Summary

‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows‘ by J. K Rowling is one of the most popular Harry Potter books. This may be not only because it is the last book in the series but also because of how well the plot has been interwoven into existence from the details that were lent by the previous books. Furthermore, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows‘ is a pretty long book.

It has a lot of details that backtrack ‘easter eggs’ from the previous books, and a lot of supposedly irrelevant details from the series’ past tend to gain major importance here. For instance, Bill Weasley, who was merely known to readers as Ron’s brother and as being engaged to Fleur, recently ends up getting married to Fleur and later lends his aunt’s house to Harry to plan ahead for his search for the Horcruxes. Dobby, who was merely the house-elf that constantly wanted to help Harry Potter but usually ended up almost hurting him, turns out to be the only way out when Harry and his friends are kept captive in the ‘Malfoy Manor.’

Furthermore, Stan Shunpike, the friendly and funny bus conductor of the ‘Knight Bus’ who picked up Harry from Privet Drive when Harry had inflated his aunt in ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,’ ends up being in the hoard of Death Eaters that attack Harry and his guard when he is moved safely to the Burrow. Harry rationalizes that Stan must have been under the influence of Imperius Curse as Stan was a very kind person with no intentions of becoming a death eater when Harry met him.

Another important example is the presence of Abeforth Dumbledore. Despite being mentioned in passing previously in the series, he had never made an appearance in the books except in ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,’ where he hides Harry, Ron, and Hermione in his pub, the Hog’s Head, to protect them from the Death Eaters who are searching for them in Hogsmeade.

‘Spoiler-Free’ Summary of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows‘ begins with the meeting between Voldemort and the other Death Eaters in the Malfoy Manor. There, Voldemort suspends Charity Burbage, the teacher of Muggle Studies, from the ceiling as he talks to the Death Eaters. Snape and Yaxley enter the meeting, and Snape informs that Harry Potter will be moved out of his house in Privet Drive on a specific date, to which Yaxley disagrees and claims a different plan is in action instead. Voldemort then talks about needing a new wand and forcibly takes Lucius Malfoy’s wand. He then uses that wand to kill the ‘suspended’ Charity Burbage and then orders his snake Nagini to eat her body.

Meanwhile, Harry is planning to leave Privet Drive forever before his seventeenth birthday, as the protection for the house will no longer sustain. He says his goodbyes to his uncle, aunt, and Dudley, who surprisingly wants Harry to come with them. Eventually, Harry too gets ready to leave when Mad-Eye Moody and several other members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Ron and Hermione, come to Privet Drive and decide that the best course of action is to have seven people who look like Harry with the help of Polyjuice Potion since should there be an ambush, it would be difficult to spot the real Harry. However, Harry protests but eventually concedes and leaves with Hagrid on his motorcycle.

As they leave, they indeed do get ambushed, and several death eaters tail Harry and Hagrid. Amidst the ensuing battle, Harry loses Hedwig, who shields him from a killing curse. Harry suddenly feels a lot of pain in his forehead, and his scar burns. Then, Voldemort suddenly appears mid-air and tries to attack a bent-over Harry, who is writhing in pain. However, Harry’s wand responds to the threat on its own and defends him. Eventually, Hagrid manages to speed up and reaches Ted Tonks’ place. From there, they advance to the Burrow.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Summary

At the Burrow, Harry and Hagrid are the first ones to arrive, and Fred and Mr. Weasley arrive after them. Fred was apparently attacked, and his ear is gone. Eventually, everybody else arrives one by one, and finally, Bill and Fleur arrive, and Bill retorts that Mad-Eye Moody is dead. Everybody is disheartened.

