Study Guide

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 Summary


We don't get much of a warm up here: we're right in the thick of all the drama from the get go.

Hermione, Ron, Harry, and their families are all in danger as Lord Voldemort gains power, and there's an additional wrinkle: Harry's about to turn seventeen, which means the magical protections he's enjoyed at his aunt and uncle's house are going bye-bye.

So, the first big adventure of the movie involves the Order of the Phoenix trying to get Harry transported to the Weasleys' house safely. Unfortunately, Voldemort's crew has been tipped off that the transfer is happening, and so they're waiting for Harry and his friends when they fly away from the Dursley home.

There are casualties: Hedwig and Mad-Eye. Oh, and George loses an ear. So, the movie is already off to a roaring start.

Think we're going to get a break from all the violence and sadness at Fleur and Bill's wedding? Guess again. The Ministry of Magic falls to the Death Eaters during the festivities, which means all the magical protections around that event are broken…which means everyone has to run away as Voldemort's crowd arrives looking for Harry.

Hermione, luckily, has been preparing for the worst case, best case, and everything in between ('cause she's Hermione), and so she manages to get Ron, Harry, and herself out of the wedding unscathed (and with a magic bag containing most of their stuff to help with the journey ahead).

So, the kids are safe, but they have no idea what to do next—they just know they need to stay out of sight while they look for these things called Horcruxes, which are objects housing little bits of Voldemort's soul. If they find all those Horcruxes and then kill Voldemort, then maybe life will return to normal for everyone (well, everyone but the Death Eaters).

Step #1 is finding the real version of the locket/Horcrux that Harry and Dumbledore thought they had found at the end of the last movie—but was a fake. Harry and his friends know that some guy named RAB switched out the real locket with a fake one, but they don't know:

1. Who RAB is
2. Whether RAB managed to destroy the locket, and…
3. …if he didn't, where the locket is now.

That's a lot of uncertainty, right? Anyway, when the kids are hiding at 12 Grimmauld Place (headquarters of the Order, and family home of Harry's godfather, Sirius), Harry answers the first question: RAB is Regulus Black, Sirius's brother.

Harry and the others interrogate 12 Grimmauld's resident house elf, Kreacher, to find out more about Regulus and the locket. Turns out, a dude named Mundungus (who's in the Order, but not really the most honorable guy) stole the locket and sold it to—wait for it—Dolores Umbridge.

Yes, that Dolores Umbridge: the horrible, no good, saccharine-tongued-but-also-really-sadistic former teacher and headmaster at Hogwarts from the fifth movie. We're sure Harry and his friends would have been happy never to see her again, but now they have to find her and steal her jewelry.

Since she's pure evil, it's no surprise that Dolores has been allowed to stay on at the Ministry of Magic under Death Eater/Voldemort's leadership. So, Harry, Hermione, and Ron concoct a way to disguise themselves, get into the Ministry, and rip the locket right off of Umbridge's neck. They have some trouble getting out of the Ministry after all those shenanigans, but the bottom line is they accomplish their mission: They have the locket.

Now they have a new problem, though: How do they destroy the locket? They know that the sword of Gryffindor would do the trick, but it's missing. So they are forced to travel around with this evil little dark object until they figure it out.

Unfortunately, this whole ordeal (plus the evil influence of the locket on everyone's moods) leads to a whole boatload of tensions between Harry and his friends. Ron, in particular, is getting really frustrated with how slowly "Project Destroy Voldemort" is going. And he takes it out on Harry, since Harry has kind of been in charge of the whole Horcrux thing.

Things get so bad that Ron leaves the group for a while. Hermione and Harry are devastated, obviously, and the mission doesn't really get much further in Ron's absence.

In fact, it almost has a huge setback: Harry and Hermione almost get killed when they visit Godric's Hollow (Harry's birthplace, Dumbledore's childhood home, and the hometown of a magical historian named Bathilda Bagshot) in search of answers. The upside: Harry gets to visit his parents' grave and they do locate Bathilda. They're hoping that she will have some insights that will be helpful to their whole Horcrux mission.

