against Voldemort, the antagonist. Many of the events in this book are also very satisfying for the reader including the scene where Molly Weasley battles Bellatrix Lestrange and kills her, Neville Longbottom uses the Sword of Gryffindor to kill the snake Nagini, and Harry eventually kills Voldemort putting an end to the battles and the war.

• A very well-written conclusion to an interesting book series.
• Very satisfying character arcs for readers to indulge in.
• The eventual triumph of good over evil in a very thrilling battle scene.
• A very long book and sometimes feels overdrawn in some places.
• Most lovable characters of the book series have very little presence in this book.
• Some inconsistencies with the logic of how wands work.

About Mohandas Alva

Mohandas is very passionate about deciphering the nature of language and its role as a sole medium of storytelling in literature. His interests sometimes digress from literature to philosophy and the sciences but eventually, the art and craft of narrating a significant story never fail to thrill him.

The Harry Potter section of Book Analysis analyzes and explorers the Harry Potter series. The characters, names, terminology, and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros ©. The content on Book Analysis was created by Harry Potter fans, with the aim of providing a thorough in-depth analysis and commentary to complement and provide an additional perspective to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

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The Boy Who Lived

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By Christopher Hitchens

• Aug. 12, 2007

In March 1940, in the “midnight of the century” that marked the depth of the Hitler-Stalin pact (or in other words, at a time when civilization was menaced by an alliance between two Voldemorts or “You-Know-Whos”), George Orwell took the time to examine the state of affairs in fantasy fiction for young people. And what he found (in an essay called “Boys’ Weeklies”) was an extraordinary level of addiction to the form of story that was set in English boarding schools. Every week, boys (and girls) from the poorer quarters of industrial towns and from the outer edges of the English-speaking Empire would invest some part of their pocket-money to keep up with the adventures of Billy Bunter, Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry, Jack Blake and the other blazer-wearing denizens of Greyfriars and St. Jim’s. As he wrote:

“It is quite clear that there are tens and scores of thousands of people to whom every detail of life at a ‘posh’ public school is wildly thrilling and romantic. They happen to be outside that mystic world of quadrangles and house-colors, but they can yearn after it, daydream about it, live mentally in it for hours at a stretch. The question is, Who are these people?”

I wish that the morose veteran of Eton and St. Cyprian’s had been able to join me on the publication night of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” when I went to a bookstore in Menlo Park, Calif., to collect my embargoed copy on behalf of the Book Review. Never mind the stall that said “Get Your House Colors Here” and was dealing with customers wise in the lore of Ravenclaw and Slytherin. On the floor of the shop, largely transformed into the Gryffindor common room for the occasion, sat dozens of small children listening raptly to a reading from a massively plausible Hagrid. Of the 2,000 or so people in the forecourt, perhaps one-third had taken the trouble to wear prefect gowns and other Hogwarts or quidditch impedimenta. Many wore a lightning-flash on their foreheads: Orwell would have recoiled at seeing the symbol of Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists on otherwise unblemished brows, even if the emblem was tamed by its new white-magic associations. And this was a sideshow to the circus, all across the English-speaking and even non-English world, as the countdown to the witching hour began.

I would give a lot to understand this phenomenon better. Part of it must have to do with the extreme banality and conformity of school life as it is experienced today, with everything oriented toward safety on the one hand and correctness on the other. But this on its own would not explain my youngest daughter a few years ago, sitting for hours on end with her tiny elbow flattening the pages of a fat book, and occasionally laughing out loud at the appearance of Scabbers the rat. (One hears that not all children retain the affection for reading that the Harry Potter books have inculcated: this isn’t true in my house at least.)

Scabbers turns out to mutate into something a bit worse than a rat, and the ancient charm of metamorphosis is one that J. K. Rowling has exploited to the uttermost. Another well-tested appeal, that of the orphan hero, has also been given an intensive workout with the Copperfield-like privations of the eponymous hero. For Orwell, the English school story from Tom Brown to Kipling’s Stalky and Co. was intimately bound up with dreams of wealth and class and snobbery, yet Rowling has succeeded in unmooring it from these considerations and giving us a world of youthful democracy and diversity, in which the humble leading figure has a name that — though it was given to a Shakespearean martial hero and king — could as well belong to an English labor union official. Perhaps Anglophilia continues to play its part, but if I were one of the few surviving teachers of Anglo-Saxon I would rejoice at the way in which such terms as muggle and Wizengamot, and such names as Godric, Wulfric and Dumbledore, had become common currency. At this rate, the teaching of “Beowulf” could be revived. The many Latin incantations and imprecations could also help rekindle interest in the study of a “dead” language.

In other respects, too, one recognizes the school story formula. If a French or German or other “foreign” character appears in the Harry Potter novels, it is always as a cliché: Fleur and Krum both speak as if to be from “the Continent” is a joke in itself. The ban on sexual matters is also observed fairly pedantically, though as time has elapsed Rowling has probably acquired male readers who find themselves having vaguely impure thoughts about Hermione Granger (if not, because the thing seems somehow impossible, about Ginny Weasley). Most interesting of all, perhaps, and as noted by Orwell, “religion is also taboo.” The schoolchildren appear to know nothing of Christianity; in this latest novel Harry and even Hermione are ignorant of two well-known biblical verses encountered in a churchyard. That the main characters nonetheless have a strong moral code and a solid ethical commitment will be a mystery to some — like his holiness the pope and other clerical authorities who have denounced the series — while seeming unexceptionable to many others. As Hermione phrases it, sounding convincingly Kantian or even Russellian about something called the Resurrection Stone:

“How can I possibly prove it doesn’t exist? Do you expect me to get hold of — of all the pebbles in the world and test them? I mean, you could claim that anything’s real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody’s proved it doesn’t exist.”

For all this apparently staunch secularism, it is ontology that ultimately slackens the tension that ought to have kept these tales vivid and alive. Theologians have never been able to answer the challenge that contrasts God’s claims to simultaneous omnipotence and benevolence: whence then cometh evil? The question is the same if inverted in a Manichean form: how can Voldemort and his wicked forces have such power and yet be unable to destroy a mild-mannered and rather disorganized schoolboy? In a short story this discrepancy might be handled and also swiftly resolved in favor of one outcome or another, but over the course of seven full-length books the mystery, at least for this reader, loses its ability to compel, and in this culminating episode the enterprise actually becomes tedious. Is there really no Death Eater or dementor who is able to grasp the simple advantage of surprise?

The repeated tactic of deus ex machina (without a deus) has a deplorable effect on both the plot and the dialogue. The need for Rowling to play catch-up with her many convolutions infects her characters as well. Here is Harry trying to straighten things out with a servile house-elf:

“ ‘I don’t understand you, Kreacher,’ he said finally. ‘Voldemort tried to kill you, Regulus died to bring Voldemort down, but you were still happy to betray Sirius to Voldemort? You were happy to go to Narcissa and Bellatrix, and pass information to Voldemort through them ...’ ”

Yes, well, one sees why he is confused. The exchange takes place during an abysmally long period during which the threesome of Harry, Hermione and Ron are flung together, with weeks of time to spend camping invisibly and only a few inexplicable escapes from death to alleviate the narrative. The grand context of Hogwarts School is removed, at least until the closing scenes, and Rowling also keeps forgetting that things are either magical or they are not: Hermione’s family surely can’t be any safer from the Dark Lord by moving to Australia, and Hagrid’s corporeal bulk cannot make any difference to his ability, or otherwise, to mount a broomstick. A boring subtext, about the wisdom or otherwise of actually uttering Voldemort’s name, meanwhile robs the apotropaic device of its force.

For some time now the novels have been attempting a kind of secular dramatization of the battle between good and evil. The Ministry of Magic (one of Rowling’s better inventions) has been seeking to impose a version of the Nuremberg Laws on England, classifying its subjects according to blood and maintaining its own Gestapo as well as its own Azkaban gulag. But again, over time and over many, many pages this scenario fails to chill: most of the “muggle” population goes about its ordinary existence, and every time the secret police close in, our heroes are able to “disapparate” — a term that always makes me think of an attempt at English by George W. Bush. The prejudice against bank-monopoly goblins is modeled more or less on anti-Semitism and the foul treatment of elves is meant to put us in mind of slavery, but the overall effect of this is somewhat thin and derivative, and subject to diminishing returns.

In this final volume there is a good deal of loose-end gathering to be done. Which side was Snape really on? Can Neville Longbottom rise above himself? Are the Malfoys as black as they have been painted? Unfortunately — and with the solid exception of Neville, whose gallantry is well evoked — these resolutions prove to possess all the excitement of an old-style Perry Mason-type summing-up, prompted by a stock character who says, “There’s just one thing I don’t understand. ...” Most of all this is true of Voldemort himself, who becomes more tiresome than an Ian Fleming villain, or the vicious but verbose Nicolae Carpathia in the Left Behind series, as he offers boastful explanations that are at once grandiose and vacuous. This bad and pedantic habit persists until the final duel, which at least sees us back in the old school precincts once again. “We must not let in daylight upon magic,” as Walter Bagehot remarked in another connection, and the wish to have everything clarified is eventually self-defeating in its own terms. In her correct determination to bring down the curtain decisively, Rowling has gone further than she should, and given us not so much a happy ending as an ending which suggests that evil has actually been defeated (you should forgive the expression) for good.

Greater authors — Arthur Conan Doyle most notably — have been in the same dilemma when seeking closure. And, like Conan Doyle, Rowling has won imperishable renown for giving us an identifiable hero and a fine caricature of a villain, and for making a fictional bit of King’s Cross station as luminous as a certain address on nearby Baker Street. It is given to few authors to create a world apart, and to populate it as well as illustrate it in the mind. As one who actually did once go to boarding school by steam train, at 8, I enjoyed reading aloud to children and coming across Diagon Alley and Grimmauld Place, and also shuddering at the memory of the sarcastic schoolmasters (and Privet Drives) I have known.

The distinctly slushy close of the story may seem to hold out the faint promise of a sequel, but I honestly think and sincerely hope that this will not occur. The toys have been put firmly back in the box, the wand has been folded up, and the conjuror is discreetly accepting payment while the children clamor for fresh entertainments. (I recommend that they graduate to Philip Pullman, whose daemon scheme is finer than any patronus.) It’s achievement enough that “19 years later,” as the last chapter-heading has it, and quite probably for many decades after that, there will still be millions of adults who recall their initiation to literature as a little touch of Harry in the night.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

By J. K. Rowling. Illustrated by Mary GrandPré.

759 pp. Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic. $34.99.

A review on Aug. 12 about “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” by J. K. Rowling, misstated the location of the California bookstore where the reviewer collected his embargoed copy of the novel. The store, not named in the review, was Kepler’s Books and Magazines, which is in Menlo Park, not Stanford.

How we handle corrections

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His most recent book is “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”

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Harry potter and the deathly hallows: harry potter, book 7, common sense media reviewers.

Grim, gripping end to the biggest saga in history.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Author J.K. Rowling borrows from many established

The whole series is full of positive messages abou

Harry finishes his hero's journey with bravery, da

Kingsley Shacklebolt is Black and is an important

At least 50 heroic characters die in the final bat

Kissing and one bawdy joke.

Infrequent use of "damn" and "hell," plus "effing,

Wine, mead, champagne, fire whiskey, and brandy se

Parents need to know that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's series about an orphan who discovers that he's a wizard tasked with saving the magical world from the evil Lord Voldemort. There have been major character deaths since Book 4. Here, so many notable…

Educational Value

Author J.K. Rowling borrows from many established stories and myths to piece together her magical world. Kids can look up more about centaurs, elves, giants, hippogriffs, werewolves, vampires, acromantulas (giant spiders), inferi (reanimated dead), magic wands, flying brooms, etc., compare the author's take with other interpretations, and think about how and why she weaves these magical elements and beings into her stories. The registration and persecution of those who aren't "pure blood" witches or wizards mirrors the many times in real human history when those not of a certain race or religion have been persecuted and even systematically annihilated.

Positive Messages

The whole series is full of positive messages about the power of love, friendship, and self-sacrifice. In this book, evil's reign must be overcome with many acts, big and small, of rebellion and sacrifice. Trust is also tested among friends and mentors.

Positive Role Models

Harry finishes his hero's journey with bravery, daring, and self-sacrifice. He faces a lot of doubt both about the task in front of him and about whether to trust Dumbledore, the mentor who set him on this difficult path. In the end he chooses trust and he accepts the fact that Dumbledore made mistakes in his life and learned from them -- he wasn't perfect. Ron faces so many doubts that he deserts his friends but later makes amends. Hermione is the stalwart character here. Her careful planning and considerations help the central trio survive on the run.

Diverse Representations

Kingsley Shacklebolt is Black and is an important member of the Order of the Phoenix. Students of color who fight in the climactic battle include Cho Chang, the Patil twins, Lee Jordan, and Angelina Johnson. Characters in the wizarding world face a lot of discrimination, especially for not being "pure- lood." In this book, it's gotten so bad that they're being rounded up, put on trial, and jailed. Harry and friends fight against this pure-blood mania with everything they have. Some diverse family structures are described: Harry grew up with his aunt and uncle, Neville with his grandmother, and Tom Riddle in an orphanage. Women have prominent roles at Hogwarts: Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout are both heads of houses.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

At least 50 heroic characters die in the final battle, including some who are very well loved. A very significant apparent death. Many other deaths on both sides, from curses, a giant snake, strangulation, and a stabbing. Scenes of torture, with characters writhing in pain, and some injuries that can't be healed by magic (e.g. an ear is cursed off). Violent action sequences include a flying motorcycle crash, explosions, snake attacks, kidnapping, a near-drowning, and a number of chases, duels with wands, and close-call escapes. Constant talk in the news about the deaths of both wizards and Muggles at the hands of Death Eaters. Stories recalled of tragic family deaths and an attack on a girl that left her permanently scarred, mentally. Harry finally visits his parents' gravesite and the home where they were killed.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Infrequent use of "damn" and "hell," plus "effing," "bastard," and one (very memorable) "bitch."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Wine, mead, champagne, fire whiskey, and brandy served to adults and older teens (you're considered of legal age at 17 in the wizarding world). Pipe smoke spotted at a wedding.