The preparations for Bill and Fleur’s wedding begin. At the same time, the Minister of Magic arrives at the Burrow to give Harry, Ron, and Hermione items from Dumbledore’s will. Hermione gets a copy of the children’s book called the ‘Tales of Beedle the Bard,’ Ron gets Dumbledore’s Deluminator, and Harry gets the snitch he caught in the first game of Quidditch he ever played. Harry also inherited the Sword of Gryffindor, but Scrimgeour argues that it was not Dumbledore’s to give. After this, Harry attends the wedding, but it is suddenly attacked by Death Eaters, and Hermione, Ron, and Harry quickly apparate from there.

Once they reach some random place that Hermione thought of in London, they are tailed by two Death eaters, and they duel with them and eventually escape them. They later go to Sirius’s house, which now belongs to Harry. There, they try to figure out all about the mission that lies ahead, and they try researching different ideas for where to find the Horcruxes. They soon come across a clue about the fake locket that was placed in the lake that Dumbledore and Harry had collected.

Since there was a letter written by someone with the initials R. A. B., and it said that the locket was a fake, they connected the dots and figured out that Sirius’s brother was named Regulus Arcturus Black and that he could be R. A. B., and they suddenly remember there being a locket very similar to one that was fake when they were cleaning cupboards in ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.‘ They decide to ask the house-elf Kreacher about the locket, to which he responds positively and that Mundungus took the locket when he stole some of the things from the house.

Harry commands Kreacher to get Mundungus immediately, and Kreacher returns with both Mundungus and Dobby, Harry’s friend and another house-elf. When questioned, Mundungus claims that the locket was sold to Dolores Umbridge. They then plan to retrieve the locket from Dolores Umbridge, and that requires them to break into the Ministry of Magic. Since the Ministry of Magic has been compromised by the Death Eaters, it looks very different from before, with people having to attend trials to prove their Pure-blood or Half-Blood status.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione enter the Ministry disguised as three people who work at the Ministry. Eventually, they manage to get hold of Umbridge, snatch the locket from her, and make a very close escape, first to Sirius’s house, and seeing as Yaxley, a death eater, followed them, Hermione quickly apparates all three of them to a different location.

In the forest, they take several turns destroying the Horcrux, but that proves to be impossible. Furthermore, wearing the locket around their neck makes the wearer very furious and grumpy, and eventually, a tussle breaks out, and Ron furiously walks out, deciding to go home. Once he leaves, Hermione, although very sad and dejected, discusses with Harry the possible places they could go to in search of a Horcrux and that the Sword of Gryffindor can destroy Horcruxes because it absorbed the Basilisk’s blood when Harry killed it in ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.‘

Eventually, at Harry’s request, they both decide to go to Godric’s Hollow, the place where Harry was born, as well as the place where Dumbledore lived.

Once they reach Godric’s Hollow, they visit Harry’s parents’ grave and are later followed by an old woman. Harry recognizes her as the famous historian who lives in Godric’s Hollow, Bathilda Bagshot. They both follow her into her house, expecting that the Sword of Gryffindor, their only chance at destroying the Horcruxes, is with her. However, it turns out that the old lady is just Voldemort’s snake Nagini, disguised to lure Harry, and after fighting it off, they suddenly apparate out of the house and end up in the Forest of Dean. They sadly find out that in the process of fighting Nagini, Harry’s wand snapped in half.

In the Forest of Dean, one night, Harry sees a strange Patronus resembling a fawn and follows it till he reaches a pond. There, he encounters the Sword of Gryffindor. He swims towards it but is resisted by the locket he is wearing and almost drowns before Ron comes to his rescue and also retrieves the Sword of Gryffindor from the bottom of the lake. Ron destroys the Horcrux in the locket with the help of the sword. Ron explains how the deluminator that was given to him by Dumbledore helped him find out where Harry and Hermione were.