The downside: turns out that Bathilda is Voldemort's snake disguised in the old woman's corpse. (Yes, that is just as gross as it sounds.) Luckily, they escape. But barely.

Then, one night, things take a much more positive turn. A silver doe appears in the woods while Harry is keeping watch—someone's Patronus—and Harry follows her. Right to the sword of Gryffindor, which is hidden beneath the icy surface of a pond.

When Harry goes in to retrieve the sword, though, there's a little hiccup: the Horcrux (which he's wearing around his neck) tries to strangle him in protest, since it senses the presence of an object that can destroy it. Luckily, Ron is (miracle of miracles!) nearby and saves Harry and the sword from the pond.

Once everyone is back on dry land, Ron destroys the Horcrux with the sword, and the team reunites. (Hermione takes a while to forgive Ron for leaving, though.)

Meanwhile, as all that drama has been unfolding, Hermione has been reading a book that Dumbledore left her in his will, and it has a symbol that keeps popping up. They first saw it at Bill and Fleur's wedding on a necklace that Luna's father, Xenophilius, was wearing, and then it showed up again on a grave in the cemetery at Godric's Hollow. They're pretty sure it must be significant, so the gang decides to go visit the Lovegoods to find out more about the symbol and its meaning.

As with the trip to Godric's Hollow, there is good news…and bad news. We'll start with the good stuff: Xenophilius gives kids get the full scoop about the symbol. Turns out, it represents something called the Deathly Hallows.

The what? Well, we'll give you the (kind of) short version of the "Tale of the Three Brothers" (which is where the Hallows legend got started). According to that story, there are three magical objects floating around the world that, when held together, can make someone the master of death: an invisibility cloak (hmm, where have we seen one of those?), a resurrection stone, and a powerful wand that can beat all others.

Oh, yeah, we should probably mention something right about now: Harry can see into Voldemort's thoughts again, and so he knows that the Dark Lord has actually been looking for a super powerful/legendary wand. Is it the wand mentioned in the tale? Well, we don't know for sure yet, but it's totally possible.

Anyway, that story gives Harry, Hermione, and Ron lots of stuff to think about, in terms of Voldemort's motivations and, perhaps, how to beat him. After all, being master of death seems like it could be more than a little helpful, if the Hallows are legit, right?

So, now for the bad news: The Death Eaters have taken Luna, and when Harry shows up to talk Hallows, Xenophilius decides to alert the Death Eaters in the hopes of arranging an exchange. Harry and his friends manage to escape before the Death Eaters get them, though.

Phew, right? Wrong.

Once escaping, they run straight into a gang of "Snatchers," who apparently go around rounding up people who have been running from the Ministry. Hermione stuns Harry with a spell that disguises his face, but the snatchers are still wise to the fact that they might have Harry Potter.

So, they take the kids to Malfoy Manor, which seems to be Death Eater headquarters these days. Once there, it's pretty much chaos: Bellatrix (remember her?) is all fixated on the fact that the kids have the sword of Gryffindor (which is supposed to be in her vault) and tortures Hermione for more information, and the boys discover Luna and Ollivander in the cellar where they are imprisoned.

In desperation, Harry tries to summon help using a shard of magical mirror that appears to have another face (Dumbledore's?) in it, and suddenly Dobby appears—he can evade all the magical protections on the place, you see. So, through Dobby's help, the kids and Ollivander all manage to get out. Sadly, though, Dobby dies through his efforts.

The kids bury Dobby where they end up (a beach) and prepare for the next stage of the adventure. Oh, and Voldemort sneaks into Dumbledore's grave and steals the wand he was buried with. It seems Dumbledore may have had that super powerful wand…and now Voldemort does. What could go wrong?

And how soon until we can watch the next and final movie?