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling' s series about an orphan who discovers that he's a wizard tasked with saving the magical world from the evil Lord Voldemort. There have been major character deaths since Book 4 . Here, so many notable characters die (or appear to die) that it's almost hard to keep track by the end. One or two deaths will really stick with readers, depending on who they liked best throughout the series. Get ready to have a few good cries with kids. Most happen in battle, but others are caused by curses, a giant snake, strangulation, and a stabbing. Scenes of torture are described, with characters writhing in pain, and characters sustain injuries that can't be healed by magic. Violent action sequences include a flying motorcycle crash, explosions, snake attacks, kidnapping, a near-drowning, and a number of chases, duels with wands, and close-call escapes. There's constant talk in the news about the deaths of both wizards and Muggles at the hands of Voldemort's followers. Harry finally visits his parents' gravesite and the home where they were killed. Other mature content includes some drinking -- Harry and friends are considered of-age in the wizarding world at 17 and drink wine, mead, and some hard alcohol, but never to excess. Swearing includes mostly "damn" and "hell" but also "effing," "bastard," and one very memorable use of "bitch." Harry finishes his hero's journey with bravery, daring, and self-sacrifice. He faces a lot of doubt both about the task in front of him and about whether to trust Dumbledore, the mentor who set him on his difficult path. In the end, he chooses trust and accepts the fact that Dumbledore wasn't perfect. Parents who want to learn more about the series (and spin-off movies and games) can read our Harry Potter by Age and Stage article .

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Community reviews.

• Parents say (35)
• Kids say (385)

Based on 35 parent reviews

Hogwards is my home!

Awesome book, what's the story.

In HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, Harry has his assigned mission from Dumbledore: a hunt for hidden horcruxes (parts of Voldemort's soul). But he has an agonizingly long wait before he can get started. First he must send his Muggle relatives into hiding so Voldemort can't use them as bait. Then he must escape from the Dursleys' home when a protective charm breaks. This proves extremely difficult, even with the best aurors flying alongside him and a clever plan that results in several decoy Harry Potters. More than one life is lost when the heroes are attacked by Death Eaters on all sides. After a direct attack from Lord Voldemort, Harry is shocked to see his wand mysteriously act of its own accord to save him. Even after that ordeal, Harry still can't set off on his mission because Bill Weasley is getting married. Harry, Ron, and Hermione help with the preparations at the Burrow while trying to plan how they'll live on the run. But when the celebrations are interrupted by news of the Ministry of Magic's fall, the time for planning is over. Harry, Ron, and Hermione barely escape with their lives and are nearly caught by Snatchers -- a gang of wizard kidnappers -- in London. From there they hide out in Grimmauld Place, where they try to work out clues to find the only horcrux they know about: the locket stolen by the mysterious R.A.B. Luckily, the first hint is right in Grimmauld Place. Unluckily, Harry's scar is now bothering him constantly. His connection to Voldemort is stronger than it ever was, and the trio's search for horcruxes may not be a secret for long.

Is It Any Good?

There's everything in this epic fantasy finale and more: mysteries solved, institutions plundered, dragons ridden, sacrifices made, battles fought, and evil defeated. So much happens that not one but two movies were adapted from the last Harry Potter book. It would have been a crime to cut short any of the action scenes in the Ministry of Magic, Gringotts Bank, or the final battle at Hogwarts. All three places are impossible to break into or out of, and yet somehow Harry, Ron, and Hermione pull it off -- and with the kind of narrow nail-biter escapes fans have come to expect from the series.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows delivers the action sequences, but also a lot of mysteries to solve. There's so much to ponder about wand lore, Dumbledore's complicated past, Professor Snape's allegiances, the location of the final horcruxes, Kreacher's cruelty, and more. Wand lore is the most confusing to decipher, as well as the most clever and crucial element to the series' good-vs.-evil struggle. It will leave readers piecing together the complex puzzle until the very end. Dumbledore's past is a sore spot for Harry, who never wanted to see his hero as flawed but learns to accept the man he was -- the very relatable process of realizing that our parents and mentors are human, too. Snape's secrets are the most poignant and heartbreaking and drive Harry to his ultimate act of sacrifice. So many revelations are expertly woven together in the final act, so many beloved characters get their moment to shine (yay, Neville! yay, Mrs. Weasley!) that it's oh so hard to see the true magic of this series come to an end.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about all the loss of life in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Whose death hit you the hardest? Why? Were you braced for it, or did it catch you by surprise? All the known characters that died were willing to die for a cause greater than themselves. Does that make their deaths easier to bear?

A major theme tackled here is the terrible prejudice against those who are not from "pure blood" wizarding families. For not being the "right" kind of witch or wizard, they're ostracized and sent to jail. In real life, author J.K. Rowling has spoken out against the trans community and publicly stated her prejudice against them. Can you still appreciate the message presented in the book knowing that? How separate is a work from its author?

In the Deathly Hallows, Rowling shows Dumbledore in a new light, as a complicated and very flawed character instead of the infallible headmaster. Harry undergoes a period of anger and then finally reaches acceptance. Are we all Harry when faced with the flawed real selves of those we put on pedestals, whether they're authors, actors, or any public figure?

Book Details

• Author : J. K. Rowling
• Illustrator : Mary Grandpre
• Genre : Fantasy
• Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Adventures , Brothers and Sisters , Friendship , Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
• Character Strengths : Courage , Perseverance , Teamwork
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Arthur A. Levine
• Publication date : July 21, 2007
• Number of pages : 759
• Last updated : July 14, 2023

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Book Review

Harry potter and the deathly hallows — “harry potter” series.

• J.K. Rowling

Readability Age Range

• Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic, Inc.

Year Published

From the outset, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows moves at breakneck speed. Author J.K. Rowling clambers to tie up loose ends left dangling from the previous six books, creating a final novel with a dark mood and somewhat convoluted story.

It’s a tale of war, and as such, it’s fairly joyless. Though well-crafted and imaginative, it may give readers the sensation of trying to sip water from a fire hydrant as they’re blasted with complex revelations and details in every chapter, with few of Rowling’s characteristic lighthearted “resting places” in between.

As usual, Harry begins by saying goodbye to Privet Drive—this time for good. When he comes of age at midnight, the protective charm provided by his mother’s sacrifice will break, leaving him vulnerable to a Death Eater plot to kidnap him. With help from the Order of the Phoenix and his school friends, he escapes, but not without casualties on both sides. During the fray, Voldemort appears and discovers that he needs a stronger wand to defeat and kill the boy. This begins the Dark Lord’s search for the legendary Elder Wand, an unbeatable weapon with a bloody history. To win its allegiance, a wizard must kill its owner.

At the Burrow, now protected by magical spells placed upon it by the Ministry of Magic, Harry, Ron and Hermione plan to set out in search of those remaining little bits of Voldemort’s mangled soul, the Horcruxes. During Bill and Fleur’s wedding, word arrives that the Ministry has fallen under Death Eater control, and a new era is born. The protective charm around the Burrow breaks, and Harry, Ron and Hermione escape to start a new life on the run.

From here, the bulk of the story surrounds the three main characters staying a step ahead of Death Eaters and camping out in a magically protected tent wherever the Horcrux trail leads. Their search is frustratingly difficult. Tempers run high. Harry is plagued by visions of Voldemort torturing and killing people. And Hermione spends her time poring over a book Dumbledore left her in his will.

Her research leads the trio to The Tale of the Three Brothers. According to this myth, three brothers cheated Death and were rewarded with three magical objects: The Elder Wand, The Resurrection Stone and The Cloak of Invisibility. These Deathly Hallows, if united, would make the possessor master over death. Harry becomes consumed with finding them, much to Ron and Hermione’s dismay. Already owning The Cloak, his greatest desire is for the stone and its power to bring back the dead.

His pride and recklessness lead Death Eaters to their door, and the three friends are taken to Malfoy’s mansion. Hermione’s torture there by Bellatrix LeStrange and their narrow escape from death finally convince Harry to forget about the Hallows and focus on their original mission of destroying Horcruxes.

So the crusaders race to Hogwarts to locate one of the remaining four soul fragments. Once there, they reunite with old comrades from Dumbledore’s Army, now outcasts living in The Room of Requirement. As Harry searches the castle for the Horcrux, Death Eaters alert Voldemort to his presence, and the final battle begins. Then it’s like old home week at Hogwarts with every character and creature from the entire series arriving to join in the fight. By the time Harry has his showdown with Voldemort, only two Horcruxes stand between the Dark Lord and death—one of which also holds the key to Harry’s destiny.

Positive Elements

What Rowling has done well in the past, she continues to do well in Deathly Hallows. Excellent character development leaves no doubt as to the value of nobility and morality. Lines between good and evil are clear (though the heroic portrayal of spells and incantations remains a problem). Cruelty reflects the evil nature of those who use it, and life is assigned value, even in the cases of the most unlovely beings. In fact, when a house-elf gives his life to save Harry, the boy digs the grave himself without magic, believing that this honors the sacrifice in a deeper way.

Themes of true friendship and self-sacrifice are touchingly developed. Harry, Ron and Hermione are nearing adulthood, and their relationships reflect this. Trying to convince Ron and Hermione to stay behind in safety, Harry finds his two friends determined to help him fight Voldemort. Ron and Hermione’s romantic relationship blossoms to genuine love. And it does so without any inappropriate sexuality.

Reflecting on Harry’s godfather’s treatment of the venomous house-elf Kreacher, Hermione warns Harry to learn from Sirius’ mistakes (“I’ve said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves”). Harry takes her words to heart and eventually inspires in Kreacher the same loyalty that Dumbledore inspired in Hagrid. At being treated kindly, Kreacher’s entire demeanor and even his appearance change for the better. Conversely, Harry’s dishonesty with a goblin who respects him leads that being to turn on him at a crucial moment.

Throughout the Potter series, pride and hunger for power go hand in hand and almost always accompany evil, even in the noblest of characters. So it is in Deathly Hallows. Imagery of peacocks on the walls of Voldemort’s hideout reflects his over-confident belief in his being the most powerful and wisest wizard, a failing that often blinds him. Harry, carrying a Horcrux close to his heart for safekeeping, absorbs some of this arrogance. His resulting obsession with finding the Hallows costs him dearly, and provides a solid life lesson.

Perhaps the most poignant elements of this story surround Voldemort’s quest for a pure-blood wizarding society. The parallels here to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust are profound. Readers familiar with that period in history will shudder when Harry and his friends enter the Ministry to find the golden fountain replaced by a gigantic black statue of a witch and wizard. Carved on the thrones that support them are mounds of human bodies, man, woman and child, their faces grotesquely twisted.

Further, Harry and Hermione witness “trials” of accused Muggle-borns who are summarily convicted and packed off to Azkaban in the care of dementors. Throughout the story, pure-blood wizards risk their lives to hide and protect “undesirables” targeted by the Ministry. Several broadcast an underground radio program, both to boost the spirits of the oppressed and to encourage supporters to protect Muggles and Muggle-borns from tyranny.

Another overarching theme is the need for trust. Who will Harry trust? Who will influence him? With Dumbledore dead, journalist Rita Skeeter publishes a scathing biography containing many half-truths about the old headmaster. Hurt and confused, Harry must choose what to believe. He must develop faith in those who have been loyal in the past and allow them to help him (“He had made his choice … to accept that he had not been told everything that he wanted to know, but simply to trust. He had no desire to doubt again”). In contrast, Voldemort trusts no one, not even those closest to him (“It had been a grave mistake to trust Bellatrix and Malfoy. Didn’t their stupidity and carelessness prove how unwise it was ever to trust?”).

Crude or Profane Language

Obscenities and profanities are sprinkled in a bit more heavily than in previous installments. Characters on both sides of the war use “d n,” “h ,” “b ch,” “bleedin'” and “effing.” Crudities and slang (“rat’s fart,” “snogging,” “bogies,” etc.) show up occasionally as well.

Alcohol Abuse

Following the death of a friend, Harry drinks firewhiskey, which dispels his numbness and “fires him with something that was like courage.” Later it is implied that he has “too much food and wine.”

Sexual Subjects

While not explicitly sexual, the werewolf Fehnrir Greyback makes disturbing, sensual comments when presented with the chance to devour Hermione. There’s kissing between young couples in love.

The Final Battles

Violence peppers almost every chapter of Deathly Hallows. And some of the imagery would do Stephen King proud, particularly in the case of Bathilda Bagshot, a neighbor of Harry’s parents in Godric’s Hollow. Rotting flesh and snake attacks, along with Inferi (dead bodies bewitched to do Voldemort’s bidding), are equal to and sometimes surpass the grotesque pictures Rowling conjured in The Half-Blood Prince.

She promised her readers a story of war against pure evil. Resultantly, this book is fraught with injury and death. More than a few characters—some of them beloved by fans—die. One is “splinched,” his flesh ripped away during disapparation. Another takes a curse to the side of the head and loses an ear. Others burst into flame or strangle themselves. Voldemort and his followers torture the innocent and kill a pleading, helpless woman within the first dozen pages. And through Harry’s mental connection to Voldemort, he is often forced to witness the Dark Lord’s sadistic tactics, even reliving the murders of his own parents as though he were committing them.

Death … And Worse

In several places, Harry contemplates the “peace” of giving up. Standing at his parents’ graves in Godric’s Hollow, he “looks down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay … not knowing that their son stood so near, his heart still beating … and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them.” On other pages, Harry longs for “the oncoming oblivion, the promise of nothing, of no feeling.” When his final battle with Voldemort commences, his most pressing question of the dead souls surrounding him is “Does it hurt?” to which one replies, “Dying? Not at all … Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”

Rowling also spends a fair amount of time communicating that there are things far worse than death—Voldemort’s cowardly, loveless subsistence, for example. In fact, death is characterized as a brave and a peaceful existence. A belief that may be what smoothes the way for a description of an elderly man’s “mercy killing.” Certainly, without the additional explanation of salvation through Christ and the heavenly afterlife that provides, this view is disconcerting and may prove oddly tempting to some readers.

Still, despite such musings and enticements, it could be argued that, on the whole, the book is more often respectful of life, as noted above in “Positive Elements.” When Harry is faced with his supposed demise, he reflects on what a treasure his own body is (“Why had he never appreciated what a miracle he was, brain and nerve and bounding heart? It would all be gone … or at least, he would be gone from it”).

Spirituality

The visual imagery of magic, of course, continues to be Harry Potter’s primary problem. Because this book is so dark and its themes so sobering, everything seems more intensely real. As Ron, Harry and Hermione fight to remain hidden, they continually summon the benefits of spells to conceal themselves. Each time their tent is erected they encircle the area mumbling protective incantations and drawing shapes around the campsite with their wands. Partly because of the setting and partly because of the descriptions, their actions here feel quite different from reading about turning buttons into beetles as they’re first learning magic in the early books.

In Rowling’s world, characters embrace many of the same values Christians in the real world espouse. But as Harry, Ron and Hermione struggle to choose between right and wrong, and sort out grey areas, it is the human heart that decides, rather than any divine authority or maxim. Still,Deathly Hallows has a feel for spirituality that comes across as very believable at times. It is even sprinkled with Scripture. For example, the tomb of a wizard family is inscribed with words found in Matthew 6:21: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Harry doesn’t understand these words, nor does he understand what he finds on his own parents’ tomb: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” So it appears that Rowling grasps the peace and beauty of these concepts, but chooses not to identify the Author.

