Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)

by J.K. Rowling

The dangling half of the wand resealed itself. Harry held it up. “Lumos!” The wand sparked feebly, then went out. Harry pointed it at Hermione. “Expelliarmus!” Hermione’s wand gave a little jerk, but did not leave her hand. The feeble attempt at magic was too much for Harry’s wand, which split into two again.

The sun was coming up: The pure, colorless vastness of the sky stretched over him, indifferent to him and his suffering.

Simply to be alive to watch the sun rise over the sparkling snowy hillside ought to have been the greatest treasure on earth, yet he could not appreciate it:

he had lost all the bones in his right arm once; this journey had already given him scars to his chest and forearm to join those on his hand and forehead, but never, until this moment, had he felt himself to be fatally weakened, vulnerable, and naked, as though the best part of his magical power had been torn from him.

Albus Dumbledore, shortly after his mother’s death, with his friend Gellert Grindelwald.

The very same summer that Dumbledore went home to Godric’s Hollow, now an orphan and head of the family, Bathilda Bagshot agreed to accept into her home her great-nephew, Gellert Grindelwald.

In a list of Most Dangerous Dark Wizards of All Time, he would miss out on the top spot only because You-Know-Who arrived, a generation later, to steal his crown.

Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart.

courage, and dived. The cold was agony: It attacked him like fire. His brain itself seemed to have frozen as he pushed through the dark water to the bottom and reached out, groping for the sword.

bloodshot but otherwise composed. “I’m sorry,” he said in a thick voice. “I’m sorry I left. I know I was a — a —” He looked around at the darkness, as if hoping a bad enough word would swoop down upon him and claim him.

“Dumbledore’s dead,” he said. “I saw it happen, I saw the body. He’s definitely gone. Anyway, his Patronus was a phoenix, not a doe.”

He knew what he was doing when he gave me the Deluminator, didn’t he? He — well,” Ron’s ears turned bright red and he became engrossed in a tuft of grass at his feet, which he prodded with his toe, “he must’ve known I’d run out on you.” “No,” Harry corrected him. “He must’ve known you’d always want to come back.” Ron looked grateful,

Xenophilius raised his eyebrows. “Are you referring to the sign of the Deathly Hallows?”

Death spoke to them. He was angry that he had been cheated out of three new victims, for travelers usually drowned in the river. But Death was cunning. He pretended to congratulate the three brothers upon their magic, and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him.

Wands are only as powerful as the wizards who use them. Some wizards just like to boast that theirs are bigger and better than other people’s.”

And he saw himself, possessor of the Hallows, facing Voldemort, whose Horcruxes were no match . . . Neither can live while the other survives. . . . Was this the answer? Hallows versus Horcruxes?

The change in his voice made Ron and Hermione look even more scared. “You-Know-Who’s after the Elder Wand.” He turned his back on their strained, incredulous faces. He knew it was the truth. It all made sense. Voldemort was not seeking a new wand; he was seeking an old wand, a very old wand indeed.

he can move faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo when he wants to,

“What else did you take, what else? ANSWER ME! CRUCIO!” Hermione’s screams echoed off the walls upstairs, Ron was half sobbing as

He dug with a kind of fury, relishing the manual work, glorying in the non-magic of it, for every drop of his sweat and every blister felt like a gift to the elf who had saved their lives.

Just as Voldemort had not been able to possess Harry while Harry was consumed with grief for Sirius, so his thoughts could not penetrate Harry now, while he mourned Dobby.

Grief, it seemed, drove Voldemort out . . . though Dumbledore, of course, would have said that it was love. .

He forced himself not to break down as he remembered Dumbledore’s funeral, and the rows and rows of golden chairs, and the Minister of Magic in the front row, the recitation of Dumbledore’s achievements, the stateliness of the white marble tomb. He felt that Dobby deserved just as grand a funeral, and yet here the elf lay between bushes in a roughly dug hole.