  • Scene 1

    Scene 1

    • We're hearing some spooky noises. (Yup; sounds like a Harry Potter movie to us.)
    • We're also seeing somebody's eyes—just the eyes. Who is this?
    • It's a guy who's talking about dark/scary times, which fits the musical cues to a T.
    • Apparently he's talking to all his citizens, and he's swearing to protect them from dark forces.
    • There are lots of reporters taking pictures. Ah—he must be the Minister of Magic.
  • Scene 2

    Scene 2

    • Now we're with Hermione, who's looking at a newspaper. The news is looking pretty grim. An article about the murder of a Muggle family catches her eye in particular.
  • Scene 3

    Scene 3

    • Oh, look, it's the Dursleys (you know, Harry's aunt and uncle). As Harry peeks out a window at them, it looks like the Dursleys are packing up to leave their home. Apparently, they aren't safe there anymore? Oh dear.
  • Scene 4

    Scene 4

    • Now we're back with Hermione, who's casting an "Obliviate" spell. We see Hermione drain out of the family photos. Goodness, why is she erasing herself from her parents' lives?
  • Scene 5

    Scene 5

    • We're getting a little whiplash from all this cutting back and forth: Now we're back with Harry, who's watching the Dursleys leave.
  • Scene 6

    Scene 6

    • Yikes, now we're back with Hermione, who's just left home and is walking away down the middle of the street while dramatic music plays. Cue the credits.
    • Now we cut to dark, smoky figures streaming through the dark.
    • Snape is storming through the halls of some kind of house and walks right into a meeting with Voldemort. There's a victim/prisoner suspended above the table.
    • Snape starts telling Voldemort about someone will be "transported." We're assuming that someone is Harry.
    • Ah, yes, it is, and there are conflicting reports on this front: they've also gotten intel that contradicts Snape's.
    • Oh, and there's a guy named Pius there who's supposedly a politician. Voldemort says he will be useful. We're guessing he's inside the Ministry.
    • Bellatrix offers to be the one to kill Harry during the transport, but Voldemort says he has to do it. But he needs a new wand first.
    • Voldemort taunts Lucius Malfoy by considering taking his wand. Instead of doing that, though, he breaks it.
    • Then Voldemort decides it's time to torture the prisoner above the table, who is apparently a former Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts. (This seems to be the only reason Voldemort despises her.)
    • Voldemort kills her (as she begs her supposed friend Snape for her life), and then lets his snake eat her.
    • Then we cut to a shot of Dumbledore falling off the tower to his death, which happened in the last film. Really? Did we need to revisit that?
  • Scene 7

    Scene 7

    • Now we see Harry looking into a bit of shattered mirror. Wait, is that Dumbledore looking back? How can that be?
    • No time to ponder that, though. Harry is all packed up and ready to leave the Dursleys' house forever.
    • He hears people outside, and it turns out to be a whole crew from the Order.
    • Mad Eye takes control and tells Harry the plan: They're all going to take Polyjuice Potion so they all look like Harry. This way, when they transport Harry, the enemies waiting for them won't be able to tell who's who. Pretty smart, if you ask us.
    • Harry objects, since it puts all of his friends in danger. However, he has to give in to group pressure, and they all change.
    • The real Harry gets in the sidecar of Hagrid's motorbike, and they all take off, flying up through the clouds.
    • Bad news, though: the Death Eaters were waiting for them.
    • Harry desperately tries to fend off the attackers and Hagrid speeds him away.
    • But Hedwig gets hit with a killing curse. RIP.
    • But there's no time to worry about that, either.
    • Suddenly, Harry's scar is throbbing and Voldemort is there. Without trying/meaning to, he raises his arm with his wand and it connects with Voldemort's. Both wands are casting spells, and Harry's somehow overpowers Voldemort's.
    • Despite all that—and the malfunctioning of the bike—Harry and Hagrid manage to land safely at the Burrow.
    • More bad news, though: No one else is back yet.
    • Oh wait—here's someone. It's someone who looks like Harry with his ear ripped off. Lupin is carrying him.
    • Lupin brings the boy into the house and then interrogates Harry to make sure it's him.
    • Lupin says that they have been betrayed, since Voldemort knew Harry was being moved that night.
    • Then Kingsley arrives, then Ron. Kingsley asks how Voldemort knew to chase the real Harry, and Harry says it was the fact that Hedwig was protecting him.
    • Now Mr. Weasley and Fred are back. They're looking for George—who, it turns out, is the boy missing an ear.
    • They find George convalescing, and Fred leans by his brother. George starts cracking jokes—which is probably a good sign, right? Not that we find anything particularly funny right now.
    • Bill arrives soon after this, and then Tonks.
    • Bill announces that Mad Eye is dead. Mundungus, a thief who was paired with Mad Eye during the transport, Disapparated when Voldemort arrived. Everyone is obviously pretty devastated.
  • Scene 8