Herein lies the difficulty with her constructs of death and soul. We are offered the stirring love and self-sacrifice of a young man willing to die for his friends, as well as the promise of peaceful release in the afterlife. But there’s no truth of salvation to undergird it.

It almost goes without saying, then, that God is absent once again, most conspicuously in this case because Rowling spends so much time expounding on the soul. In her architecture, The Resurrection Stone can be used to bring back the dead from what we are led to believe is peace. They do not want to come back, and it is seen as selfish to force them to. Harry uses the stone before his battle with Voldemort, recalling the souls of those closest to him. They are “less substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts.”

As he travels toward what he believes will be certain death, these souls become more real to him than the living and he feels no regret for calling them. They are calm, lovely, completely at peace, and they serve as sources of comfort and encouragement. We get a glimpse of their state of being later when a renewed Dumbledore comes to Harry and expresses tears of regret over his own life decisions. (So perhaps the afterlife isn’ttotal bliss.)

In using Horcruxes, Voldemort has chosen what to do with his soul. And in the end, Harry can do the same. Either he may “go on” from the in-between place in which he lands after Voldemort’s attack, or he may go back to finish the fight. The choice is his (though how Dumbledore knows to tell him this and how he entered Harry’s limbo is anyone’s guess). The fact that Harry has that option at all is no more than a convergence of badly done magic and poor choices on Voldemort’s part. And that means Harry has no discernable, immovable Mover in whom he can place his trust as he careens toward death.

If he has a god, it must be Dumbledore, but that does not seem entirely right either. The ins and out of all this end up generating so much confusion it’s almost as if we’re watching Vizzini in The Princess Bride cackle, “I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me!”

As confusing and troubling as it may seem to have a lightning bolt-branded boy-wizard as a Christ figure, J.K. Rowling tries to create one in Harry. But while he is “savior,” he is also He-Who-Must-Be-Saved. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows conjures a world that practically begs for something to have faith in.

Rowling’s mythology is closest in construction to that of J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, but it doesn’t give evidence of godly faith in any of the ways their stories do. Time columnist Lev Grossman noticed this when he wrote, “If you want to know who dies in Harry Potter, the answer is easy: God. Harry Potter lives in a world free of any religion or spirituality of any kind. He lives surrounded by ghosts but has no one to pray to, even if he were so inclined, which he isn’t. … What does Harry have instead of God? Rowling’s answer, at once glib and profound, is that Harry’s power comes from love. This charming notion represents a cultural sea change. In the new millennium, magic comes not from God or nature or anything grander or more mystical than a mere human emotion. In choosing Rowling as the reigning dreamer of our era, we have chosen a writer who dreams of a secular, bureaucratized, all-too-human sorcery, in which psychology and technology have superseded the sacred.”

There is no doubt that J.K. Rowling will be remembered as one of the most well-read writers of our age. She will also be remembered for ignoring the simple truth of a very old—and sacred—text: We love because He first loved us.

Plot Summary

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling - review

Oh my goodness I had forgotten how good these books are.

It must be about 7 years since I last read the Harry Potter series and I knew I loved them but I think I had forgotten how truly mesmerising they are.

The Deathly Hallows, as I am sure most of you know, is the 7th and final book in the series. In this last battle Harry must face Voldemort for one last time. Who will win?

Firstly: the new covers. I love the feel of them. They are a really smooth matte with embossed titles and it looks divine. The illustrations are, in my opinion, awesome. The old covers will still hold more sentimental value but the new ones are stunning.

Next, on to the actual book. What I think is most magical about the writing is its ability to grasp anybody, no matter what age, and turn them into a bookworm. They simply cannot put it down. There is not a page with a dull moment. I think a big contributor to this is chapter length. I find it very rare that a book has ideal chapter length but these ones are a perfect example. I didn't just put it down because I found it impossible to finish a chapter and at the same time I didn't feel like it stopped and started every other page. J K Rowling is a genius.

So, should you read this book? If you've read them already or are a movie fan, what are you doing? Go find your copy and start now! The rest of you may be harder to persuade. If you have convinced yourself it's the 'wrong genre' or you are 'too old' read a few chapters and I promise you will love it. It contains so many different genres and, at 14, I still find it laugh out loud funny. No one is ever too old for the magic of Hogwarts.

Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop .

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HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

From the harry potter series , vol. 7.

by J.K. Rowling & illustrated by Mary GrandPré ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 2007

Following the lead of its six preceding episodes this one may be sprawling, untidy and, particularly in its treatment of...

The epic adventure ends where, and as, it should in this long-awaited heart- (and, predictably, door-) stopping closer. With the entire tale now laid out, it easier to see the themes and qualities that not only bind it into one coherent, humongous saga, but have also so strongly bound millions of readers to its decade-long unfolding.

Many of those themes—the Hero’s Journey, the wonder of magic-working, the cluelessness of grown-ups, the sweet confusion of adolescence—are standard fare in stories for young readers (or readers who remember being young), but Rowling has shown uncommon skill in playing them with and against each other, and also woven them into a darn good bildungsroman, populated by memorable characters and infused with a saving, irrepressible sense of fun. In The Deathly Hallows , she opens with a vintage, riveting escape scene, then sends Harry, Ron and Hermione into a months-long flight from the ascendant and hotly pursuing forces of Lord Voldemort—this journey also becomes a desperate search for the remaining horcruxes that make him unkillable. Allies both known and unexpected gather to help, but it is strength of spirit and character that, particularly in Harry’s case, blossom here after developing throughout the series, carrying these “three teenagers in a tent whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead,” past hopelessness, sharp divisions and other challenges to a decisive faceoff against a seemingly unconquerable adversary. There is a slow stretch toward the middle as the trio, having passed through a succession of refuges, hides out in the wilderness for some soul searching, but Rowling kicks up the pace in the second half. Strewing the plot with dueling spells, narrow squeaks and multiple corpses, lightening the load with well-placed humor and casting a sharp light on the flaws and graces of her characters, she builds to a suitably huge, compelling and, like illustrator Mary GrandPré’s chapter-head vignettes, stylish climactic battle on the grounds of Hogwarts.

Pub Date: July 21, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-545-01022-1

Page Count: 759

Publisher: Levine/Scholastic

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

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THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL

From the school for good and evil series , vol. 1.

by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2013

Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.

Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.

Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and  her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).

Pub Date: May 14, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013

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From the diary of an ice princess series.

by Christina Soontornvat ; illustrated by Barbara Szepesi Szucs ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019

A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.

Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.

The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.

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Page Count: 128

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Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book review

In this last book of the saga, the boy who lived needs to pursue his destiny or die. Check out if he will be up to Dumbledore’s assignments!

As Harry Potter becomes an adult, the overlapping of the saga with the internal book plots is nearly complete, and the distinctions between them are very subtle.

Full of battles and struggles, the 7th book of the series is a major climatic novel. For this reason, it also has the longest internal climax.

It is here also the all lose ends are tied up, and we learn all main characters motivations and closures. The kids finally become adults, and their lives continue in a new modified world, free from the threatening shadow of Voldemort.

• cultural relevance
• entertainment
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Author and Average Rating

J. K. Rowling is British author and producer known for creating the Harry Potter world and being one of the most successful novelists of all time.

( read her mini-bio )

User Review

 The Review

The seventh tome in the Harry Potter series is a complex action-packed novel so full of comes and goes that, for the screen adaptation, producers decided to convert it into two movies, so many were the possibilities of plot points.

We tried to analyze the main plot of the book from its internal point of view.

Pay attention that at this point of their lives, adventure is part of the Ordinary World and mere struggles are not enough to catapult their already messy lives into something even more fantastic (Act 2).

Dramatic Structure

Voldemort is getting organized. Wanting to kill Harry Potter and establish his supremacy, the villain plots with the Death Eaters against Moody's plans to evacuating the boy from his suburban home.

While preparing to leave Privet Drive, Harry, reads ambiguous news about Dumbledore.

He convinces his family to run away.

The Order of the Phoenix arrives with a plan to sneak Harry away.

Six people, including some of Harry's friends, take Polyjuice Potion and, protected by Order members, become decoys. Harry leaves with Hagrid.

An attack happens. Voldemort tries to kill Harry, whose wand acts on its own and shoots back a.

Harry and Hagrid lure him out and arrive at Tonks' home. They use a Portkey to the Burrow.

In battle, George was injured, Hedwig and Moody got killed.

Harry has a vision of Voldemort questioning Ollivander about why Harry's wand acted as it did.

Preparations for Bill's wedding are going on at The Burrow.

Hermione, Ron, and Harry discuss plans to find and destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes, as Dumbledore had instructed.

Potter dreams of Voldemort searching for someone known as "Gregorovitch."

Ginny Weasley kisses Harry as something to remember her.

Scrimgeour, arrives to execute Dumbledore's will:

• To Ron, the Deluminator.
• To Hermione, the fairy tale book, "The Tales of Beedle, the Bard".
• Harry is granted with Godric Gryffindor's Sword, and the first Golden Snitch he had ever caught in Quidditch match. The sword, however, is missing.

At the wedding party, Harry learns more unpleasant details from Dumbledore's past.

A warning comes with information that the Ministry of Magic has fallen under the power of Voldemort. The Death Eaters are on their way. Chaos breaks loose.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione disapparate away from the wedding.

In a café, while trying to decide their actions, two Death Eaters attack.

They defeat the Death Eaters and flee to Sirius Black's home.

Harry realizes that "R.A.B." is Regulus Arcturus Black, from the Horcrux replica inscription he had found with Dumbledore.

The Black family's house-elf, Kreacher, tells them that Mundungus stole the real locket, and they send Kreacher to find him.

Remus arrives and explains that the "Voldemort-Ministry" is searching for Harry and persecuting Muggle-born wizards.

After Remus leaves, Kreacher brings Mundungus in. He gave the locket to Dolores Umbridge as a bribe.

The trio infiltrates the Ministry to retrieve the Horcrux from Umbridge.

They witness the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, set up to convict Muggle-borns.

Harry stuns Umbridge. Hermione steals the Horcrux, and they apparate to the countryside for random hiding.

Another vision shows Voldemort interrogating Gregorovitch for something he stole.

The three discover that the Gryffindor's sword inside Lestrange's Vault is a copy, missing and was last used by Dumbledore on another Horcrux, Marvolo Gaunt's ring.

Hermione realizes that the basilisk venom made the sword powerful enough to destroy Horcruxes.

Ron bickers with Harry and angrily leaves Hermione and Harry to continue without him.

They go to Godric's Hollow to look for the sword.

Voldemort's snake ambushes Harry. whose wand cracks.

They flee, and Harry's envisages how Voldemort killed the Potters.

Reading Rita Skeeter's book, Harry becomes more disappointed with his former mentor.

A silver doe Patronus appears for Harry and drives him away to a frozen lake with Gryffindor's Sword in the bottom.

Harry starts to drown after attempting to restore the sword and is saved by Ron

Harry tells him to destroy the Horcrux.

They awake Hermione to tell her the news.

Ron explains his journey back, running into foes, from which he stole a wand.

He explains that the "talented" Deluminator revealed him the way back to his friends.

In her tale-book, Hermione, realizes they need to speak to Xenophilius Lovegood and ask about Grindelwald symbol.

At the Lovegood's they learn about the Deathly Hallows.

• the Elder Wand
• the Resurrection Stone
• and the Invisibility Cloak, owned by Harry

Whoever rules all three artifacts will be the "Master of Death."

Lovegood betrays them to bargain for Luna's freedom.

The young trio barely escapes.

Harry is obsessed with finding the relics and becomes erratic.

A group of Snatchers finds the three.

Hermione's makes Harry's face, unrecognizable.

The Snatchers get suspicious and take them to the Malfoys where the kids struggle with Bellatrix Lestrange about the sword.

spoilers for Part1 of the movies

Dobby appears and helps the three, along with Dean, Griphook, Ollivander, and Luna to escape, but gets attacked by Bellatrix.

They Apparate to Shell Cottage, Bill and Fleur's house.

Harry sees that Bellatrix's knife has hit Dobby that sadly dies in his arms.

Remembering Bellatrix's reaction, they question Griphook about how to break her vault in Gringotts for another Horcrux.

Harry then asks Ollivander about the Elder Wand.

Ollivander tells him that when a wizard disarms, kills, or defeats another, they can master that wizard's wand.

Harry "sees" Voldemort successfully stealing the Elder Wand from the tomb of Dumbledore.

Griphook suspiciously agrees to help the trio in exchange for Gryffindor's sword.

Lupin asks Harry to be the godfather of his just-born son with Tonks and goes back home.

The three reach Gringotts to obtain the Horcrux.

Hemione and Ron, using a "polyjuice-disguise" as Bellatrix and a lackey lead Griphook and Harry, that hide under the Invisibility cloak, into the Ministry.

They lure the employees into reaching the vault and find Helga Hufflepuff's Cup, one of the Horcruxes.

Griphook double-crosses them and flees with the sword.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione escape the premises on the back of a captive dragon.

Shortly after their escape, Harry dreams that the last Horcrux, a relic related to Rowena Ravenclaw, is inside Hogwarts Castle.

They go to Hogsmeade and Dumbledore's younger brother calls Neville to help them sneak through a secret tunnel into the castle.

The trio learns that Neville, Ginny, and Luna had reunited Dumbledore's Army to resist against Voldemort's rule over the school.

The only known relic is long lost Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem.

After some struggle, Harry searches the castle.

Snape is run out of the premises.

Feeling endangered, Voldemort gathers his army to assault the school and kill Harry.

The Order raises its own army consisting of teachers, students, the D.A, and enchanted castle figures. The Battle of Hogwarts begins.

Harry locates the diadem in the Room of Requirement.

Ron and Hermione gather some basilisk fangs to use and destroy the remaining Horcruxes.

After saving Malfoy, Harry manages to destroy the diadem in a fire.

An explosion kills Fred during combat.

There is only one Horcrux left to kill, Voldemort's snake, Nagini.

They save Draco Malfoy again during the confusion of combat.

Voldemort can't make the Elder Wand work properly and he coldly tells his snake to kill Snape. He believed that Snape was the wand's master after having killed Dumbledore.

Snape gives his memories to Harry.

Voldemort makes an ultimatum:

If Harry Potter doesn't surrender in an hour, everyone will be destroyed.

All is at the edge of being lost.

Mid-Point Harry goes to Dumbledore's office to view Snape's memories in the pensive.

He learns several surprising secrets:

• Severus and Lily were close friends as children and through school.
• One day, in an argument, Snape called Lily a "mudblood" after being bullied by James and Sirius.
• Despite his total regret, she doesn't reconcile with him and that leads him to join the Death Eaters.
• When Voldemort kills Lily, Snape becomes a trustworthy double agent working for Dumbledore to help protect Harry and fight against Voldemort.
• Dumbledore had put on the Horcrux-ring and fell victim to a curse that would kill him within a year.
• Dumbledore then tells Snape to protect Draco. Snape must also kill Dumbledore in place of Draco.
• Dumbledore explains that when Voldemort's body was destroyed, a piece of his soul latched onto the baby-Harry since he was closest living thing and he became one other Horcrux.
• Harry must be killed by Voldemort to have that part of his soul detached from his body.
• Snape's Patronus is the same as Lilly's and it was Snape who led Harry to the Sword of Gryffindor in the lake.