Meanwhile, Hermione comes across a strange symbol in her copy of the book Tales of Beedle the Bard, given to her by Dumbledore. They figure out that they next need to visit Xenophilus Lovegood, Luna’s father, who had been seen with a necklace with this symbol. When they reach there, he tells them about the “Tale of the Three Brothers” and the Deathly Hallows. That symbol, they figure out, is the symbol of the Deathly Hallows, which comprise the ‘Elder Wand’, the most powerful wand in the world, the ‘Ressurection Stone,’ which can bring back the dead, and the ‘Invisibility Cloak’ which nobody can see underneath.

Suddenly, however, several Death Eaters attack the house, and it is found out Xenophilus called them to catch Harry in an exchange for the safe return of Luna, whom they have kept captive. They eventually escape from there and end up in the forest.

Once they are back in the forest, they are accidentally caught by some Snatchers, but only after Hermione throws a face-deforming spell at Harry. The Snatchers take them to the Malfoy Manor. There, Bellatrix tries to recognize Harry, but his face looks very different. Suddenly she comes across the Sword of Gryffindor, which shocks her and further infuriates her. She tortures Hermione and sends the boys away to a dungeon, where they find Luna, Griphook, and Mr. Ollivander kept captive.

Eventually, Dobby the house-elf magically appears and offers to take Luna, Griphook, and Mr. Ollivander to safety. Harry and Ron make a break for it and save Hermione from getting tortured. Dobby returns to apparate them all to Bill Weasley’s place before Bellatrix can attack them, but sadly, a knife she throws at Dobby kills him. Harry is devastated and decides to bury him without magic as a mark of respect.

At Bill Weasley’s place, they decide to break into Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault in Gringotts and finally do it with Hermione disguised as Bellatrix and with the help of Griphook, a goblin they saved from Malfoy Manor. However, he betrays them and leaves with the Sword of Gryffindor. They find another Horcrux, a cup of Helga Hufflepuff, in Bellatrix’s vault, and they escape from Gringotts by riding a dragon. From there, they apparate to Hogsmeade, where they encounter Abeforth Dumbledore, who agrees to send them to Hogwarts through a secret pathway.

Neville comes to take them there, and they eventually reach the room of requirement where several students, including the former members of Dumbledore’s Army, are staying. Harry decides to continue his search for another Horcrux, the ‘Ravenclaw’s Diadem’ Hermione and Ron go to the Chamber of Secrets to destroy the cup while the rest of the students, staff, and members of the Order of the Phoenix take position in front of Hogwarts, to protect it from Voldemort’s army. A fight ensues, and several lives are lost.

Ron and Hermione use the Basilisk fangs to destroy the cup. Meanwhile, Harry finds the Horcrux with the help of Helena Ravenclaw’s ghost and destroys it too.

Harry then comes across Voldemort killing Severus Snape, and after Voldemort leaves, Harry goes to the dying Snape, who gives him his memories and tells him to use them in the Pensieve. Harry does this and finds out that Snape always loved Harry’s mother, Lily, and he killed Dumbledore at the latter’s request.

Furthermore, Harry also finds out that he himself is a Horcrux that was created accidentally and has to die eventually. He, therefore, goes to the Forbidden Forest, where Voldemort and his Death Eaters are awaiting Harry. He uses the Resurrection Stone to talk to his parents, Sirius and Lupin (who died in battle), one last time and then faces Voldemort. Voldemort uses the killing curse on Harry, but strangely, Harry dreams of a place resembling King’s Cross, but very bright and white with no trains. There he meets Dumbledore, chats with him for a while, and eventually comes back into reality.

Narcissa Malfoy is sent to check if he is dead, but she betrays Voldemort and claims that Harry is actually dead after Harry assures her that Draco is in the Hogwarts castle. They all go to Hogwarts Castle with Harry’s ‘dead’ body. However, instead of surrendering, Neville ends up killing Nagini, the last remaining Horcrux. Harry suddenly springs out to life. Voldemort is scared and tries to fight back but eventually ends up getting killed by Harry.

In the epilogue, nineteen years after the events of the war, Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and even Draco are seen dropping their children at the King’s Cross station to board the Hogwarts Express.

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