    Scene 8

    • Harry is trying to sleep, but he's having some bad dreams—understandable, of course, after everything.
    • Apparently abandoning the whole idea of sleep, he gets up and walks around. And then out of the house. Wait, where does he think he's going? Doesn't he know how unsafe "out of the house" is for him by now?
    • Ron chases him out and asks just what he's doing. Harry says he doesn't want anyone else dying for him.
    • Ron tries to reason with him, saying he doesn't think Harry should go without him and Hermione.
    • Harry ends up agreeing to come back in to the Burrow for now (after all, a wedding is about to take place) and Ron ponders where the Horcruxes are.
  • Scene 9

    Scene 9

    • Harry is looking at the newspaper, and Rita Skeeter has written an article about Dumbledore. Rita is a nasty and dishonest piece of work, so the article is bound to make Harry angry.
    • Luckily, he gets a good distraction right at that moment: Ginny comes in and asks Harry to zip her up. Then she kisses him. Dumbledore who?
    • Outside, Mr. Weasley is putting up a tent for this wedding.
    • The Minister of Magic arrives. Hey, that's the guy we saw blathering to reporters at the beginning.
    • He's there to talk to Harry—and, more to the point, read Dumbledore's will.
    • As it turns out, Dumbledore left stuff to Ron, Hermione, and Harry.
    • The kids seem pleased with their gifts…but puzzled. Hermione got a book of old stories, Ron got Dumbledore's Deluminator (which turns lights on and off), and Harry got a couple of things, including the first Snitch he caught in a Quidditch match.
    • One of the other gifts makes perfect sense, though: Dumbledore left the sword of Gryffindor to Harry.
    • As you may recall, the sword can destroy Horcruxes, so Harry definitely knows why Dumbledore wanted to leave it to him.
    • Unfortunately, the Minister of Magic doesn't think the sword was Dumbledore's to give…and besides, the sword is missing.
  • Scene 10

    Scene 10

    • Ah, it seems that the wedding we've been building up to is Bill and Fleur's. It looks like it's a lot fun.
    • At the wedding, Harry chats with Luna and her dad, and then he goes to talk to a dude named Elphias Doge, Dumbledore's friend. Doge just wrote an article about Dumbledore.
    • Harry and Doge talk about Rita Skeeter's recent work on Dumbledore. Turns out, it's not just an article she's been cooking up. She's done a book as well.
    • Ron's Auntie Muriel is listening in on their conversation and chimes in as well.
    • Through the chat, Harry learns a few things about Dumbledore that he hadn't known before. Auntie Muriel is shocked by how little Harry seems to know about Dumbledore. As is Harry, actually.
    • Then, Harry and others see a glow in the distance, and a Patronus arrives. Perhaps it's a message of good wishes for the happy couple?
    • No such luck. The Patronus announces that the ministry has fallen and "they" are coming. We're not exactly sure who "they" are, but probably no one/nothing good.
    • Sure enough, Death Eaters arrive shortly thereafter, and Hermione, Ron, and Harry Disapparate together to a busy city street.
    • Hermione, it seems, has prepared for a possible quick departure by packing up a magic bag that's way bigger on the inside than it appears (kind of like a Tardis). That girl really is always three steps ahead, isn't she?
    • As they walk through the crowded streets of London, she pulls out clothes for them to change into.
  • Scene 11