After emerging from Snape's memories, Harry knows he must die to destroy Voldemort forever.

He tells Neville to kill Nagini at all cost.

He opens the Golden Snitch that reveals the Resurrection Stone.

He uses it to summon the spirits of his parents, of Sirius, and Lupin, who provide emotional support as Harry walks to his death.

He Meets Voldemort who kills him with the Killing Curse.

However, Harry finds himself in a limbo state where he meets Dumbledore.

His deceased mentor explains that he, Harry, cannot be killed by Voldemort while Voldemort lives.

He also discovers that the attempted murder has separated the part of Voldemort's soul he had had inside himself.

Only Harry is now worthy of possessing the Hallows.

Dumbledore tells him he can choose to stay dead or go back to stop Voldemort.

Harry decides to return to life and fight back.

Voldemort orders Narcissa Malfoy to check on the inert Harry and she tells everyone that the boy is dead.

Voldemort challenges Hogwarts to surrender but is faced down by Neville. Voldemort tortures him.

Harry gets up and escapes.

At that moment, Hogwarts reinforcements appear near the school.

Gryffindor's sword appears to Neville.

Harry hides under the Invisibility Cloak.

Neville kills Nagini, the last Horcrux, using Gryffindor's sword.

The battle continues. All the Death Eaters are defeated.

Harry has to confront Voldemort who carries the Elder Wand.

All seems desperate, but Harry tells Voldemort that he is wrong and according to the circumstances that led to that point, he, Harry, is the genuine master of the Elder Wand.

Voldemort does not believe him and ends up killing himself after his attack ricochets. Harry's theory was correct — the Elder Wand did not kill its genuine master.

After the fight, major changes begin to occur bringing the Wizarding World back to normal.

Harry explains everything to Ron and Hermione.

Harry, now master of all three Deathly Hallows, wants to neutralize the power of the Resurrection Stone and the Elder Wand as well. Dumbledore's portrait applauds.

Nineteen years later, their families and old schoolmates meet at King's Cross, all preparing to send their children to Hogwarts.

Archetype Distribution

Main Character = Harry Potter

Impact Character = Dumbledore, Voldemort, Snape

Protagonist =  Voldermort

Antagonist = Harry Potter

Guardian =  Hermione, Dobby

Co-Antagonist = Death Eaters.

Sidekick = Ron, Hermione, The Order.

Skeptic =  Skeptic is a bit weak in this book. Ron is the most notable to me.

Emotion =  Ron, Ginny

Reason = Hermione

Please leave a comment with your opinion.

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Harry Potter and the Ignominious Cop-Out

Two weekends ago, I found myself accidentally proving the old theory that Harry Potter is a gateway drug to the wider world of serious literature. Standing in the very back of a gigantic horde at my local bookstore at midnight, wedged into a knot of adolescents reading People magazine through oversize black plastic glasses, I picked up and nearly finished a great American superclassic that I’d somehow managed to avoid for my entire life: Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men . Under normal circumstances I would have been perfectly happy to go on ignoring it—the paperback had an unmistakable high-school-syllabus stench about it—but I was bored to death and the aisles were clogged with potbellied wizards and it was the only readable book within arm’s reach. A few pages in, I found myself hooked. By the time I got to the register, I was three-quarters of the way through (just after—spoiler alert!—Lennie the man-child mangles the bully Curley’s hand) and all I really wanted to do was finish it. But the employees were all clapping because I was the last customer, so I closed Steinbeck right on the brink of what felt like an impending tragic climax, took my Potter, and left. Ironically, this meant that Of Mice and Men was now suspended at roughly the same point in its dramatic arc as Rowling had suspended the Potter series before Deathly Hallows . So I went home and conducted a curious experiment in parallel reading: a two-day blitz of 860 pages, with a pair of nested climaxes—one hot off the presses, one 70 years old.

I started with Potter. Not since 1841, when New Yorkers swarmed the docks to ask incoming Brits whether Little Nell died in the latest installment of The Old Curiosity Shop (spoiler alert! She totally did), have readers been so simultaneously poised on the brink of a collective climax. My gut, along with the new book’s scary epigraphs, kept telling me that—like Little Nell—Harry had to go. For a children’s series, Potter has been unusually death-obsessed—Harry’s heroism, remember, sprang from the gruesome murder of his parents—and in recent books, the body count has risen quickly: In the previous book, even Harry’s untouchable mentor Dumbledore died. Also, in a larger narrative sense, Rowling owed us. Harry had been too outrageously lucky for too long: He lived for six books in a big bland protective bubble of innocence and nobility and love. As minor characters dropped around him like cursed broomsticks, he lucked his way through unsurvivable encounters with dragons, basilisks, dementors, Death Eaters, and about 34 different manifestations of Voldemort. Now it was time to pop the bubble. We all felt it. Rowling knew it. One of the big reasons we all read Potter so devotedly was that, unlike most kids’ series, there was something serious at stake. And she practically promised us Harry’s death with Book Six’s prophecy about him and Voldemort—“Neither can live while the other survives.”

By now, the book’s final events have been spoiled as thoroughly as a pint of six-month-old cottage cheese in the trunk of a flaming car. And yet I still feel compelled to issue a warning. If you don’t want to know how Harry Potter ends, you need to fling this magazine, very hard and very fast, out of your window or into the nearest vacant horse carriage. Fling it! There’s no time to think! Gaaaaa!

I approached the book with some fear. For one thing, despite the charm and immersive power of Rowling’s magical world, despite her solid instinct for broad, mythic narrative strokes, she’s always had trouble with the basic mechanics of plot. Even by pulp standards, her storytelling is ridiculous. Exposition happens almost exclusively via overheard conversations. Narrative logic falls apart at crucial moments. Every book ends in an orgy of coincidence and revelations and arbitrary switcheroos. (As George Orwell once wrote about Dickens: “rotten architecture, but wonderful gargoyles.”) Since Deathly Hallows was the series-capping megaclimax, I expected to find it ponderous, overactive, dangerously clotted with characters, and confusing. This was pretty much exactly right. All the Rowling signatures are here: She’s still addicted to adverbs and (oddly) the word “bemused,” her caps lock gets stuck at critical moments, foreigners speak in intolerable accents, and everyone stutters uncontrollably at the slightest hint of stress. When the action gets heavy, she cranks the “coincidence” dial up to eleven and flagrantly abuses her imminent-death-thwarted-at-the-last-possible-moment privileges. (In an MSNBC survey of fan reactions to Deathly Hallows , a 10-year-old who claims to have read the entire series eight times observed that, for his taste, the final book leaned a little too heavily on coincidence. I believe this tells us something important.) As for plot, there’s a Mission Impossible –style break-in at the Ministry of Magic and a never-ending camping trip featuring some heavy Lord of the Rings plagiarism and innumerable action sequences in which everyone screams, “No! No! NO! NOOOOOOO!” A few minor characters die; most movingly, Dobby the house-elf. (“And then with a little shudder the elf became quite still, and his eyes were nothing more than great glassy orbs, sprinkled with light from the stars they could not see.”) Much of the book, however, was strangely forgettable.

And then I got to Chapter 33. In a powerful sequence that immediately makes up for much of the prior slog, Harry learns that, in order for the world to live, he has to die. He accepts this with genuine stoic heroism, relishes his last moments of life, and, surrounded by the ghosts of his dead family and friends, marches off to get himself nobly slaughtered. My tear ducts initiated their “misty” sequence; when Harry asked his mother’s spirit to stay close to him, I almost shed an actual tear. The Rowling-skeptic in me kept waiting for the impossible bailout, but it never came: Voldemort smote Harry into oblivion. Suddenly, Potter was a legitimate tragedy. The series had grown up.

Unfortunately, the cop-out—which in retrospect seems as inevitable as I once thought Harry’s death was—comes three pages later. Chapter 35 sees Harry wake up in an ethereal train station (presumably some regional hub halfway along the Heaven-Hell line), where the spirit of Dumbledore gives him special news: Because of the purity of Harry’s self-sacrifice, he’s eligible for a Jesus exemption. He’s not dead. He gets to go back and kill Voldemort. And just as a bonus, his sacrifice has redeemed all of humanity. (As Harry puts it, while he and the Dark Lord circle each other like the knife fighters in “Beat It”: “You won’t be able to kill any of them ever again. Don’t you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people … I’ve done what my mother did. They’re protected from you.” I’m not sure, at this point, why they don’t just let Voldemort hang around like an old toothless lion—but I guess that would lack dramatic flair.) After the predictable duel, Rowling wraps things up with an epilogue that is, hands down, the worst piece of writing in the entire 4,000-page series. Harry and the gang, now all thirtysomething and blissfully intermarried, reappear at King’s Cross Station to drop off the next generation of wizards at Platform 9¾ while reveling in har-har family-sitcom humor. The final sentence is remarkably bland and awful, the linguistic crystallization of Rowling’s cop-out: “All was well.”

I’m not opposed to happy endings per se—I’m just opposed to an author trying to get emotional credit for both a tragic and a happy ending without actually earning either. Rowling had been gathering storm clouds for ten years; her fictional sky was as purple and lumpy as a Quidditch stadium full of plums, and the whole world had lined up to watch it rain. She owed this ritual sacrifice to the immortal gods of narrative: either the life of her hero or—infinitely harder to pull off—his convincing and improbable survival. With Harry’s death, the series would have graduated instantly from “light and possibly fluky popular megasuccess” to Heavy Tragic Fantasy Classic. Instead, at the last possible moment, she tacked on an episode of Leave It to Beaver . This is roughly the equivalent of Oedipus Rex’s tearing his eyes out, then stumbling across a wise old friend who tells him: “Hey, guess what, buddy? You know how you just killed your dad and slept with your mom, like the oracle predicted? Well, since you did it all with totally innocent love in your heart, it doesn’t count! Go tell your mom to untie that noose! And look, your eyes just grew back! All is well!” Rowling seems to misunderstand the power of catharsis. It’s not simple reassurance, it’s a primal release.

Meanwhile, back among Steinbeck’s farm laborers, all was not well. In fact, it was terrible. Curley’s wife came out to the barn while Lennie was playing with his puppy, and—you know what? I’m not going to spoil it for you.

BACKSTORY Plenty of critics have noted the coincidence of Harry Potter and The Sopranos —the two great pop-cultural myths of the last ten years —ending simultaneously. But the parallel runs deeper. Both series depended on essentially the same trick: smuggling the mundane back into the exotic, normalizing the abnormal. A wizard buying school supplies carries approximately the same defamiliarizing charge as a mob boss going to therapy. Or, as Rowling once put it, a gun is only “a kind of metal wand that Muggles use to kill each other.”

SEE ALSO: The Incomplete Sayings of Albus Dumbledore

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows By J.K. Rowling. Arthur A. Levine books. 759 pages. $34.99.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Book Review

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the epic conclusion to the Harry Potter series that ranges 7 books and takes the characters of the series through 7 years of their lives. Does this book end the series on a positive note? Or does it fail to live up to expectations? Let’s dive in and figure that out.

As previously stated, the Deathly Hallows is the 7th book in the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowling. Originally released in July of 2007. I personally remember getting this book for a birthday present when it came out. The book is 759 pages shared between 36 chapters and an epilogue.

The book starts out in a familiar location at privet drive. Harry’s protection is about to run out so they need to move him to a safe house. To do this many characters choose to fly him out before his birthday using non magical methods like apparating so the Ministry of Magic does not know where he went.

The seriousness of the situation throughout the series starts right away, showing that many characters that we have come to know throughout the series are not necessarily plot armored. Harry gets attacked on the way to the safe house and his owl Hedwig takes a kill spell for him like a person taking a bullet for someone else.

For the most part, Deathly Hallows does not let up on this factor of anyone being mortal in this final chapter. There are slow events throughout but it ramps back up in the end as expected where the climax to the plot has many characters not making it to the end, in fact, J.K Rowling does a really good job of still making the deaths of some characters that are not described in words really meaningful by painting the aftermath of the story.

One thing that Deathly Hallows really plays well with is nostalgia. This book is thick with it. From returning to the wizard bank, the ministry of magic, the burrow, Hogwarts, hogs head in hogsmeade, even the chamber of secrets,  the author makes it clear that as a part of the final journey will be revisiting locations that we have seen before. I think this is a good choice as it not only makes this feel like it ties the world together, but the author does not need to do as much work describing the new scenery and can focus more on the characters in the moment.

The stakes in this chapter are very high and lead to Harry, Ron, and Hermione feeling like fully fledged adults dealing with adult issues. They do not need the help of elders around them as they set off on their own to take out the discovered Horcruxes that keep Lord Voldemort alive.

I don’t tend to mention the movies in the book reviews, but if you read the book over seeing the movie first, you will understand that the journey is much more impactful and well described. There are more run-ins with characters that we have come to see before. Since this chapter of the series does not take much time at Hogwarts, getting interactions or visibility of other characters from the school really pay in dividends throughout the story.

The final battle between Harry and Voldemort is well done, but the story leading right to the end that ties things all together does not feel made up last minute. The story feels deliberate, it feels cohesive. It does a really good job at changing perspectives on characters in the entire series. I wont say anymore about it in a way to prevent giving away the ending to the series.

So with that said, was this book a good conclusion to the series? It absolutely is. I would not say that this book is the strongest in the series for sure, but it leads to a satisfying ending to the series and closes enough of the plot to make me feel that most questions have been answered and that there was a cohesive reason for everything.

So that’s all for the Harry Potter book series reviews. I know this review was shorter than the last few reviews, but that is because talking about this book without spoiling the entire series can be pretty difficult.

If you want to find out where this book ranks in the series you can check out our ranking list for the Harry Potter book series here !

What were your thoughts on the last installment to the Harry Potter series? How does it compare to the other books in the series? Comment below and let us know. If there is other Harry Potter related content that you want to see from DickWizardy please comment below or send us an email using the contact form at the top navigation.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (Harry Potter: Book 7)

Harry has left Hogwarts to dedicate himself to the quest for final Horcruxes, together with his friends Ron and Hermione. Harry is also searching for the answers he feels Dumbledore has left unanswered and his feelings for his beloved old headmaster veer from anger and bitterness to painful loss. Voldemort continues his rise and nowhere seems to be safe anymore. With three gifts, bequeathed by Dumbledore to our intrepid trio, they set off on their deadliest task yet and know that this could be the end of everything they hold dear, even themselves. With Voldemort ever closer our hero must not hesitate; the final battle is coming and no one knows what the outcome will be.

