Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

1

Chapter 1—The Dark Lord Ascending

Summary

Snape and Yaxley meet at the end of a lane, both heading to Voldemort to give news. They head up the path to Malfoy Manor and go into the drawing room where all the Death Eaters and Voldemort are situated at a long table—above them is an unconscious body slowly turning, whom no one pays any mind except for Draco. Voldemort gives Snape and Yaxley their assigned seats, beckoning Snape to sit beside him. Snape informs him that the Order of the Phoenix is going to move Harry Potter from the Dursley home next Saturday at night. Yaxley heard differently from the Auror Dawlish, and tells Voldemort that Harry will be moved later, the night before his 17th birthday. Snape insists that this intel is a false trail. Voldemort believes Snape—he knows that the Order (correctly) suspects that his ranks have invaded the Ministry, and that they would never trust the Auror Office with important information of that nature. Snape tells Voldemort that Harry will be kept at a home of one of the Order’s number, and that the place will be protected by both the Order and the Ministry; he doubts they will be able to take Harry there unless the Ministry has fallen to them by that point, allowing them to weaken those protections on the house.

Voldemort asks Yaxley how they are doing on that front, and Yaxley tells him that he has placed the Imperius curse of Pius Thicknesse, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Voldemort isn’t too impressed, stressing the importance of getting close to Scrimgeour so they can kill him. Knowing that this will take more time, Voldemort decides that they will have to try and reach Harry while he is in transit. Snape informs them that Harry will not travel in any way regulated by the Ministry. Voldemort insists that he will see to Potter personally this time, owing the boy’s continued existence to his own errors. He knows that Harry will only be killed by his own hand. There is a despairing sound below them, and Voldemort chides Wormtail for not keeping their prisoner silent.

Voldemort then tells his followers that he will need on of their wands to do the job, but no one volunteers. Voldemort asks for Lucius Malfoy’s wand. Lucius makes motion to perhaps receive Voldemort’s wand for the time being, which grabs Voldemort’s attention. He points out that Lucius and his family do not seem happy to have him in their home, something which Lucius fervently denies. As Voldemort calls Lucius on the lie, Nagini slithers up to wrap around the Dark Lord’s shoulders. Lucius and Narcissa insist that they are pleased, but Bellatrix makes a far more moving show of it. Voldemort asks if it can really be a higher pleasure than knowing that her niece recently married a werewolf (talking of Tonks and Lupin). Bellatrix expresses her disgust while the other Death Eaters laugh. Voldemort asks Draco how he feels about it, but Draco has no idea what to say. Voldemort suggests that they “prune” their family tree, a plan that Bellatrix is instantly on board with.

Voldemort then directs Snape’s attention to the figure spinning above the table, asking if he recognizes it. She is identified as Charity Burbage, the teacher of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts. Now awake, Burbage asks for Snape’s aid. Voldemort talks of her subject matter at Hogwarts and a recent editorial for the Daily Prophet where Burbage encouraged Muggle acceptance among wizards, and suggested that the death of “pureblood” lineage was a good thing. Voldemort kills her and leaves her body to Nagini for dinner.

Commentary

We open on Snape and Yaxley, and Yaxley is all “I’ve got big news for the Dark Lord” and Snape’s like “Me too,” but won’t say another word. It’s such a clever move from the previous book to this one—some fans thought Snape was evil, but plenty didn’t. So it becomes all about that double-agent status, and with that comes so many questions and a much sharper eye toward what Snape does, how he comports himself. When he gives Voldemort his news, old Voldy stares Snape down for a good long while, which seems a pretty clear indication that he’s using Legilimency to assuage his super villain paranoia. We have to figure this is a common occurrence for everyone, which means that Snape is always on.

Which means that Snape is never truly himself.

A lot of what gets revealed about Snape in this book turns on that idea; I posit to you that when we talk about Severus Snape, when we consider any depth of emotion we might feel toward this man who was a horrible teacher, but an excellent double-agent, it should revolve around his stolen personhood. Snape’s love for Lily is what springboards him down the unfortunate path his life takes, but what hurts when I think of Snape has nothing to do with Lily. It’s about his lack of identity. It’s about having to be so wrapped up in this double life that hiding himself with Occlumency is no chore at all. Snape is always hiding. Snape is in stasis. Snape is not allowed to grow and develop as a human being because playing these parts are all he is allowed from the moment he agrees to work for Dumbledore. And I don’t think that asking that of him was wrong, but I still feel sorrow on his behalf.

I expect I’ll talk a lot more about that as we continue with this book, so for now I’ll move on to how Pius Thicknesse might win the award for most on-the-nose name Rowling has come up with yet? Maybe? It certainly makes me laugh the most.

So much of this chapter is about listening to how Voldemort phrases his abuse, and how incredibly effective it is. Suggesting that there “no point” in Lucius having a wand at all, so why shouldn’t he borrow it. Lulling Bellatrix into this false sense of appreciativeness, then pulling the rug out from under her by mentioning Tonks. Teasing the Malfoy family about their loyalty, trying to lure them into saying the wrong thing. Lucius’ vacantness indicates a healthy dose of PTSD following his time in Azkaban, and it’s left to Narcissa to keep her family together and safe. She does this by disengaging entirely—a survival tactic well known to victims of abuse—and then encouraging Draco to do the same with the subtlest of motions and hints.

From Draco’s end, we see that he looks first to his father, the way he has been accustomed all his life, then has the realization that his father’s guidance is not available to him any longer. It’s that terrifying moment in every child’s life when they realize that their parents are human, that they can be wrong, tarnished, damaged. Draco surely hoped that when his father returned, his family would return to normal; it is necessary for Draco to learn this lesson, to realize that war hurts all people, not merely the ones he deems of no value. It’s also essential for him to discover that having Voldemort’s favor is a thing easily lost; his family’s pureblood status will not keep any of them safe, even someone as devoted as Bellatrix.

We find out that Lucius’ wand is elm (inherited from his father), a wood that denotes a person with presence and dignity. It’s a very sound wand wood, producing the fewest errors, and is capable of highly advanced magic in the right hands, often desired by pureblood wizards for this reason.

The woman spinning over the table is Charity Burbage, the Muggles Studies teacher at Hogwarts, and Voldemort tells everyone at the table that she recently published a piece in the newspaper about how wizards and Muggles should intermingle and so on…. Wow. Can we take a moment for how f*cking brave this woman is? To publish a piece like that in times like this, to say the very thing that Voldemort never wants to hear right as he’s rising to power again? To ask her fellows in the magical community to be brave in the face of what’s coming? And it’s practically the only thing that we learn about this woman, aside from Hermione briefly taking her class in third year. It’s a horrifically affecting; this is all we will ever know about Charity Burbage, but she was clearly a great voice in the wizarding world, and here she is, reduced to a casualty.

And here again, Snape gives no reaction to her murder. While we know that Snape wasn’t particularly close to his colleagues, and that he had his period of buying into Voldemort’s pureblood propaganda, it’s hard to believe that he would be completely unaffected by her pleas for help. I’m forced to wonder what he truly does feel in that moment—and whether or not he had the ability to ever reflect on those feelings at all.