    Scene 11

    • The kids are in a diner discussing what to do next. Suddenly, a couple of Death Eaters walk in and attack them. They manage to stun them, but it's a bad sign. How in the world did these dudes find them?
    • Hermione wipes the Death Eaters' memories and they get out of there.
    • They head to Grimmauld Place, the headquarters of the Order. They're hoping they'll be safe there.
  • Scene 12

    Scene 12

    • Harry's having more nightmares. Or are they nightmares? They seem to be nasty memories of Voldemort's, so maybe he's back inside Voldemort's thoughts again?
    • Luckily, he wakes up before we have to see too much of Voldemort's bad behavior.
    • He goes upstairs and explores one of the rooms.
    • He finds a book by a woman that he, Elphias, and Ron's aunt were discussing at the wedding: Bathilda Bagshot.
    • It turns out that the room belongs to Regulus Arcturus Black. R.A.B. Hey, those were the initials of the dude who stole the Horcrux at the end of the last movie. Well, at least that mystery is solved.
    • Harry shares his discovery with the others. While they are pondering what it means, they hear a noise and realize they aren't alone in the house: Kreacher the house elf is there. They quiz him about the whereabouts of the real locket/Horcrux.
    • Kreacher says that Mundungus (remember? The thief that was partnered with Moody and then abandoned him?) took it. Harry orders Kreacher to find him.
  • Scene 13

    Scene 13

    • Now suddenly we're on the Hogwarts Express, which is taking the students who aren't Harry, Hermione, and Ron going back to school.
    • It's a good thing that Harry and his friends decided to take a powder this year: some Death Eater types board the train to look for our favorite lightning-bolt-scarred wizard.
    • Then we cut around to a few different things:
    • • We see that dude Pius has become Minister of Magic, and the Daily Prophet is now reporting that Harry is Undesirable Number One. It's official: Voldemort is in charge of the Ministry.
    • • In what appears to be a London alleyway, we see Mundungus trying to hide.
    • • Back at Grimmauld place, Harry is contemplating the Snitch Dumbledore gave to him.
    • Looks like the camera is going to stick with what's happening to Harry for now. As he's pondering, a commotion starts up downstairs. Kreacher and Dobby are working to wrestle Mundungus through the door.
    • Turns out, Dolores Umbridge bought the locket from Mundungus. How in the world are Harry and the gang going to get it back from her?
  • Scene 14

    Scene 14

    • Whew, we're in luck: Harry, Hermione, and Ron seem to have a plan. They're going to break into the Ministry of Magic and steal it back.
    • Simple, right? Wait, no—it sounds a) really dangerous and b) basically impossible.
    • The plan involves knocking out a few Ministry employees, stealing their hair, and then making/using Polyjuice Potion to turn themselves into these folks so they can get in the Ministry undetected.
    • The first steps go off according to plan, though, so Harry, Ron, and Hermione end up in disguise and ready to enter the Ministry.
    • So far, so good—they're in. But they have to interact with people as the folks they're impersonating, which is kinda difficult…since they have no idea who these people are, other than the fact they work at the Ministry.
    • Eventually, they all have to split up, and Harry (as "Albert Runcorn") goes exploring, and Hermione actually gets pulled away to do something with Umbridge.
    • Harry manages to find Umbridge's office—and sees Mad Eye's eye in the door.
    • He then plants a diversion and gets into the office to look around. He doesn't see the locket anywhere. However, he finds files on his friends and Dumbledore.
    • Harry and Ron then find each other again, and they go to find Hermione, who's in the basement.
    • When they get there, they find that Umbridge is actually wearing the Horcrux. That's both lucky and unlucky. Again, how are they going to get it?
    • We should probably mention what Hermione and Umbridge are doing in the basement: They're actually in a courtroom, and a woman named Mary Cattermole, the wife of the dude Ron is impersonating, is on trial, apparently for maybe not having enough wizard blood or something like that.
    • Harry manages to attack Umbridge and get the Horcrux from Umbridge. The kids—with Mary in tow—escape from the courtroom.
    • By this point, the Polyjuice Potion has worn off, and it doesn't take long for people to realize the kids are intruders. They rush to get out of the Ministry.
    • They make it out, but one of the men pursuing them was holding on to them when they tried to leave…
    • When they land, something brutal has happened to Ron. It seems that when Hermione was trying to Disapparate and that dude was holding on to them, something called Splinching happened. He's got some really nasty looking wounds on his body.
    • And in other bad news, now they can't go back to Grimmauld place. You see, Hermione had tried to Apparate there first, before she realized that she had brought an enemy along, and that means the dude now has access to Grimmauld.
    • Time for some good news, though: Hermione can heal Ron's wounds pretty quickly with something called Dittany. They're all still pretty shaken up, but at least Ron will live.
  • Scene 15