The seventh and final instalment of the Harry Potter series sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hour of its release. To say it was eagerly awaited would be an understatement. It was like holding the holy grail when my copy arrived (pre-ordered of course) and I savoured the moment before I actually opened the book; this would be the last time I would hold a Harry Potter book that I had not read, once I had finished this, that would be it, no more. That lasted about three seconds, I read the book in almost one sitting, this was to get me complete and undivided attention, no telephones answered, no friends welcomed in if they called, just this long awaited last piece of the puzzle and me.

“ ‘What is it’ he asked as he reached the dressing table which was heaped high with what looked and smelled like dirty laundry. ‘ There’, she said pointing at the shapeless mass. And in the instant that he looked away, his eyes raking the tangles mess for a sword hilt, a ruby, she moved weirdly: he saw it out of the corner of his eye; panic made him turn and horror paralysed him as he saw the old body collapsing and the great snake pouring from the place where her neck had been.” Chapter seventeen: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

And did it deliver? You bet your sweet behind!! There are many loose ends that are tied up here, lovely little snippets of additional information that enable to not merely understand why and event has occurred but understand the characters personality (JK Rowling is so good at this), why they would react a certain way. There are of course many revelations not just for Harry but for the reader and some suspicions you may have had about some characters are found to be true! The end of the book really takes you there and back before you reach the conclusion and I am not surprised that Rowling cried when she had completed it, it was emotionally draining for me and I was only reading it!! It has been said that this and the Half Blood Prince were really one book splint into two, rather than two separate stories, and I do believe that to be true.

“ And the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was a silver-white doe, moon-bright and dazzling, picking her way over the ground, still silent, and leaving no hoof prints in the fine powdering of snow. She stepped towards him, her beautiful head with it’s wide long-lashes eyes held high. Harry stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, but at her inexplicable familiarity. He felt that he had been waiting for her to come, but that he had forgotten, until this moment, that they had arranged to meet. His impulse to shout for Hermione, which had been so strong a moment ago, had gone. He knew, he would have staked his life on it, that she had come for him, and him alone.” Chapter nineteen: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I would still say that Half Blood Prince is my favourite but it’s a close call and very difficult to separate the two. All I can say is that you will not be disappointed when you read the Deathly Hallows. How can a series of books, written for children (although admittedly I think us grown ups were considered a bit more in the writing of the last three) become something so entrenched in peoples imaginations? It’s simple, I KNOW that I was destined to go to Hogwarts, that I have special powers that I remain ignorant of and that there is more to life than the world we see around us, it is only by some fluke that my true destiny was never fulfilled and that Harry Potter was written as a way of letting me experience a little of what could have been – also, JK Rowling isn’t too bad a writer. I feel a little sad that there will be no more books, but in a way, it was good it has ended leaving you wanting more, and now I have my own daughter, I cannot wait until she is old enough and we can read them together.

10/10 I feel a little sad that there will be no more Harry Potter books.

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Review by Amanda White

31 positive reader review(s) for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

370 positive reader review(s) in total for the Harry Potter series

JK Rowling biography

JUNIOR BOOYSE from SOUTH AFRICA

BEST BOOK EVER,YOU SHOULD TRY THIS BOOK OUT AWESOME.............

Gokulnath from India

It was a good book. But when help came too readily, it brought down the quality of the book. But it was a stupid way to put Neville in the fight. His parents were aurors, super aurors and you make him fight with weeds. Stupid indeed! And Ron too must age been shown as a hero's friend. He should have defeated 2 or 3 death eaters. All these seven years, he was never shown as a warrior. And he and Neville went on to become aurors.

Himanshu from India

10 stars are not enough for these HARRY POTTER SERIES!!!

Corrine Y from United States

Avada Kedavra! On July 21, 2007, J.K. Rowling released the final iconic novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, of an astonishing seven book series. The Harry Potter series are still wildly loved to this day, with 400 million copies sold worldwide, and translated in 68 different languages. The Deathly Hallows is about Harry Potter and his friends finding ways to destroy Voldemort. They learn that even good contains a bit of evil, and vise versa. Even though the trio faces many difficulties, they persevere. And most importantly, they learn that love conquers fear, and this allows then to be selfless in many ways. The Deathly Hallows is written in third person and portrays the thoughts and emotions of each character. This allows readers to thoroughly see inside the characters’ heads. The Deathly Hallows is marvelously written, and closes the series out beautifully.

T from Australia

This book was awesome you should definetly read it. I love everything about it and the idea of the Hallows was great. The only disappointment is that there is no more books.

Lakshmy from India

I have read all the 8 books. I liked all of the books. I request the author to write more!

S. P from South Africa

HARRY POTTER is a brilliant set of books with a well thought out plot. The deathly hallows which is the 7th and concluding entry Spreads out its complex plot in one book While Some Parts of the book Were Bloated. Most Of the story Was good if Not Excellent. Its a smart and slick conclusion with a deep religous,Polictical And Philosphical message. It has A build Up Pace With Sudden Deaths that show the Evil Of War. HP ROCKS and so does JK Rowling. Hope Cursed Child is a Movie With Dan,Emma,Rupert,Evanna,Matthew,Bonnie in it. Currently Waiting For Fantastic Beasts Movie. So Excited. Pray Fantastic Beasts Does Brillantly at the box office and critically. Fantastic beasts movie is the prequel to main Harry potter Verse. The Potter Movies Were Great [All 8 Got good reviews and made tons of cash ]

Vidya from UAE

Excellent way to finish off this wonderful seires!! J. K. Rowling has outdone herself! Wish I could read the Cursed Child as soon as it comes out...

Prashant from India

Excellent book written by J K Rowling. I wish there could be another book.

Asma from Pakistan

Loved it it was a treat!

Himika from India

A spellbinding end to the series! Leaves any reader with tears in his or her eyes when he or she comes to the last page. Basically Harry is every readers' companion in growing up and learning about life, because love, innocence, cruelty, friendship and victory of good over evil is the same in our Muggle world as it is in the magic one. Hats off to Rowling! HP is a religion, it is immortal because "the stories that we love live on in us forever."(Lovely review Himika - Lee @ Fantasy Book Review)

Emma from NZ

I love this book for some reason when I read it it I get shaky. I've read it at least 7 times for it is the ultimate book! The chapters are always new and exciting bringing on unexpected twists. Characters have great roles and bad turns to good without the simplest knowing. This is the best book ever : D

Rachel from USA

I love these books and the movies. The movies follow the book completely. My favorite part about the movies is that you can see the cast grow up. The plot is amazing and I love the actors they picked for their parts. My favorite is Alan Rickman as Snape. The last movie makes me cry when Snape dies.

Nathan from Pamilan

Ages since I read this book the first time. Still the book has its own charm and an everlasting magic of its own. But it seems that Jk Rowling is blundering by alienating herself from the genre where she can work wonders. I'm sure that there are billions who feel the same. I just hope that our wishes travel till her and persuade her to weave new stories in the wonderful world she has created. It's really agonising to realise that the above mentioned wish may never come true... But that will always be my fantasy.

Piper from England

Amazing book, don't let anyone tell you different, the best series ever, J.K. Rowling and her books are Brilliant, BEST SEQUEL ever!!!

Sharna from England

You can't beat any of the Harry Potter books, I only wish Rowling would continue writing forever. It would just be brilliant to hear about Rosie and Albus Severus. The fact that the end leaves you wanting more is infuriating and amazing. I turned the last page, and cried. But then I found the 19 years later bit. A nice touch. Xxx

Jon from England

Best in the series by far.

Nikola from Australia

Amazing. Harry Potter is my life. I've been very impressed with the whole series and I just keep reading them over and over agian. Brilliant

Miggz from Pakistan

This is the best series ever! I have read all the parts and am only 12!

Joshua from England

Usualy I would never give such a dynamic brilliant book an 8 but like some people say, it can be a little boring at times. I am a MASSIVE J.K. Rowling fan, books 1 to 5 were amazing but J.K. Rowling just seemed to stop caring about her charecters, killing off the best ones. In my oppinion it could have taken a more interesting route to the final battle but it didnt and I am unhappy it didn't. Even though it was imaginative and detailed it lacked that wow that you get in the other books.

skanda from india

awesome.................................

Tarun from India

The best book I have ever read in my life!

Guillemette from Belgium

I LOVE THIS BOOK! I think it is just magical and entertaining!

D from Ukraine

This is the book for eyes and heart to feast on!

Daniel from Sheffield

Over 4 years on from this publication and I still find people are taking the books too seriously, at the end of the day, J Rowlings initial target audience was children. To create a series of books that can not only entertain and keep children interested, but also capture the imagination of millions of adults worldwide, is something that happens very rarely and should never be forgotten. But now for the matter of Deathly Hallows, I think certain people have been far too critical. I personally believe that the series was concluded excellently, many loose ends were tied and many unexpected twists were included in the plot. I would have perhaps liked Harry to have had some sort of special power in him to defeat Voldemort but maybe that would have been too cliche and easy to finish this story. I am overall still extremely satisfied at the end of Harry's adventure and I remain adamant that Rowling created an excellent conclusion and deserves all the plaudits she recieves and one day she will become Dame Joanne Rowling for her outstanding contritubion to British and Worldwide reading for young and old alike. Personally, J.K. Rowling is probably the only ever hero/heroin I have had in my life and I am eternally grateful for that.

Sharnali from OAE

Basically Harry Potter is a legend. JK Rowling, if you read this, you inspire me!!!

Jamie from Australia

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is AWESOME!!! I annoy everyone at school, talking about Harry Potter!

Riley from U.S.

@Anon I honestly think books 6 & 7 were the best from the series. Greatly written, as if planned out. Everything ends in a way that makes you think "Oh my gosh! I remember that happening!" If you think these 2 books are horrible especially 7, then you should not be reading or reviewing fatasy books because this book is the greatest book I've ever read.

Perky from London

This has to be the best book I've ever read. I loved it, the storyline is fantatic and my favourite character is Ginny Weasley, even from the first book. I'm so sad that the series has ended!!!!!!!!!! I love this book.

Arielle from US

Well, I'm on chapter 10 right now and well - is the rest of the damn book good or not? Well, this is actually the first time I heard something bad about it, well I quess I should just read some more and find out myself...

TY from United States

Best book ever, it helps wrap the sequel up well, and has many twists. I hope she writes one more book about Harry's future, but if not this is a good enough book to close out the best sequel ever.

9.6 /10 from 32 reviews

All JK Rowling Reviews

• Harry Potter (Harry Potter)
• The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Harry Potter Companion)
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Harry Potter Companion)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter: Book 1)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter: Book 2)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter: Book 3)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter: Book 4)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter: Book 5)
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter: Book 6)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter: Book 7)

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book review | Conclusive and spellbinding

In just 10 years author J.K. Rowling ‘s Harry Potter series has become one of the most memorable stories in recent memory. With her ability to blend adolescent tales with epic battles and the heroic journey of our hero and his friends, she’s created something special that places Harry Potter among the likes of The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings , (even if she’s perhaps not quite as skilled as either of their respective authors).

Fans have been eagerly following the series ever since Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and finally all those loose ends, questions, and angst come to a head with this final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows .

Maybe more to the point, fans can finally have the question answered – will Harry Potter live or die at the end of the series? I could tell you of course, but I think it’s better if you find out for yourself. Let’s just say that the epic battle is joined and death is not far behind.

To get to this point however we’ve had a long journey. At the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince , Harry had been given a quest to find a number of artifacts that needed to be destroyed before anyone would ever be able to kill off Lord Voldemort. But what was most notable about the end of Half-Blood Prince was the clear message that Harry was done with his schooling at Hogwarts. Half-Blood Prince also ended with the darkest moment in Harry’s life up to that point, and it paved the way for a very dark journey.

Which is exactly what we get in Deathly Hallows – darkness, and a long trip for Harry to reach a logical conclusion. Along that route we see numerous deaths (off the top of my head I counted at least eight good guys who die before the end), including two within the first couple of chapters, and the tone of all the action is as intense as anything we’ve seen in the series. Harry is put upon from all sides, and as we get deeper into the story more and more things seem to go wrong.

From the steps of his Aunt and Uncle’s home to going into hiding from Voldemort and his army of Death Eaters, Harry is practically alone and disillusioned with the world. Even with Ron and Hermione by his side there’s no escaping the dread of the fight to come, and the fact that the trio is lost without a guide to lead them.

There’s a number of times where they seem to stumble, barely elude capture by Voldemort and his forces, and even have to work to escape from tight spots, but there’s also a true sense of purpose and evolution at play.

In true Rowling style Deathly Hallows also isn’t hundreds of pages of sadness or lonely situations. At nearly every turn in the book we get funny asides, some clever dialogue, and quite a few honest moments where it feels like Harry is real flesh and blood – sitting beside us, almost within reach. There are life lessons here, love, and even remorse from some characters who we may have even thought of as beyond such feelings.

The deaths continue though throughout the entire story and even before the gigantic battle at the end of the book you can expect a number of Harry’s friends, relatives, and enemies to meet their end. The last few chapters also lead to more deaths, not to mention losing the two major characters that Rowling has been talking about since the book’s title was revealed.

I won’t give much else away, but as Harry, Ron and Hermione search for the artifacts that could end Voldemort’s evil, Harry finally discovers the truth about himself, Dumbledore, and his family that he feels he’s been denied for so long. At points he becomes disillusioned with Dumbledore and the fact that he really barely ever knew the man, had to steel himself against the fear of dying, and at many points has to fight to keep his friends together.

It’s as much a story about Harry growing up to be the man he’s meant to be as it is a story of good versus evil and Harry ends up being that archetypal good guy who’s afraid he’s slipped into the grey that dwells between those absolutes.

Rowling’s style has certainly evolved since the days of Philosopher’s Stone , and her writing is tighter, more interesting, and even more intense, but I’ll admit to finding a few chapters of Deathly Hallows fairly dull. She also has a way of slowing the story down when she feels that things need to be explained, rather than finding a way of eloquently revealing the truth.

Thankfully, Deathly Hallows isn’t a let down in the least, and the only complaint I have is that so many characters have to die or that they seem to meet their ends so effortlessly and without reason. On the bright side we get to see a few familiar faces, including a few who have passed on in other books, and the epilogue is sappy, but nicely conclusive in every way.

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W. Andrew Powell

W. Andrew Powell is a writer, photographer, and videographer with over 25 years of experience covering entertainment. After launching The GATE in 2001, his interests have expanded to include travel, lifestyle, gadgets, food, and whisky. Andrew is a member of the Critics Choice association, and the Travel Media Association of Canada.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) Paperback – July 1, 2009

A spectacular finish to a phenomenal series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a bittersweet read for fans. The journey is hard, filled with events both tragic and triumphant, the battlefield littered with the bodies of the dearest and despised, but the final chapter is as brilliant and blinding as a phoenix's flame, and fans and skeptics alike will emerge from the confines of the story with full but heavy hearts, giddy and grateful for the experience. --Daphne Durham

• Book 7 of 7 Harry Potter
• Print length 784 pages
• Language English
• Grade level 4 - 7
• Lexile measure 880L
• Dimensions 5.5 x 1.75 x 7.5 inches
• Publisher Scholastic Inc.
• Publication date July 1, 2009
• ISBN-10 0545139708
• ISBN-13 978-1338878981
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

About the author.

