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Divination 13¾: The Deathly Hallows

‘He will not come back,’ repeated Nick quietly. ‘He will have … gone on.’

Into the Pensieve: The sky is dark with foreboding as Harry draws deeper into enemy territory on the trail of Voldemort’s Horcrux. This time, the object that eludes him is the Ravenclaw Horcrux, which Luna believes is the mythical ‘Book of the Dead’. In the act of destroying the Horcrux, Harry is mortally wounded. As he collapses in agony, he remembers the vial of Stinksap (juice of the Mimbulus mimbletonia plant), which Neville gave him to use in an emergency. Clinging desperately to his fast-ebbing consciousness, he manages to force a few drops down his throat. When he awakens, in a formless world of shadow and spirit, Harry believes he has died, leaving an unfinished mission. As famous in death as he was in life, he is soon surrounded by ghosts, including those of Voldemort’s victims, who lament his supposed death and try to comfort him. Bittersweet and tremulous meetings follow with the shades of Fred Weasley, Rubeus Hagrid, Albus Dumbledore, Cedric Diggory and Sirius Black, as well as other less well known fatalities, such as Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, Amelia Bones, Regulus Black and Mr. & Mrs. Crouch. Quirrell and Karkaroff, however, turn from Harry in fear and loathing. Particularly tragic is Merope Gaunt, who asks for news of her son. Finally, Harry comes face to face with his parents and family (last seen in the Mirror of Erised). Harry attempts to embrace his mother but finds that he cannot hold her incorporeal form. A meeting with the Four Founders of Hogwarts (now reunited in death) proves particularly significant (it might well be the Founders who provide Harry with the information that he needs to end the siege), as does Harry’s encounter with the celebrated Seer Cassandra Trelawney, who tells him his fate. He realizes that he cannot be dead but is somehow stranded in the land beyond the veil. If there is a way out, then the dead do not remember. Suddenly, Harry is aghast to see his friends approaching … Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville & Luna … distraught, he believes they have perished – casualties of his failure to defeat Voldemort. However, they reassure him that they are alive and have come to bring him home. Harry does not understand. His parents gently offer their blessings though he can hardly bear to wrench himself away; Ginny takes his hand and together they go back to the light. When he reawakens in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, Harry learns how Ron found him at the point of death and recovered the book. For Harry’s sake, the five friends took the dangerous Draught of the Living Death and went down to the Underworld to save him, in peril of their lives, using the instructions in Ravenclaw’s ancient volume. Harry is awed by their loyalty and love.

Second Sight: March 2007

I have recently come to the conclusion that the rescue of Harry from the Deathly Hallows might be Ginny’s task alone. My reasons for so thinking:

a) I imagine that all six of our principle younger characters will have a significant role in Book 7. In the case of Ron and Hermione, they remain Harry’s most important backup. I can see Ron going with Harry to his final duel, while Hermione will be invaluable as a solver of mysteries. Besides, I think it is quite likely that Ron and Hermione will become Head Boy and Girl and so involved in defending Hogwarts from siege (though I wouldn’t bet against Ernie Macmillan for Head Boy!). Apart from Harry himself, this leaves Neville and Luna (and I have hypothesized that this pair might be responsible for a Horcrux each) and Ginny, who must have her own part to play.

b) ‘But you’ve been too busy saving the Wizarding world. Well … I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew this would happen in the end. I knew you wouldn’t be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that’s why I like you so much.’ (HBP30) Ginny was briefly Harry’s girlfriend in HBP and will remain passionately committed to his cause in DH even if they are no longer together. I am sure that she will aid him in some way.

c) JKR has frequently had reason to remind us that Ginny is a powerfully magical girl. Her celebrated Bat-Bogey Hex impresses not only Ron (OOtP33), but also Fred and George, who use Ginny to illustrate the maxim that ‘size is no guarantee of power’ (OOtP6). According to her creator, the fact that Ginny is the first girl to be born into the Weasley family in generations is meant to indicate that she will be a very gifted witch. Ginevra Molly Weasley is also the seventh child in her family.

d) The Draught of Living Death is a powerful sleeping potion and Ginny would certainly look the part of sleeping beauty! The idea that the drinker’s spirit might travel to the land of the dead while they are apparently asleep is pure invention at this stage, though it stands to reason that the potion (referenced by Snape as early as PS8 and frequently referred to since) will be important.

e) Slughorn warns that the Draught of Living Death is a very dangerous potion potentially, as it causes the drinker to fall into an enchanted sleep which could last indefinitely. In the middle of a war, it would make sense for only one of Harry’s friends to risk themselves for him in this manner.

f) It would be a nice inversion of the Orpheus-Eurydice myth for the heroine to rescue the hero from the Underworld. Particularly as this heroine has already been rescued by Harry from the subterranean Chamber of Secrets (COS17).

Omens & Portents: Canonical Clues & Questions

Explanatory Note: The hero’s passage through the Underworld is almost obligatory in epic/fantasy literature (classical examples include the legends of Orpheus, Odysseus and Aeneas); ironically, it was for this reason that I was initially reluctant to include a divination on the subject, feeling that it might not fit in with the rest of the synopsis, which is mainly based on internal evidence from Books 1-6. (Also, I was influenced by the fact the HP series has so far managed to be magical without being metaphysical, IMHO, which is quite rare in fantasy (but perhaps appropriate in the context of secular pluralism). Whereas Phillip Pullman, whom I admire in a different way, is far more interested in metaphysics than magic.) However, a recent comment from Arun prompted me to revisit the issue and to reexamine clues which suggest that JKR could well be planning such a journey in Book 7… albeit with a twist!