    Scene 15

    • Now the kids are trying to destroy the Horcrux/locket, but it's not working. Apparently, Voldemort protected this bit of his soul very well.
    • They finally give up, and Harry decides he has to wear the Horcrux to keep it safe until they find a way to get rid of it.
    • Ron is getting pretty exasperated, and wonders aloud why Dumbledore didn't bother to tell Harry how to destroy these Horcruxes, if they're so important to defeating Voldemort.
    • Later, as Harry is sitting alone, it looks like goes back in Voldemort's mind again.
    • Hermione notices and tells him that he should stop it.
    • Harry ignores the comment and tells her what he saw. Voldemort is looking for something, and he's been tracking a wand maker to get it.
    • Harry is being really grumpy, and Hermione tells him to take the locket off.
    • Apparently, that makes him feel lots better. The locket seems to cast a cloud over the person who's wearing it. And really, we'd expect nothing less from something that Voldemort created.
    • Hermione suggests that they take turns wearing it, and Harry agrees.
  • Scene 16

    Scene 16

    • At night, Hermione goes poking around the area around their camp while Ron is listening to the radio. Meanwhile, Harry is checking out what his friends at Hogwarts are doing using the Marauder's Map.
    • As she's exploring, Hermione encounters some shady-looking guys. They can't see Hermione, though, because of the enchantments she has placed around their camp.
    • One of the guys seems to be able to smell her, but he can't see her.
    • After that little incident, Hermione and the others decide to move their camp.
    • For some reason, Ron seems to be growing super resentful of Harry and his relationship with Hermione.
    • Uh oh—this whole Horcrux quest seems to be really testing everyone's patience and friendships.
  • Scene 17

    Scene 17

    • On a more positive front, Hermione has had a realization about the sword of Gryffindor and why it destroys Horcruxes: it absorbed venom from the basilisk that Harry killed back in the Chamber of Secrets.
    • She shares her discovery with Harry, who is, like Hermione, pretty excited to have more knowledge about what destroys Horcruxes, and why.
    • When Ron joins in on the convo, though, he isn't excited or happy. He's really unhappy, actually. He and Harry start arguing about the whole quest for Horcruxes, and Ron seems to blame Harry for the lack of progress they've up to that point.
    • Harry, obviously, finds that all pretty hurtful and infuriating.
    • In the end, Ron decides to leave, and he asks Hermione if she's coming.
    • She doesn't want to, and Ron basically accuses her and Harry of being an item.
    • He leaves. Hermione tries to run after him, but he's gone.
  • Scene 18

    Scene 18

    • Hermione and Harry know they have to keep moving to avoid being detected, but they're both super bummed out and reluctant to leave in case Ron comes back.
    • He doesn't, though, so they pack up and move along.
    • One night, Harry invites Hermione to dance to try to cheer her up. They both have the locket off, and that does seem to brighten their spirits a bit.
    • Well, until the dance is done, and then Hermione goes back to being depressed, and so does Harry.
  • Scene 19

