Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling is the seventh and final instalment in the Harry Potter series. An epic saga of childhood temptation, danger and adventure, the Harry Potter series has been seventeen years in the making. But it's more than just a children's story. Behind the witchcraft and the wizardry lies an intensely moral fable about good and evil, love and hatred, life and death.
The books tell the tale of a young boy, Harry Potter, whose parents are murdered by the evil Lord Voldemort. Lord Voldemort also attempts to kill Harry, but Harry is protected by the one thing Voldemort cannot understand - love. Harry then become The Boy who Lived, being the only person to survive a killing curse. Throughout the series, Harry is not only on a quest to avenge his parents, but to avenge everyone against Voldemort, who believes that he can make himself immortal by killing other people.
In the last book, Harry continues the task that Dumbledore had set him in the preceding book in the series: to destroy all remaining Horcruxes. A Horcrux is an object in which Voldemort has concealed a fragment of his soul, making him indestructible. A person's soul can be split if they commit the act of murder, and only will it become whole again is if the person's who's soul has been split feels remorse. For Voldemort to die, all Horcruxes must be destroyed. In the second book, Harry finds the diary of Tom Riddle (who became Voldemort) and destroys it with the fang of a Basilisk (a large snake that Harry killed with the sword of Godric Gryffindor). In the sixth book, Dumbledore finds a ring that belonged to Voldemort's mother and manages to destroy it, but only after receiving its curse. At the end of this book Severus Snape kills Dumbledore, leading the readers to think that he is evil.
Harry and his best friends, Ron and Hermione, abandon their last year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizard to go and hunt for the Horcruxes.
However, after discovering the tale of the Deathly Hallows, Harry is faced with a choice. Horcruxes or Hallows?
The Deathly Hallows originated from the Tale of the Three Brothers, a children's fairytale that exists in the Wizarding World. The Tale told the story of three brothers who came across a river. They must cross the river and, talented in magic, they conjure a bridge. They reach the end of the bridge when Death appears before them. He is angry at the three brothers: usually people would drown in the river and Death would take them as his own. But Death tricks the three brothers. He pretends to be impressed and offers them anything they desire. The first brother wishes for an unbeatable wand. So Death finds an Elder tree, and out of it carves such a wand. He gives it to the first brother who goes to the village and boasts of the wand. At night, someone steals the Elder Wand and slits the first brother's throat for good measure. So Death takes the first brother as his own.
The second brother wishes for a stone that can bring back the dead. So Death presents him with the stone and the brother uses it to bring back a girl he loved but who died of an illness. However, she comes back miserable because she does not belong in the living world. He kills her and kills himself to be with her. So Death takes the second brother as his own.
The third brother, the wisest of the three, does not trust Death, so he wishes for something in which he can hide from Death. So Death gives the third brother his own Cloak of Invisibility. Over the years, Death looks for the third brother but cannot find him until one day the third brother, much older now, takes off the Cloak and gives it to his son. The third brother marks Death as an equal and goes with him to the land of the dead.
There are doubts that the story is real, but Harry, already having the Cloak of Invisibility, ponders over the idea of hunting for the Hallows instead of the Horcruxes. Harry feels abandoned by Dumbledore: why had he not prepared Harry for any of this?