J.K. ROWLING is the author of the enduringly popular, era-defining Harry Potter seven-book series, which have sold over 600 million copies in 85 languages, been listened to as audiobooks for over one billion hours and made into eight smash hit movies. To accompany the series, she wrote three short companion volumes for charity, including Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them , which went on to inspire a new series of films featuring Magizoologist Newt Scamander. Harry’s story as a grown-up was continued in a stage play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child , which J.K. Rowling wrote with playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany.

In 2020, she returned to publishing for younger children with the fairy tale The Ickabog , the royalties for which she donated to her charitable trust, Volant, to help charities working to alleviate the social effects of the Covid 19 pandemic. Her latest children’s novel, The Christmas Pig , was published in 2021.

J.K. Rowling has received many awards and honours for her writing, including for her detective series written under the name Robert Galbraith. She supports a wide number of humanitarian causes through Volant, and is the founder of the international children’s care reform charity Lumos. J.K. Rowling lives in Scotland with her family.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scholastic Inc. (July 1, 2009)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 784 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0545139708
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1338878981
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 8+ years, from customers
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 880L
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ 4 - 7
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.75 x 7.5 inches
• #82 in Children's Books on Orphans & Foster Homes
• #1,742 in Children's Friendship Books
• #2,042 in Children's Fantasy & Magic Books

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About the author

J.k. rowling.

J.K. Rowling is the author of the enduringly popular, era-defining Harry Potter book series, as well as several stand-alone novels for adults and children, and a bestselling crime fiction series written under the pen name Robert Galbraith.

The Harry Potter books have now sold over 600 million copies worldwide, been translated into 85 languages and made into eight blockbuster films. They continue to be discovered and loved by new generations of readers.

Alongside the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling also wrote three short companion volumes for charity: Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in aid of Comic Relief, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in aid of her international children’s charity, Lumos. The companion books and original series are all available as audiobooks.

In 2016, J.K. Rowling collaborated with playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany to continue Harry’s story in a stage play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which opened in London, and is now thrilling audiences on four continents. The script book was published to mark the plays opening in 2016 and instantly topped the bestseller lists.

In the same year, she made her debut as a screenwriter with the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Inspired by the original companion volume, it was the first in a series of new adventures featuring wizarding world magizoologist Newt Scamander. The second, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, was released in 2018 and the third, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was released in 2022.

The screenplays were published to coincide with each film’s release: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay (2016), Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay (2018) and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore - The Complete Screenplay (2022).

Fans of Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter can find out more at www.wizardingworld.com.

J.K. Rowling’s fairy tale for younger children, The Ickabog, was serialised for free online for children during the Covid-19 pandemic in the summer of 2020 and is now published as a book illustrated by children, with her royalties going to her charitable trust, Volant, to benefit charities helping alleviate social deprivation and assist vulnerable groups, particularly women and children.

Her latest children’s novel The Christmas Pig, published in 2021, is a standalone adventure story about a boy’s love for his most treasured thing and how far he will go to find it.

J.K. Rowling also writes novels for adults. The Casual Vacancy was published in 2012 and adapted for television in 2015. Under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, she is the author of the highly acclaimed ‘Strike’ crime series, featuring private detective Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott. The first of these, The Cuckoo’s Calling, was published to critical acclaim in 2013, at first without its author’s true identity being known. The Silkworm followed in 2014, Career of Evil in 2015, Lethal White in 2018, Troubled Blood in 2020 and The Ink Black Heart in 2022. The series has also been adapted for television by the BBC and HBO.

J.K. Rowling’s 2008 Harvard Commencement speech was published in 2015 as an illustrated book, Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination, sold in aid of Lumos and university-wide financial aid at Harvard.

As well as receiving an OBE and Companion of Honour for services to children’s literature, J.K. Rowling has received many other awards and honours, including France’s Legion d’Honneur, Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award and Denmark’s Hans Christian Andersen Award.

J.K. Rowling supports a number of causes through her charitable trust, Volant. She is also the founder and president of Lumos, an international children’s charity fighting for every child’s right to a family by transforming care systems around the world.

www.jkrowling.com

Image: Photography Debra Hurford Brown © J.K. Rowling

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Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows finishes off an exciting series that is one of the best of all time. In this book Harry finds out that he must kill Lord Voldemort and can only do so by finding his hidden Horcruxes. The book contains an astonishing ending and many characters fight for their lives. It also has twists, turns and plenty of action as Harry, Ron and Hermione run from Death Eaters on the quest to kill Voldemort. I would recommend this book for older readers and adults. Also, I would recommend reading the books before this one to understand what is going on in the story. It is an overall action-packed adventure.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Summary, Characters and Themes

The 7th and final book in the Harry Potter series is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows .

In this thrilling conclusion, Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave Hogwarts to hunt down and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes, objects containing parts of his soul. Their dangerous quest brings them face-to-face with the Dark Lord’s forces, testing their friendships and pushing them to their limits. The book culminates in an epic battle at Hogwarts, where the fate of the wizarding world hangs in the balance.

In the climactic seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry, Ron, and Hermione face their greatest challenge yet: destroying Voldemort’s Horcruxes, the vessels containing pieces of his soul, and defeating him once and for all. 

They abandon Hogwarts to embark on a perilous quest, facing constant danger and the growing might of a Voldemort-controlled Ministry of Magic .

After Snape provides a false tip, Harry and his companions narrowly escape an ambush while fleeing Privet Drive. 

The Order of the Phoenix suffers casualties during the escape, with the death of Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody. Now safely at the Burrow, Harry experiences visions linked to Voldemort, revealing his quest to overcome Harry’s seemingly inexplicable resistance to his attacks. 

Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin unraveling Dumbledore’s cryptic clues and bequests to locate and destroy the Horcruxes.

Following Bill and Fleur’s wedding, disrupted by Death Eaters, the trio seeks refuge in the inherited house at Grimmauld Place. 

Learning the house elf Kreacher’s role in replacing the Horcrux locket, they determine its new owner – the corrupt Ministry official, Dolores Umbridge. 

Through careful planning and disguises, the trio infiltrates the Ministry and retrieves the locket Horcrux amidst a climate of fear and persecution of non-pureblood witches and wizards.

On the run, they struggle to find the remaining Horcruxes and a means to destroy the locket. 

After Ron temporarily abandons them in frustration, Harry and Hermione visit Godric’s Hollow, narrowly escaping Voldemort’s snake, Nagini. Harry discovers Dumbledore’s complex past and a newfound symbol – the Deathly Hallows.

Xenophilius Lovegood reveals the Hallows: the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, and the Invisibility Cloak. 

However, he betrays them to secure his daughter’s release from Voldemort’s forces. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are captured and taken to Malfoy Manor, where Bellatrix Lestrange tortures Hermione. Dobby the house-elf bravely helps them escape. Harry deduces another Horcrux lies within Bellatrix’s Gringotts vault.

In a daring heist, they break into Gringotts with Griphook the goblin’s help and retrieve a Horcrux – Hufflepuff’s Cup. Harry’s visions reveal the final Horcrux’s location: Hogwarts. 

They return to the school, igniting a fierce battle as students and teachers defy Voldemort. In the chaos, Harry locates and destroys Ravenclaw’s diadem Horcrux. However, Voldemort murders Snape, seeking dominion over the Elder Wand. 

Snape’s dying memories unveil a shocking truth: his enduring love for Harry’s mother and his lifelong mission to protect Harry under Dumbledore’s guidance.

Harry learns he must sacrifice himself, as he himself inadvertently became a Horcrux. In the forest, Voldemort strikes him down, but Harry awakens in a limbo-like state, where Dumbledore’s spirit offers guidance. Realizing Voldemort’s use of Harry’s blood unintentionally protects him, Harry chooses to return.

Upon Voldemort’s return to Hogwarts, Neville destroys the final Horcrux – Nagini. A climactic battle ensues. 

Harry reveals his survival and duels Voldemort, their wands interconnecting due to their shared core. The Elder Wand, recognizing Harry’s true ownership, rebounds Voldemort’s killing curse upon himself.

In the epilogue, nineteen years later, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, with flourishing families, stand proudly as their children begin their own Hogwarts journeys. The wizarding world finds peace and a promise of a better future.

Harry Potter

Harry’s journey in this book is one of disillusionment, sacrifice, and tremendous growth. He learns that his heroes are deeply flawed; Dumbledore kept secrets, his parents were not perfect icons, and even Snape, the person he loathed, was driven by complex motivations. 

Yet, Harry’s core bravery remains. He faces his own mortality with acceptance and unwavering determination to defeat Voldemort. This internal struggle fortifies him, making Harry the most capable and selfless version of himself by the novel’s end.

Ron Weasley

Ron’s loyalty is severely tested in this installment. Feelings of insecurity, exacerbated by the Horcrux’s influence, lead him to abandon his friends in a moment of weakness. However, he returns with a renewed sense of purpose. 

This journey of self-discovery highlights both Ron’s vulnerability and his unwavering love for his friends, making his eventual triumph in destroying the Horcrux all the more satisfying.

Hermione Granger

Hermione continues to embody intelligence, resourcefulness, and unyielding loyalty. She makes difficult choices, such as torturing Bellatrix for information, showcasing a darker side to her steadfast support for Harry. 

Her unwavering commitment to the cause highlights the sacrifices required in the fight against evil.

Albus Dumbledore

Arguably Dumbledore is the most controversial character in this novel. 

“The Deathly Hallows” casts a shadow over Dumbledore’s actions, revealing a youth dabbling in dangerous ideologies and a tendency towards secrecy that often put those he loved at risk. While his intentions were ultimately good, this portrayal adds a layer of moral ambiguity to a previously revered figure.

Severus Snape

Snape’s true allegiance is finally unveiled, changing the trajectory of the entire series. This revelation forces readers to re-examine every interaction he had with Harry. 

His lifelong love for Lily Potter and his commitment to protecting Harry reveal a character of self-sacrifice and surprising tenderness beneath the bitterness he nurtured. 

Snape is the ultimate morally grey character, embodying themes of regret, revenge, and the transformative power of love.

Neville Longbottom

Neville embodies a different form of heroism. 

Awkward and initially timid, his unwavering loyalty to Dumbledore’s Army and his defiant spirit in the face of darkness showcases a quiet bravery that proves invaluable. 

He embodies the idea that heroism isn’t just about flashy actions but an enduring resolve against injustice. His act of destroying the final Horcrux, Nagini, demonstrates how the underestimated often rise to extraordinary circumstances.

Luna Lovegood

Luna’s unwavering belief in the unseen and her open-mindedness offer a perspective of hope in the darkest hours. 

Her steadfast support for Harry, even when others doubted him, highlights the power of unwavering faith in the face of doubt. Luna represents the value of finding strength in your individuality, even if it makes you an outsider.

Draco Malfoy

Draco embodies a conflict far more internal than Harry’s. 

Raised on ideals of pureblood superiority and Death Eater loyalty, he is torn between his upbringing and an emerging sense of disillusionment. 

While he never fully sheds his prejudice and often falters into cruelty, Draco represents the struggle against indoctrination and the possibility, however tenuous, of redemption.

Ginny Weasley

Often overlooked but crucial to Harry’s emotional growth, Ginny provides a sense of normalcy and love amidst the chaos. 

Her fiery spirit and confident personality give Harry a connection to the simple joys of life, strengthening his resolve. She represents the importance of an unflinching support system in times of great struggle.

Aberforth Dumbledore

Aberforth offers crucial pieces to the puzzle of Dumbledore’s past, providing a raw and often unflattering perspective that counters the near-mythical image built around his brother. 

He is cynical and embittered, yet shows surprising loyalty to Harry and the Order. His grudging aid emphasizes the weight of war on even those most disillusioned.

The Complex Nature of Love

In this final installment, love is revealed to be a multifaceted force that goes beyond romantic affection. 

The story dives deep into the enduring power of a mother’s love, represented by Lily Potter’s sacrifice that continuously protects Harry even years after her death. We see the transformative power of unrequited love in Severus Snape. 

His devotion to Lily inspires him to act as a double agent, ultimately becoming a key factor in Voldemort’s downfall. Furthermore, the novel explores the love between friends and family, emphasizing its importance as a wellspring of strength and courage. 

Harry draws immense support from Ron and Hermione, while Neville Longbottom’s unyielding loyalty to Dumbledore’s Army highlights the unwavering love present within a community fighting for a just cause. 

The book reveals that love in all its forms – protective, obsessive, sacrificial, and based on friendship – plays a crucial role in shaping the course of events and ultimately defeating evil.

The Inevitability of Death and the Importance of Sacrifice

The book confronts the inevitability of death head-on. 

The quest to destroy the Horcruxes underscores the fact that immortality is both unnatural and undesirable, a perversion of the natural order. Harry comes to accept his own mortality as a necessary step to defeat Voldemort. 

Snape, too, knowingly embraces his death, sacrificing himself to ensure Harry understands the truth about his loyalty. This theme extends to the numerous lives lost in the Battle of Hogwarts. J.K. Rowling emphasizes the tragic cost of war but also honors the sacrifices made by those fighting for a better future. 

The willingness to accept death and face it with courage becomes paramount. 

It underscores that true heroism is found not in escaping death, but in the way individuals choose to face it, protecting the ones they love and fighting for what they believe in.

The Corrupting Influence of Power

Throughout the series, Voldemort exemplifies the relentless pursuit of power and his belief that it justifies any means. 

In “The Deathly Hallows,” he becomes consumed by his obsession with the Elder Wand, believing it will make him invincible. This relentless thirst for power leads him to commit unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence. However, the book also shows that power can corrupt even well-intentioned people. 

The Ministry of Magic, under Voldemort’s control, becomes oppressive as it persecutes “Mudbloods” and instills fear to maintain control. 

We also see glimpses of Dumbledore’s past where he grappled with the temptations of power during his friendship with Grindelwald. The novel serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked power and how it can warp even those who begin with good intentions.

The Importance of Choice

While Harry, Ron, and Hermione face extraordinary circumstances, the choices they make are a constant focus of the book. Harry repeatedly chooses to fight even when it appears hopeless – he chooses bravery over fear. Ron’s struggle with his insecurities culminates in his decision to return and support Harry, choosing friendship and loyalty. 

However, it’s Snape who embodies the complex nature of choice. His past actions were undeniably dark, yet Snape ultimately chooses to follow a path of redemption guided by his love for Lily. 

