The Dursleys

More are to be found, so highlight the text below:

As with the previous six books, we only saw the Dursleys in the first couple of chapters in the book.  During this brief brush, Dudley redeemed himself (to some extent) by letting Harry know that he appreciated how Harry saved his life.  Petunia and Vernon did not even acknowledge that they would never see Harry again.  The family was then taken into hiding, to be protected against Voldemort.  What happened to them after that?   What did they do during the year they were in hiding?  Where is Dudley 19 years later? 

While we learned a little more about Petunia and her jealousy of Lily’s magical abilities, I am still curious to learn what Dumbledore had said to her in previous correspondence.  

On the whole, I need more Dursley information!!  

 

More Harry Potter?

After speaking with some friends about the ending of the book, many people feel that J.K. Rowling left herself room to write more books about characters from the Harry Potter series.  The rest of what I say will contain spoilers, so highlight the text below to continue reading.

One friend believes that Voldemort is still alive, because of the way the last sentence of the book was phrased – “The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years.  All was well.”  Does this mean that one day it might start hurting him again?  It says in the book that Voldemort is dead, and Rowling has always been adamant about the dead not being able to come back to life, so I believe that he is gone forever.

However, Ted Lupin, who lost both his parents by followers of Voldemort, and is now Harry’s godson, could have his own story.  Harry has children that might follow in his footsteps.  

Rowling seems determined not to write more than an encyclopedia on the series later, and I’m not sure anything can be as good as the original series.  But who knows?  Maybe Rowling’s children will want to continue with the Harry Potter tradition later.   

What do you think?  Did J.K. Rowling leave the story open enough that if she chose to, she or someone else could write more about Harry’s magical world?   

 

Wormtail

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Dumbledore was correct about Wormtail.  Peter Pettigrew owed Harry and repaid his debt in Book 7.  I was not at all emotional over his death, or all that surprised about it, but it happened in the most unexpected way.  The hand that Voldemort gave him stranged him to death after Wormtail showed mercy on Harry.  Was this due to the betrayal that Wormtail showed Voldemort?  Did Voldemort predict Wormtail’s disloyalty and give him a hand that would do this purposefully?  How did the hand know? 

 

My Review of Book 7 (SPOILERS!!)

After digesting and re-reading certain parts of the book, I am ready to write what I thought of it. To read, simply highlight the hidden text below.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was not a disappointment at all. I can’t say that it was my favorite book of the series, but J.K. Rowling did an excellent job putting all the pieces of the puzzle together and giving us a fast-paced, riveting story. What I am most pleased with is that there is still so much left to discuss. We now know that all is right in the Wizarding world and Harry defeated Voldemort, but Rowling left it so that there are still items for us fans to ponder.

Dumbledore turned out to be a much more complex character than originally expected. In the first six books he appeared to be an all-knowing, infallible hero, but there were times during Hallows when I began to dislike him. Specifically when we reading about Snape’s memories and Dumbledore so casually mentioned that Harry was going to have to die in order to defeat Voldemort. He was redeemed in the next chapter, however, and I could then understand his intentions. While Dumbledore was a good person overall, he was susceptible to making errors and was tempted by power, glory and immortality, just as most people are. He makes us realize that there is a little bit of good and bad in everyone, and what makes a person truly good is their ability to overcome the bad.

And this is just what we learn about Harry. Here is a character that started off as a young, timid boy in the first book and grew into a true hero and leader by the end of the seventh. He was also tempted by evil – the Deathly Hallows were a strong temptation for him – but what made him good was that he was eventually able to focus on his original intentions and defeat Voldemort. What I found most interesting about Harry was that throughout the first six books, was that while Harry was courageous, he never did anything all that extraordinary. He either had help from his mother, his friends, or Dumbledore. In Book 7, he was revealed to be a true hero. He accepted his fate willingly and was going to die in order to save his friends. By doing this, he gave them extra protection from Voldemort in the final moments of the battle at Hogwarts. Another true heroic feat was that Harry did not have to use the Avada Kedavra curse on Voldemort to defeat him. He maintained his innocence and offered Voldemort another chance to survive by only using the defensive Expelliarmus spell, which collided with the killing curse that then brought about Voldemort’s own demise. Harry did not actually kill Voldemort, Voldemort did it to himself.

Harry won the Elder wand earlier in this scene by disarming Draco (the true owner of the Elder wand), which gave him what many others, Dumbledore included, sought, the three Deathly Hallows, but Harry realized that what he truly wanted was what he saw in the Mirror of Erised all those years ago, not the power, glory and immortality that the Deathly Hallows bring. While Harry became obsessed with the idea of the Deathly Hallows for a while, he was able to snap out of it in time to realize that his more important mission was finding and destroying the Horcruxes, the only way to defeat Voldemort.

Rowling was able to make love a central and important theme in the books, without it becoming sappy or overbearing. Harry saw a loving family when he looked in the Mirror of Erised in Book 1. What he truly wanted was to love and to be loved. Even the Malfoys showed their good side in this book by stressing the importance of family and love, the only thing that helped keep all of them alive. Harry’s desire for a loving family came true after he realized that the Deathly Hallows would not give him happiness, for that is not what power and immortality bring. Harry’s story mirrored Dumbledore’s, because both had a chance at having all three Deathly Hallows but willingly gave them up for love. Dumbledore lost his own family but still surrounded himself with loving people, those members of the Order of the Phoenix. This is a subtle but valid point. Every member of the Order of the Phoenix had the ability to love and to love strongly – from Lupin to the Longbottoms to the Potters to Snape. Voldemort lacked this ability, as, it seemed, did Bellatrix and that brought about their downfalls.