1. Concerning Horcruxes…

• According to Dumbledore, but for ‘Professor Snape’s timely action when I returned to Hogwarts, desperately injured [after breaking the ring Horcrux], I might not have lived to tell the tale.’ (HBP23) We know that Horcruxes are protected by many powerful enchantments… so might it be that Harry’s journey to the Underworld is actually an involuntary one?

2. Concerning the afterlife…

• She was a very pretty woman. She had dark red hair and her eyes – her eyes are just like mine, Harry thought, edging a little closer to the glass. Bright green – exactly the same shape, but then he noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. The tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her put his arm around her. He wore glasses, and his hair was very untidy. It stuck up at the back, just as Harry’s did. … Harry was looking at his family, for the first time in his life. (PS12) This is our first – very moving – indication that communication with the dead might be possible in Harry’s world. Then, in GOF, Harry receives supernatural help when confronting Voldemort in the graveyard. And he came … first his head, then his body … tall and untidy-haired like Harry, the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort’s wand … (GOF34) So, the first and central books have thinned the veil between life and death. Does this foreshadow a final journey to the realm of the dead in DH?

• We have several reasons to believe that the Underworld exists as an actual, separate realm in the Potterverse. Firstly, we have Dumbledore’s words to Harry in Book 1. ‘After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.’ (PS17) Secondly, we learn that wizards have souls which can be physically destroyed by the Dementor’s Kiss; literally, a fate worse than death. (Thus explaining why there will be no Barty Crouch Jr. in the Underworld!) ‘You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you’ll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no … anything. There’s no chance at all of recovery. You’ll just — exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever … lost.’ (POA12) Thirdly, there are the voices that Harry & Luna hear behind the veil in the Death Chamber of the DOM. ‘In that room with the archway. They were lurking just out of sight, that’s all. You heard them.’ (OOtP38 ) Lastly, we have Nearly Headless Nick’s explanation of the choices that await wizards in the afterlife. ‘Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where their living selves once trod, but very few wizards choose that path.’ (OP37)

3. Concerning Ginny…

• ‘A much smaller and warmer hand had enclosed his and was pulling him upward. He obeyed its pressure without really thinking about it.’ (HBP29) It is interesting that it is Ginny who leads Harry away from Dumbledore’s body in HBP. Might she be the one needed to help him leave his parents in the Underworld? Also, if it is Ginny who rescues Harry, then this would be a clever inversion of the Orpheus-Eurydice myth (in which the hero tries to save his girlfriend from the land of the dead).

4. Concerning the Seer Cassandra Trelawney…

• In classical mythology, the hero visits the Underworld in order to consult a prophet. In the case of Harry Potter, a meeting with the Hogwarts Founders might well be substantial enough, although it is possible that Sybil Trelawney’s great-great-grandmother, the ‘very famous, very gifted’ Seer Cassandra Trelawney, might prove to be more than filler!

5. Concerning Mimbulus mimbletonia…

• ‘He [Neville] … pulled out what appeared to be a small grey cactus in a pot, except that it was covered with what looked like boils rather than spines.’ (OOtP10) I have already speculated that Neville and Ginny might work together at Hogwarts (as Herbologist and Healer) to help wounded students. Will Neville’s Mimbulus mimbletonia turn out to have curative properties?

• Interestingly, the epic of Gilgamesh – the Ur-text of the fantasy genre – features an unnamed plant with the power to convey immortality (or in this case, to bring the hero back from the dead!) It’s ‘very rare’ and would have been found in ‘Assyria’ (then Mesopotamia), which is apparently where Great Uncle Algie obtained his specimen. Might this be a clue? Well, Fluffy the three-headed dog came from a ‘Greek chappie’ Hagrid met in a pub and bore more than a passing resemblance to Cerberus!

6. Concerning the Ravenclaw Horcrux…

• We know that Rowena Ravenclaw’s most important/best-valued attributes were ‘wit and learning’. IMHO, it would therefore be characteristic if her surviving relic was a book, especially a book that possessed interesting powers in its own right. Furthermore, it might make quite a nice balance if the four surviving relics of the Founders (not counting the Sorting Hat and the Basilisk!) were a sword, a locket, a cup and a book. (In other words, a weapon, a jewel, a utilitarian item and an instructive item).

7. Concerning the Draught of Living Death…

• This was the most prominent ‘Chekhov’s gun’ not to fire in divinations one to seventeen. Thanks to Arun for the reminder! The Draught of Living Death was mentioned by Snape in that notorious first Potions class way back in PS/SS. Curiously, one of the ingredients is ‘asphodel’, the flower of the dead, which was said to grow on the plains of Hades (the Underworld in Greek mythology). The (outward) effect of the Potion is to put the drinker into an enchanted sleep… to sleep, perchance, to dream?

Legilimency: what is JKR thinking?

‘Let’s go again … on the count of three … one – two – three – Legilimens!’ (OOtP24)

• As one can guess from the end of Book 6, the founders of Hogwarts will play a role in Book 7. [JKR, Mugglenet/TLC, interview, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Ravenclaw “Will get their day, if you know what I mean!” [JKR, ITV, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Not everyone in Slytherin house is hateful. The house is important to Hogwarts to create balance. [JKR, Mugglenet/TLC interview, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• No magic power can resurrect a truly dead person. [JKR, The Guardian, 2000 - Madam Scoop's Index]

• Dealing with death and facing up to death are “strong central themes” in the books. [JKR, CBC Hot Type, 2000 – Madam Scoop's Index]

• JKR won’t tell us if Harry will see Sirius again. [JKR,World Book Day, 2004 – Madam Scoop's Index]

• JKR: “I’ve used bits of what people used to believe worked magically just to add a certain flavor, but I’ve always twisted them to suit my own ends. I mean, I’ve taken liberties with folklore, um, to suit my plot.” [JKR, "Harry Potter and Me," 2001 - Madam Scoop's Index]