The story emphasizes that individuals are not defined solely by their birth nor by their past mistakes. It highlights that even in the darkest of times, there’s always the potential for choice, and those choices are what ultimately shape one’s character and destiny.

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Harry Potter: 10 Must-Read Fanfics, According To Reddit

• Harry Potter fanfiction expands the Wizarding World lore in creative and enjoyable ways, offering new perspectives and storylines.
• Fanfiction has allowed for the redemption and development of beloved characters like Draco Malfoy, providing alternative endings and exploring their potential.
• Popular fanfiction ships, such as Draco and Harry or Draco and Hermione, have gained a following and allowed fans to imagine different relationships within the Harry Potter universe.

The best Harry Potter fanfiction is among some of the most prevalent on the internet, as the devoted followers of the world of Hogwarts have built on the Wizarding World lore in their own unique ways. The constant expansion of the Harry Potter universe — whether via new films like Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald , games like Hogwarts Legacy, or the upcoming Max series — proves that audiences are far from done with the franchise. However, another way fans have self-managed to stay connected with the beloved Wizarding World has been through Harry Potter fanfiction.

From furthering canon storylines to imagining a future to re-writing favorite non-canonical ships, the best Harry Potter fanfiction further enriches the Wizarding World. Despite the reputation fanfiction can sometimes have , the world of Harry Potter has also attracted some incredibly capable authors, meaning the best Harry Potter fanfiction is an enjoyable high-quality read. Harry Potte r fanfic has even amassed followers of its own, with Redditors sharing their choices for the best stories in the genre which showcase the kind of imaginative, exciting, and surprising directions fans have taken to examine the Harry Potter universe in their own way.

Where To Watch The Harry Potter Movies

Heal Thyself By astolat

A story of redemption for draco malfoy.

Although originally established as an arrogant, condescending, and dark rival, Draco Malfoy evolved to become one of the series' most beloved characters. He could be very easy to hate at times, but there was also a sense of feeling sorry for him which inspired a following of fans who wanted to see him go down a better path. Draco is regularly the star of Harry Potter fanfiction too, with many stories focusing on redeeming his character and giving him a happier ending , such as Heal Thyself by astolat. Redditor Darkest_Phoenix07 shared its highlights:

"I like the development on Draco's career and his character. He goes from being bitter and self-pitying to getting his life on track. I like the take on healing magic. It really expands moderately on dark magic effects ... very good world-building skills."

The story also focuses on a relationship between Draco and Harry which, despite them constantly being at odds in the books and movies is a popular relationship in many corners of the Harry Potter fan community.

10 Heartbreaking Harry Potter Theories That Change How You See The Movies

Fate is a four-letter word by philo, a look at harry potter's life after the official story.

While some Harry Potter fanfiction re-write current canon, others expand Rowling's original plot by taking place in the future, as in Fate Is A Four Letter Word . The story chronicles a grown Harry's failed attempt to live a normal life and the new adventures that await when danger returns. The epilogue in the movies and books teased the adult lives of these beloved characters as they watched their children begin at Hogwarts. Imagining what else the future has in store for Harry is fun while also holding onto a hope that the story can continue in the official canon eventually. Redditor maryfamilyresearch shared:

"absolutely love this story because it has a very dense plot and manages to keep you on the edge of your seat for its whole 525k words. There is angst, yet lots of funny moments as well... Despite all the mystery and the intrigue, the story also manages to explore what it means to be a parent and fall in love... especially when people object to your choice of partner... So relatable in so many ways."

Blindness By AngelaStarCat

A reimagining of harry as "the boy who lived".

One of Harry's best qualities was his willingness to persevere, despite whatever pain and loss he was going through. He constantly keeps trying against all odds, and that determination is built upon further in Blindness , which changes the outcomes of Voldemort's attack on baby Harry . AngelaStarCat's tale is among the best Harry Potter fanfiction because it gets at the center of Harry as a hero and how, regardless of his powers, he has the heart and bravery to fight for what is right. Interestingly, the story was inspired by the author's own experiences. Redditor Reichbane enjoyed the story's change in power dynamics, adding:

"[The story] focuses on the exploration of magic and science in a unique and fun way without Harry lording his power over people and monologuing about how cool and smart and strong he is."

Seventh Horcrux By Emerald Ashes

A comedic look at harry and voldemort's first meeting.

The best Harry Potter fanfictions are those that can be visited again and again. Seventh Horcrux , by Emerald Ashes, is one such piece of fanfic. The story takes a look at the first encounter between Voldemort and Harry which goes in an unexpected new direction. Although it's given a seemingly darker premise, the fic is known to be a comedic and bewildering one. Harry and Voldemort are an iconic hero and villain duo so it is a lot of fun playing with the idea of their relationship. Reddit user Electrical_Ad_8352 explained:

" Seventh Horcrux is a story about Voldemort possessing Harry as a baby and is genuinely one of the funniest pieces of fiction I've ever read. Harrymort is such a bizarre but compelling character and his warped worldview makes the most innocuous situations entertaining."

A Marauder's Plan By CatsAreCool

A sirius black solo adventure.

Sirius is undeniably one of the most beloved Marauders , and his character arc has been re-written by many Harry Potter fanfiction authors who preferred to see Harry's guardian which didn't have to end with his early death . He is one of the many supporting characters who would benefit from stepping into a more central role in his own story. A Marauder's Plan by CatsAreCool depicts Sirius doing his best to give Harry a better, more loving home after the events of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban . Redditor urlias describes it as a

"great story about Sirus not leaving England after being rescued from the tower. He puts on his Marauder's hat and figures out a way to make sure Harry is safe, even if it means taking over Magical Britain. A great story everyone should read,"

The Harry Potter Movie Changes Accidentally Made 1 Major Death Less Sad

Lady of the lake by colubrina, a romance between hermione and draco.

While Draco and Harry are one of the most popular couplings in Harry Potter fanfiction, many also like to imagine the possible relationship between Draco and Hermione . Their similar personalities and opposing views , along with Draco's learned hatred for Hermione, give the two the perfect dynamic for an enemies-to-lovers trope, which fanfictions like Lady of the Lake by Colubrina optimize. Redditor yeetbeanie described the story in high praise:

"[A] go-to comfort read. Hermione decides to take over the government and in a much more sane and manipulative manner than Voldemort. Draco helps her with her plot, and they eventually get married... the balance of the fic is amazing... the narrative is incredibly satisfying."

The Serpentine Subterfuge by murkybluematter

An alternate reality of the world of hogwarts.

One of the best things about Harry Potter fanfiction is the many ways it breaks through the canon and creates entirely new universes with loved characters, taking the details fans know and using them to create exciting new realities from which new stories can rise. The Serpentine Subterfuge , by murkybluematter, does precisely that.

The sequel to fanfiction The Pureblood Pretense focuses on an alternate version of the Wizarding World with a female character as its lead in the form of Harriet Potter . The story follows her tribulations as she continues to pose as a pureblood boy. Reddit user UsernamesAreRuthless states they were at first

"...I couldn't pull myself away. The lies that slowly grow more elaborate, Riddle as a blackmailing politician, Snape as a Potions Master who takes Harry under his wing... James, Lily, and Sirius are alive, and just like I imagined them. Immersing myself in the world of Potions has never been more wonderful."

The Last Enemy: The Howling Nights By CH_Darling

A marauders adventure with some beloved characters.

The Marauders are a popular topic for Harry Potter fiction, with many writers and it is not hard to see why. It is an exciting history of some of the universe's key characters that is only teased in the books and movies. Many Harry Potter fan stories take to expanding on their teenage adventures and developing their most popular ships, like Remus and Lupin. The Last Enemy: The Howling Nights by CH_Darling depicts the Marauders, along with Lily and Snape, navigating through their lives amidst the brewing war. Redditor TinyButMighty2 gave it a rave review:

"Best fanfic I’ve ever read. I won’t stop promoting it lol. It’s a Marauders era story, which there’s plenty of already, but this one is fantastically written, fills in lots of gaps in very good ways, is from multiple POVs (Snape, Lily, Sirius, Regulus, etc.), is incredibly close to canon, and adds so much more to the idea of blood politics."

The Disappearances of Draco Malfoy By speechwriter

A different path for draco malfoy.

Draco Malfoy was one of several Harry Potter characters that deserved a redemption arc, and The Disappearances of Draco Malfoy by speechwriter fulfills that by altering the canon events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince . The story paints a world where Draco lowers his wand and joins Dumbledore and Harry's side, rather than staying with the Death Eaters and doing the Dark Lord's bidding. It also features a prominent Hermione and Draco romance. Reddit user itsasixthing had this to say about it:

"I’m not normally a fan of Draco/Hermione, but I really enjoyed this fic. I thought Draco’s redemption arc was well done, and Ron’s side-plot made me so happy and had one of the best Ron’s I’ve seen in fanfic." This one is a must-read for Dramione and Ron fans alike.

Malfoy's Missed Redemption: How Draco's Deleted Deathly Hallows Scene Would Have Ruined Harry Potter's Twist Ending

The augurey by la-matrona, a fulfillment of the popular harry-hermione ship.

The Harry and Hermione ship , fondly referred to as Harmony, is another regular coupling in Harry Potter fanfiction for those who want to see their non-canon romance played out. Though Hermione and Ron were the ultimate endgame in the canon story, and a couple that many fans love, there is still a significant portion of the fandom who would have preferred Harry and Hermione take on the friends-to-lovers arc. The Augurey grants fans that slow-burn build-up between the two, whilst also incorporating elements from Cursed Child in an exciting new way. Reddit user TheOriginalDv praised the story:

"...a Harmony story where the trio finds out about Delphini when they're at Grimmauld place during the hunt... the prologue is still one of my favorites ever... Also, it's got one of the best renditions of Molly Weasley I've read in fanfiction, her talk with Hermione after her break-up with Ron is still amazing, and burned into my mind forever."

Harry Potter

Created by: J.K. Rowling

First Film: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

First TV Show: Harry Potter

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton, Alan Rickman, Matthew Lewis, Bonnie Wright, Evanna Lynch, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Richard Harris, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Alfred Enoch, Harry Melling, Gary Oldman, Robert Pattinson, Warwick Davis, Oliver Phelps, James Phelps, David Bradley, David Thewlis, Katie Leung, Jason Isaacs, Imelda Staunton, David Tennant, Jamie Campbell Bower, Timothy Spall, Robbie Coltrane, Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Katherine Waterston, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Johnny Depp, Mads Mikkelsen

TV Show(s): Harry Potter

Movie(s): Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Character(s): Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Rubeus Hagrid, Dobby the House Elf, Draco Malfoy, Sirius Black, Ginny Weasley, Voldemort

This Harry Potter Scene Created for the Movie Makes Absolutely No Sense

Some scenes weren't in the books for a reason!

The Big Picture

• The burning of the Burrow in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was created specifically for the film, as it does not appear in the original novels.
• The attack on the Burrow is an unnecessary spectacle because the stakes in the film are already high, so an additional scene not only doesn't add anything to the narrative, it crowds it.
• The attack on the Weasley's home is also inconsequential, as we see the Burrow completely restored in the next movie.

Despite being one of the last movies in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sometimes feels like the middle child of the beloved film franchise. Even though it was based on the penultimate book in the series, it ended up being the third-to-last adaptation because the final book was split into a two-part finale. After the harrowing events of the previous film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , war is looming over the Wizarding World after Lord Voldemort ( Ralph Fiennes ) made his public return at the Ministry of Magic. Half-Blood Prince serves as the transitional story for Harry ( Daniel Radcliffe ) as he unknowingly spends his last year at Hogwarts, before the Second Wizarding War forces him on a sprawling search for Voldemort's horcruxes . The film and book both do a great job balancing the rising tensions of war with the remaining moments of youthful innocence , as Harry and company have their minds occupied by girls, dating, and the mystery of Tom Riddle. However, there is one scene added to the film that throws off this delicate balance: the attack on the Burrow. The Death Eater attack on the Burrow is a scene specifically added to The Half-Blood Prince film, but proves to be thematically redundant , making it stand out as a wholly unnecessary addition to the movie that lacks a satisfying payoff, begging the question of why it was added in the first place.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

As Harry Potter begins his sixth year at Hogwarts, he discovers an old book marked as "the property of the Half-Blood Prince" and begins to learn more about Lord Voldemort's dark past.

Why the Attack on the Burrow in 'Half-Blood Prince' Doesn't Work

While spending the holidays with the Weasleys at their family home, the Burrow, Harry and Ginny ( Bonnie Wright ) share one of the cringiest interactions they have in the entire film series as Harry's newfound crush awkwardly ties his shoelaces for him in a tense "romantic" gesture . But the moment is swiftly interrupted as Bellatrix Lestrange ( Helena Bonham Carter ) makes an appearance outside the home, taunting Harry with the murder of his godfather Sirius Black ( Gary Oldman ) in the film before. Harry and Ginny chase the Death Eater through the fields, and Lupin ( David Thewlis ) and the other adults chase after them as the good guys duel the Death Eaters in a brief but intense confrontation. The dark wizards flee the scene, but not before they set the Burrow ablaze, causing massive destruction to the Weasley's home. The scene is chaotic, shrouded in darkness only lit up by flames and spells flying through the air, resulting in one of the most action-packed sequences in the entire film — but it ends up feeling sorely out of place.

The scene would work well in a vacuum, as it's an enthralling visual spectacle that features some genuinely tense and heart-racing moments as Harry tries to avenge his godfather, and the safe haven of the Burrow is violently breached. But it's not in an isolated scene; it's a part of a greater movie, and it just feels utterly unnecessary for multiple reasons. The two keywords as to why this attack ultimately feels unnecessary are stakes and consequences . This moment was meant to illustrate the heightened danger presented by the Death Eaters, but ultimately fails to accomplish this because of how inconsequential it ends up being.

This Is Why the Harry Potter Prequel Saga 'Fantastic Beasts' Failed

In literally the next scene, Harry is back at school speaking with Hermione ( Emma Watson ) about the attack, stating that he'll always be threatened because he's the Chosen One. This interaction is meant to highlight just how dangerous Harry's life is, but it ends up just reminding audiences that this is actually the norm for the Boy Who Lived. And to punctuate this conversation, Ron ( Rupert Grint ) is seen making out with his girlfriend . It's such an abrupt tonal shift that feels unbalanced rather than intentional. Even as the film goes on, this attack is shown to have practically no consequences, as no one actually got hurt, and the Burrow is shown to be repaired in the future, as Harry continues to spend time there anyway, despite that moment's attempt to make the home feel like unsafe territory. There are no lasting effects to the attack on the Burrow, making its weird interjection in the movie feel like an unnecessary spectacle.