    Scene 19

    • Harry is lying in bed, staring at the Snitch, and then he seems to realize something.
    • He puts the Snitch on his mouth, and suddenly writing appears on it. It says: "I OPEN AT THE CLOSE."
    • You see, Snitches have something called "flesh" memories, and so it only responded to Harry's mouth—because when Harry first caught it, he actually almost swallowed it.
    • He shares the news with Hermione, who says she's found something, too: A symbol drawn into the book the Dumbledore left her. It's the same symbol that Luna's dad was wearing at Fleur and Bill's wedding.
    • Not that they know what the symbol means, but perhaps it's important, since it keeps popping up.
    • Harry says that he wants to go to Godric's Hollow, and Hermione agrees.
  • Scene 20

    Scene 20

    • They go to her house.
    • Bathilda goes upstairs, and Harry decides to follow her.
  • Scene 21

    Scene 21

    • Harry and Hermione go to someplace called the Forest of Dean to regroup/recover.
    • They discuss that picture that Harry had been asking "Bathilda" about in the house. Hermione has figured out that the guy in the photo is someone called Grindelwald.
    • Harry explains why he was interested: It seems that he'd seen Grindelwald in that vision about Voldemort's search for a wand maker.
    • In other wand-related news, Harry's wand is broken—it got broken when they left Godric's Hollow. Hermione has only just now broken the news to Harry.
    • Harry is obviously devastated, but he tells Hermione to go inside while he keeps watch with her wand.
    • While he's on duty, a doe Patronus appears. Even though it strikes us as a little dangerous to leave camp and go following a Patronus cast by an unknown figure, Harry does just that.
    • The silver doe takes him to an icy pond and then disappears below the surface.
    • When Harry peers through the ice to see where the doe has gone, he sees the sword of Gryffindor at the bottom of the pond. Well, isn't that lucky.
    • Harry cracks the ice, removes his clothes, and goes in after it.
    • But wait, he didn't take everything off: He still as the locket on. And the locket does not want Harry going anywhere near the sword of Gryffindor. It starts to strangle him.
    • Harry tries to get back to the surface, but he's stuck under ice.
    • We see someone arrive above, and that person saves Harry and gets the sword.
    • It's Ron to the rescue.
    • And who cast the Patronus that led Harry to the sword in the first place? As it turns out, it wasn't Ron. There are lots of unanswered questions about how this little miraculous find came about.
    • Anyway, no time to ponder all that: it's Horcrux destruction time.
    • Harry thinks that Ron has to be the one to destroy the Horcrux. He's reluctant, but Harry insists.
    • Harry tells the locket to open using Parseltongue, and this horrifying black mass comes out and starts taunting Ron. Ron is paralyzed at first, but he eventually gets up the strength to destroy it. Thank goodness.
  • Scene 22

    Scene 22

    • Ron and Harry go back to the camp, and Hermione isn't exactly pleased to see Ron—she's still pretty mad at him for leaving in the first place. She even has to hide being pleased when Ron shows her the destroyed Horcrux.
    • Then, Ron explains how he found them—by using Dumbledore's Deluminator. Hmm, it's like Dumbledore knew they'd be separated and Ron would have to find his way back. That Dumbledore really was pretty smart, wasn't he?
  • Scene 23

    Scene 23

    • Later that night, Harry and Ron chat, and Ron gives Harry an extra wand he stole off a Snatcher when he was away. (Oh, and Snatchers are people who round up wizards fleeing from the Ministry—which, as you remember, is now Voldemort-controlled.)
    • Hermione comes in and says that she wants to go talk to Luna's dad. You know, the one who was wearing the symbol? Hermione came across it yet again and is now fully convinced it's important.
    • So, off they go to the Lovegoods' house.
  • Scene 24