HERE LIES DOBBY, A FREE ELF.

Dobby would never be able to tell them who had sent him to the cellar, but Harry knew what he had seen. A piercing blue eye had looked out of the mirror fragment, and then help had come. Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.

When Harry had finished speaking, Ron shook his head. “You really understand him.” “Bits of him,” said Harry. “Bits . . . I just wish I’d understood Dumbledore as much.

But the idea of Dumbledore’s corpse frightened Harry much less than the possibility that he might have misunderstood the living Dumbledore’s intentions.

“This is the wand that tortured Neville’s mum and dad, and who knows how many other people? This is the wand that killed Sirius!” Harry had not thought of that: He looked down at the wand and was visited by a brutal urge to snap it,

We don’t have to tell them it’s a Horcrux.” Harry looked from Ron to Hermione, who murmured, “I think Ron’s right. We don’t even know what we’re looking for, we need them.” And when Harry looked unconvinced, “You don’t have to do everything alone, Harry.”

Secrets and lies, that’s how we grew up, and Albus . . . he was a natural. . . . Was he turning into Dumbledore, keeping his secrets clutched to his chest, afraid to trust?

“What? Isn’t there just a password?” “Oh no, you’ve got to answer a question,” said Luna. “What if you get it wrong?” “Well, you have to wait for somebody who gets it right,” said Luna. “That way you learn, you see?”

“Am I too late? Has it started? I only just found out, so I — I —” Percy spluttered into silence.

“I was a fool!” Percy roared,

“Ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron,” said Fred. Percy swallowed. “Yes, I was!”

Mrs. Weasley burst into tears. She ran forward, pushed Fred aside, and pulled Percy into a strangling hug, while he patted her on the back, his eyes on his father.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Percy said. Mr. Weasley blinked rather rapidly, then he too hurried to hug his son.

“Well, we do look to our prefects to take a lead at times such as these,” said George in a good imitation of Percy’s most pompous manner. “Now let’s get upstairs and fight, or all the good Death Eaters’ll be taken.”

“That’s my wand you’re holding, Potter,” said Malfoy, pointing his own through the gap between Crabbe and Goyle. “Not anymore,” panted Harry, tightening his grip on the hawthorn wand. “Winners, keepers, Malfoy.

Harry could not see a trace of Malfoy, Crabbe, or Goyle anywhere: He swooped as low as he dared over the marauding monsters of flame to try to find them, but there was nothing but fire: What a terrible way to die. . . . He had never wanted this.

My griffindore boy

And he saw them: Malfoy with his arms around the unconscious Goyle, the pair of them perched on a fragile tower of charred desks, and Harry dived. Malfoy saw him coming and raised one arm,

“IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I’LL KILL YOU, HARRY!” roared Ron’s voice,

“C-Crabbe,” choked Malfoy as soon as he could speak. “C-Crabbe . . .” “He’s dead,” said Ron harshly.

“Do not pretend, Lucius. You wish the battle to cease so that you can discover what has happened to your son. And I do not need to seek Potter. Before the night is out, Potter will have come to find me.”

“No,” said Hermione, “it makes much more sense if I take the Cloak and —” “Don’t even think about it,” Ron snarled at her.

“I’m Draco Malfoy, I’m Draco, I’m on your side!” Draco was on the upper landing, pleading with another masked Death Eater. Harry Stunned the Death Eater as they passed: Malfoy looked around, beaming, for his savior, and Ron punched him from under the Cloak.

A hundred dementors were advancing, gliding toward them, sucking their way closer to Harry’s despair, which was like a promise of a feast. . . .

he almost welcomed the oncoming oblivion, the promise of nothing, of no feeling. .

But then the reality seemed to close upon him, cruel and plain: The only way forward was to kill the snake, and the snake was where Voldemort was, and Voldemort was at the end of this tunnel. . . .

“The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot be truly mine.”