'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' Is a Mystery and Personal Story

One of the main reasons that the attack on the Burrow feels so out-of-place is because of how thematically irrelevant it is to the rest of the film. One of the most frequent criticisms of the movie is that it feels the most like a high school drama, which can be jarring after the darker mood of Order of the Phoenix right before it, and the two-part finale of The Deathly Hallows right after. However, that's entirely the point. The film is a mystery and a personal story about how Harry learns about Voldemort's past in order to find a way to defeat him, while navigating his own adolescent maturity. The juxtaposition of those two ideas is meant to complement each other, but the attack on the Burrow feels like an attempt to overshadow the more subtle personal aspects of the film with grandiose action. The lack of consequences, however, instead makes the action feel unwarranted and bloats the film with an extra scene that goes nowhere.

'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' Still Has Real Stakes

The desire to add greater stakes to Half-Blood Prince is understandable, but the way it was executed overlooked the genuine danger that is still prevalent in this film, despite some of the more lighthearted beats. The biggest and boldest example, of course, is the death of Albus Dumbledore ( Michael Gambon ). Severus Snape's (Alan Rickman) "betrayal" and murder of the Hogwarts headmaster symbolizes the end of Harry's youth , effectively stripping him of his most devoted mentor and protector. And the effect of this death is even more impactful because of how safe Hogwarts felt in this film. Even though Harry has faced countless dangers in the halls of the Wizarding school, Dumbledore's presence was always a stalwart blanket of protection. If Dumbledore's death isn't enough, the Death Eater attack on the Astronomy Tower sees prominent villains like Bellatrix and Fenrir Greyback ( David Legeno ) within the school walls as a visceral signifier that war can not be prevented from entering Hogwarts' grounds.

The loss of Dumbledore isn't the only high-stakes and consequential danger in the film. In parallel to Harry's ascent into responsibility as the Chosen One, his foil Draco Malfoy ( Tom Felton ) suffers an immense descent as he becomes a sworn Death Eater. The two boys are forced to grow up in this film, best represented by the vicious duel that occurs between them. A far cry from their first duel in Chamber of Secrets , this confrontation ends because Harry casts Sectumsempra, a powerful curse created by Snape that leaves Malfoy with bloody lacerations and near death. The theme of youth being forced into war is prevalent throughout, such as when Katie Bell ( Georgina Leonidas ), one of Harry's long-standing Quidditch teammates, falls victim to a vicious curse. The stakes have already been raised to immeasurable heights, making the attack on the Burrow needlessly redundant and a prime example of an unnecessary addition to a book adaptation film.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is available to stream on Max in the U.S.

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Harry Potter TV series promises to adapt the books more faithfully

The harry potter tv series promises to be a faithful adaptation of jk rowling's novels..

Richard Lee Breslin

The Harry Potter franchise is one of the biggest forms of entertainment on the planet whether you're talking about the novels, movies, video games, or upcoming TV series.

The Harry Potter TV series from HBO was announced back in April 2023 and it's fair to say that it had a mixed reception. For starters, it’s going to be strange seeing other actors play the iconic roles that we grew up with in the movies. What’s more, there are many that stand firmly against the creator of the franchise , the controversial J.K. Rowling who will be an executive producer for the adaptation.

Check out the Harry Potter TV series trailer below!

As of right now, we don't know a lot about the Harry Potter TV series . All we know for sure is that, like the movies, it will be inspired by the novels with each book being adapted into a season. It is expected that the TV series should last a decade, assuming that it is a consistent success for HBO and Warner Bros . Whether that happens or not, remains to be seen.

At the time of writing, no actors have been cast (at least not publicly) nor do we have a release date. Hopefully, those details will arrive in the coming months. The only thing we have to chew on is its announcement trailer, which revealed very little, other than the series is happening.

That being said, it’s been stated that the series will be faithful to the novels, perhaps even more so than the movies. When speaking to Total Film, executive producer David Heyman said: “It's early days. We haven't even hired a writer to begin writing. It's a bit early. But hopefully [it will be] something that’s very special, and gives us an opportunity to see the books, and to enjoy a series which explores the books more deeply.”

In somewhat related news, Hogwarts Legacy , the video game inspired by the Wizarding World, now has a New Game Plus thanks to the hard work of fans . Furthermore, fans are said to be delighted with this free RPG set after the events of Deathly Hallows .

It is expected that the Harry Potter TV series will premiere on Max (formerly HBO Max) sometime between 2025 to 2026.

Topics:  Harry Potter , TV And Film , Warner Bros

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UPDATED with latest : At its Max streaming event in April 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed a new era is coming for Harry Potter fans . The company announced a TV series based on all seven books about the boy wizard written by J.K. Rowling . See below for the most current answers to the most important questions about the project.

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Early reports had each season of the series focusing on one book in the Harry Potter book series, which consists of seven novels, but Bloys said the project would run for “10 consecutive years,” which would seem to defy the 1 season, 1 book assertion. For those who say Fantastic Beasts could be leveraged to provide 10 seasons over 10 years, WBD brass said specifically during the announcement that FB will not be a part of the series.

Whatever the case, Bloys promised that, as the company embarks on its new Harry Potter adventure, “We do so with the full care and craft of this franchise.”

Who Is creating the Harry Potter series?

It has taken a bit, given the initial announcement was in April 2023, but in recent months Warner Bros. invited a select group of creatives in to pitch ideas for what the series could be. They were Martha Hillier, Kathleen Jordan, Tom Moran and Michael Lesslie. Now, the streaming service and Warner Bros. Television have narrowed it to Jordan, Moran and newer addition Francesca Gardiner, sources said.

Deadline broke the news last month that Succession  writer  Francesca Gardiner  is among the finalists. Gardiner was a consulting producer on Seasons 3 and 4 of HBO’s  Succession . Before working on the Jesse Armstrong creation, she was an exec producer of HBO and BBC fantasy co- production   His Dark Materials  and was a co-exec producer of AMC’s  Killing Eve . She has also written on shows including Starz’s  The Rook  and Amazon’s  The Man In The High Castle.

Tom Moran is a British writer, who created Amazon series The Devil’s Hour , which starred Peter Capaldi. He also worked on Amazon sci-fi series The Feed and Rob Lowe cop drama Wild Bill .

It’s an interesting mix of Brits and Americans, most of whom have some experience working with streamers and many of whom have shepherded projects in the sci-fi/fantasy space.

We’ve heard that the group of writers were commissioned by Max to create pitches for a series reflecting their take on the IP. Rowling is understood to be involved in this pitching process. The trio will be able to hone in on their pitches for the next couple of months, with a decision on who gets the job expected in June. 

When will the Harry Potter series be released?

The series is expected to be on air in 2026, according to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

“We’ve not been shy about our excitement around Harry Potter,” Zaslav told Wall Street analysts on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “I was in London a few weeks ago with Casey [Bloys, CEO of HBO] and Channing [Dungey, chairperson of Warner Bros Television] and we spent some real time with JK and her team,” he enthused. “Both sides just thrilled to be reigniting this franchise. Our conversations were great.”

Given the results on that earnings call, WBD needs Harry Potter’s magic sooner rather than later.

Ditto J.K. Rowling, whose production company posted a 74% drop in profits in 2022. That rebounded somewhat after the stage version of  Harry Potter  And The Cursed Child  proved to be a post-pandemic crowd pleaser. The author got a $10.5 million paycheck for it in 2023.

The success of the stage show demonstrates that there’s still an appetite for Hogwarts-related content. Likewise the massive hit that is Hogwarts Legacy, which became the bestselling video game of 2023 , moving 22 million units. (That’s fantastic, but for comparison Rowling’s seven bestselling  Harry Potter  books have moved 600M copies worldwide.)

At a Goldman Sachs conference last year, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav made pointed out the need for more Hogwarts magic explicitly. Ignoring the Harry-less Fantastic Beasts films, the CEO insisted the boy wizard presents a huge opportunity, claiming that the IP has been “underused” of late.

“We haven’t done anything with Harry Potter for more than a decade,” he said, before going on to note that when one examines the performance of Warner Bros. over the last 20 years without accounting for it’s big three — Potter , Lord of the Rings and DC — the company’s performance is “relatively flat.”

Zaslav called that type of big-ticket IP “one of the big differentiators of this company.” And he seems to be counting on it to make a big difference.

“When you put those franchises in, it’s the best-performing studio in the world. We need to deploy our best capital, and we need to do it with the best creative people in the world,” he said.

How to watch the series

It will, of course, be on Max once the series is ready. The service has three price tiers: Max Ad Light, which goes for $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year and allows two concurrent streams; Max Ad Free will be priced at $15.99 a month, or $149.99 a year, and will also allow two concurrent streams; and Max Ultimate Ad Free which costs $19.99 a month, or $199.99 a year, and allows access to four concurrent streams.

If you’re in Canada, WBD has struck a multi-year licensing agreement with Crave for the likes of  Harry Potter ,  Game of Thrones ,  the  DC  Universe and  HBO  content.

Which actors are starring in the series? Are any of the original Harry Potter stars returning?

There will be new actors playing the series’ main characters, but no one has been cast yet. Warner Bros. TV Group Chairman Channing Dungey said recently that that casting will come after they find a showrunner.

As for that, Warner Bros. is very likely looking to cast young actors, given that they’re proceeding through Rowling’s books in order. “The tricky part is the first two books, where the kids are on the younger end, around 11 or 12,” said Dungey of the casting process.

“We have been trying to be very close to the vest,” said Bloys. “We haven’t gone out to agencies. We have our own internal process where we’ve been thinking about people but we have not wanted to go out into the world. Now that the news is out there…we’ll start going out to the business.”

As for a return of any of the film franchise’s stars — like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson or Rupert Grint — never say never. It would certainly be a PR boost for the series and, while new actors will be cast in the primary roles, there are always flashforwards or the currently en vogue multiverse plot ploy that could create space for more familiar faces in the series.

But Daniel Radcliffe has said he is fine with sitting on the sidelines.

“My understanding is that they’re trying to very much start fresh and I’m sure whoever is making them will want to make their own mark on it and probably not want to have to figure out how to get old Harry to cameo in this somewhere,” Radcliffe told ComicBook.com . “So I’m definitely not seeking it out in any way. But I do wish them, obviously, all the luck in the world and I’m very excited to have that torch passed. But I don’t think it needs me to physically pass it.”

Another longtime Potter player who likely won’t be involved is David Yates, who directed the last four movies,  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix  (2007),  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince  (2009) and  Deathly Hallows Part One and Two  (2010 and 2011). In addition, Yates took on the  Potter  spinoff  Fantastic Beasts  trilogy. He says there has been no conversation about his involvement with the series. And it sounds like he’s ok with that.

“Huge affection and a lovely group of people I worked with,” Yates told Deadline . “But we haven’t had a conversation since we finished it.”

“It’s been about ‘Let’s just park it, and be done for a while,'” he said of the Potter franchise.

“Never say never, I would say, but I’m excited about moving on,” he said.

Your Hogwarts letter is here. Max has ordered the first ever #HarryPotter scripted television series, a faithful adaptation of the iconic books. #StreamOnMax pic.twitter.com/3CgEHLYhch — Max (@StreamOnMax) April 12, 2023

Will J.K. Rowling be involved in the new Harry Potter TV series?

Yes. A deal for J.K. Rowling’s involvement in the series had been the biggest hurdle in its path to the screen: The author has creative control over any exploitation of her work. That agreement was finalized in 2023.

“Max’s commitment to preserving the integrity of my books is important to me, and I’m looking forward to being part of this new adaptation which will allow for a degree of depth and detail only afforded by a long form television series,” said Rowling in a statement.

Since Warners launched its streaming service, there’s always been a goal to exploit Warners’ biggest franchise for streaming. Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav, taking the reigns after the merger last year, met with Rowling several times in the UK. He’s even spoken up in support of the author, who has been involved in an ongoing controversy over her comments on transgender issues . Asked about the streaming event about those controversies, Bloys demurred.

“No, I don’t think this is the forum [to discuss that],” he said. “That’s a very online conversation, very nuanced and complicated and not something we’re going to get into.”

“Our priority is what’s on the screen,” Bloys continued. “Obviously, the Harry Potter story is incredibly affirmative and positive and about love and self-acceptance. That’s our priority — what’s on screen.”

As for how close the author will be to the series, Bloys said, “[Rowling] will be involved. She’s an executive producer on the show. Her insights are going to be helpful on that.”

The author’s involvement could prove a hurdle to having the principals from the films involved in the series. Relations between Rowling, Radcliffe and Emma Watson can’t be great, given the author recently said she was “bloody angry” over stances taken by trans rights activists, which she sees being in opposition to women’s rights.

Rowling claimed that “thousands are complicit, not just medics, but the celebrity mouthpieces, unquestioning media and cynical corporations.” Asked specifically whether she would forgive Radcliffe and Watson for their unabashed pro-trans rights stance on the issue Rowling replied, “Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies.”

Bloys was clear, however, that WBD wasn’t entirely dependent on Rowling for the project.

“The TV show is new and we’re excited about that. But, remember, we’ve been in the Potter business for 20 years. This is not a new decision for us, we’re very comfortable being in the Potter business.”

How much will the series cost to produce?

“You know we make shows at this scale with House of the Dragon , Game of Thrones ,” said Bloys. “I imagine will be that scale or higher. The shorter answer is whatever it takes to make a quality show.”

Per Deadline reporting, House of the Dragon cost nearly $200 million and was the subject of HBO’s biggest marketing campaign ever, valued at over $100M in media spend (that’s a combo of ad spot value and hard cash shelled out). So fans can expect a similar outlay for the Potter series “or higher,” according to HBO/Max boss Bloys.

Will there be other Harry Potter-related projects?

“We’re free to do anything we want,” Zaslav has said, before hedging a bit. “Some areas we need to do with J.K., other areas we have the full ability to go forward. This is a full deployment on Max of Harry Potter. We can still develop other properties.”

Deadline understands that there may also be an opportunity for more than one of the above-mentioned writers to be involved and that Max is open to the possibility of developing more than one idea based on  Harry Potter.

How long has this been in the works?

Max and its then-parent company WarnerMedia  started exploring  a potential Harry Potter TV series a couple of years ago. At the time, Warner Bros. appointed Kids, Young Adult and Classics president Tom Ascheim to manage the Wizarding World and Potter franchises, which include theme parks, tours and the $9.1 billion-grossing theatrical library that spans the  Harry Potter  and spinoff  Fantastic Beasts  titles. Under that setup, Ascheim became WarnerMedia’s senior rep in its relationship with Rowling and her representatives, and exploratory conversations for a Max series got underway.

After the Discovery acquisition was completed a year ago, that unit was disbanded and  Ascheim exited the company . However, the importance of the   Harry Potter IP has only grown post-merger.

Zaslav spoke about his family’s own personal connection to the series.

“My wife and I, we read (the Harry Potter books) to each of our three kids,” said Zaslav, going off script at the Max announcement. “It’s really moving, for ten consecutive years, people will see  Harry Potter  on HBO; I mean it’s really something.”

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