Overall, the book was well-done. I could nitpick, but the only negative I am going to include is that a lot of information was crammed into a small amount of space. Rowling would have been better off tacking on an extra 100 pages and giving us more detailed explanations. I found this especially true in the King’s Cross chapter with Dumbledore. But she certainly gave us an excellent story, that was both original and clever and that is sure to become a classic.

 

Scholastic’s 7th Question – What are the Deathly Hallows?

Scholastic is asking you what are the Deathly Hallows.  Head to their Shrieking Shack Poll to let them know when you think we’ll find out – in the beginning, middle, or end of the last book.

I am more interested in hearing what you think the Deathly Hallows are?  I have only one theory on the subject and it stems from Mary GrandPre’s illustration on the cover of The Deathly Hallows.   She shows Voldemort and Harry battling in front of an audience of shadowy people, but in the foreground, directly in front of Voldemort and Harry, are curtains.  This makes me wonder if we are looking into the Veil that Sirius fell through in Order of the Phoenix.  What do you think?

 

The Importance of Bellatrix

J.K. Rowling has just given us another clue to Book 7.  In a recent interview with Helena Bonham Carter, she let on that Rowling revealed to her that Bellatrix will be very important in the last book.

Bellatrix Lestrange had been mentioned in a couple of the middle books of the series, but she became important in Order of the Phoenix, when she broke out of Azkaban and participated in the Battle at the Ministry in the Department of Mysteries.  We know that Neville especially has it out for her, since she was one of the Death Eaters who tortured his parents into madness.  Will the two of them be part of the climactic battle in Book 7?

Bellatrix also considers herself one of Voldemort’s most loyal followers and might have had a lot of inside information  into the Death Eaters and Voldemort’s use of horcruxes.  Being a cousin of Sirius and Regulus Black’s, did she know anything about the locket?

And, what I consider to be most important, why did she torture the Longbottoms after Voldemort had already disappear?  What did she believe she had to gain?

 

If Voldemort dies, how will it happen?

There’s been a lot of debate on whether or not Voldemort will be killed at the end of Book 7. I’ve seen less discussion, though, on the means of his demise. The Harry Potter series has seen it’s share of violence, but it’s never been easy to kill a character. Case in point, consider the battle in the Ministry at the conclusion of Book 5 — there were a dozen or so highly trained and capable wizards engaging each other, but only one death and that one we can judge as accidental. Technically Bellatrix killed Sirius, but he died from the veil and not the spell. Similarly, Harry himself has shown that he’s more willing to see the wicked rot in Azkaban (Wormtail) than be killed.

So in the climactic showdown between Harry and Voldemort, will we witness Harry stepping out of his principled mold and use an Unforgivable curse?

Will it even be Harry that kills him, or will it be Snape, Ron or Hermione, Dobby, Draco, or someone else?

 

The Longbottoms & The Potters

According to the Prophecy, “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches.  Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…”  Dumbledore informs Harry that only two children fit that description – Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom, but Voldemort chose to mark Harry, a half-blood, instead of Neville, a pure-blood.

What was it that the Longbottoms and the Potters did to thrice defy Lord Voldemort?  Both sets of parents belonged to the original Order of the Phoenix.  Were they working together?  Are the actions they took against Voldemort of any importance now?

Harry knows that it could have just as easily been Neville who was marked by Voldemort.  Will he tell Neville and, if so, how will Neville take this information?

 

Harry = Horcrux ???

I have to say that I never bought into this theory – that Voldemort made Harry into a Horcrux, accidentally or not. Initially, I did not believe that a horcrux could be made accidentally. I know that we really don’t know how horcruxes are created, but it sounds like it would have to be a deliberate curse, so how could that be accidental? As for Voldemort doing it on purpose, he has tried too many times throughout the first 6 books to kill Harry. I have read theories that say Harry’s corpse would then be the horcrux, but bodies decompose. I definitely don’t believe that this was done purposefully.

However, even though I do not completely buy into the Harry Potter is a horcrux theory, I do now see that the Harry was made into a horcrux accidentally is a plausible theory. What happened in Godric’s Hollow that evening many years ago is a complete mystery and no one before Harry had ever survived the killing curse. What if on that night, Voldemort tried to kill Harry, but, for some reason that we’ll find out in Book 7, the curse bounced off Harry, hit Voldemort, and Voldemort’s soul went into Harry’s body. Maybe then in Goblet of Fire Voldemort was taking back his soul from Harry. Harry would not be a horcrux anymore.

If this is the case, then Dumbledore might have figured this out already, which would explain the”gleam of triump” seen in his eyes at the end of Book 4. He also would not have told Harry because why put him through that when he is not a horcrux anymore.

I have no idea if any of this theory is true or not. I’m not even sure that I buy into it completely, but it’s fun to try to connect the dots in this puzzle and see what theories fit.

 

“Will Voldemort be Defeated?” – Scholastic’s Sixth Question

Scholastic has posted the sixth of their seven questions about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Will Voldemort be defeated?  Visit the Shrieking Shack to vote with your answer.

I don’t see how the books can end with Voldemort still at large.  I also don’t think that he can be defeated without dying, so my personal opinion is that he will be defeated and die.  Another big question is whether or not Harry Potter will live or die.  If he does happen to die, I believe it will be during a final battle with Voldemort and that it would happen only after Voldemort is defeated.  I am curious to see where this final battle will take place and who will be there to witness the defeat.  Snape and Wormtail are two possibilities and I believe that either one or both will help Harry in the end.  A good place for this final showdown could be Hogwarts – maybe it is where the final horcrux will be found and destroyed?

What do you think?  Can the series end with Voldemort still in power?