    Scene 24

    • They arrive at Luna's dad's house, and things seem…off.
    • Xenophilius looks super disheveled, and he's not happy to see them. They ask where Luna is, and he doesn't seem to know but says she'll "be along."
    • Once they are inside, Xenophilius asks what Harry needs from them.
    • Harry explains they want to know more about the symbol he wears around, and he replies that it's the sign of something called the Deathly Hallows.
    • He asks if the kids if they are familiar with the story of the three brothers. Ron and Hermione say yes, but Harry isn't.
    • So, Hermione pulls out her book and starts reading the story of three brothers.
    • As the story goes, the brothers met Death one day after cheating him (by avoiding an accidental drowning).
    • As a "reward" for their feat, Death gave them three gifts (one to each brother): a powerful wand, a stone that brought the dead back to life, and an invisibility cloak.
    • Unfortunately, the brothers who received the wand and the stone actually destroyed their lives by using them and died young. However, the brother who had the invisibility cloak lived a long and happy life.
    • After Hermione has finished reading the story Xenophilius explains how this all relates to the symbol. It seems that the symbol encompasses the stone, the wand, and the cloak that each of the brothers had in the story.
    • According to legend, those three "hallows" together make you the "Master of Death."
    • It's an interesting yarn, but we have to say, Xenophilius is acting super weird and even nervous. And the fact that he doesn't want Harry to leave seems pretty suspicious.
    • He even says something weird about Harry being his only hope. Wait, what does that mean?
    • We don't have to wait too very long to find out: It seems that Death Eaters kidnapped Luna, and now Xenophilius has summoned Voldemort's gang to come get Harry. He's hoping that some kind of exchange can happen.
    • Luckily, though, Harry and the gang are able to get out of the house before the Death Eaters can capture them.
    • Downside: They Apparate right into a gang of Snatchers. Well, that was bad luck.
    • Hermione stuns Harry with some kind of curse to change his appearance, presumably so the Snatchers don't realize he's Harry Potter.
    • Oh, yikes, Greyback the werewolf is with the Snatchers—that's not a good sign.
    • And in a double bit of bad news: The head Snatcher seems to realize who Harry is when he spots his scar, and so they take Harry directly to Voldemort's crew. Things are not looking good.
    • Bellatrix gets Draco Malfoy (Harry's old classmate) in to examine Harry and confirm it's him. Draco looks carefully, but is reluctant to say anything.
    • Then Bellatrix sees one of the Snatchers with the sword of Gryffindor. And she is not happy. In fact, she's pretty enraged.
    • She has the boys thrown in the cellar so she can have a talk with Hermione.
    • Down in the cellar, the boys find Luna and Ollivander (the wand maker) imprisoned as well.
    • Up above, Bellatrix is trying to torture Hermione to find out how she and her friends got the sword, since it's supposed to be in her vault at Gringotts.
    • Down in the cellar, Harry looks into that jagged little bit of broken mirror, where an eye sometimes appears (remember? The eye that looks like Dumbledore's?), and begs for help. Suddenly, Dobby appears.
    • Harry asks Dobby to Apparate Luna and Ollivander out of the cell.
    • Then, Wormtail comes back, and they stun him. Harry and Ron creep upstairs to rescue Hermione.
    • Bella is interrogating a goblin from Gringotts about how the sword of Gryffindor ended up with Harry and his pals. Hermione is in rough shape on the floor.
    • When the boys appear, Bella returns to Hermione and puts a knife to her throat to prevent them from trying to attack.
    • Bella tells Malfoy to call Voldemort. However, in the middle of all this, Dobby drops a chandelier on them, which thwarts that plan.
    • Harry, Hermione, and Dobby start to Disapparate, but not before Bellatrix throws a knife at them.
    • Unfortunately, when they Apparate on a beach, they discover that the knife hit Dobby. He dies, and they bury him.
  • Scene 25

    Scene 25

    • Meanwhile, elsewhere, Voldemort is robbing Dumbledore's tomb. He's there to get Dumbledore's wand…which we're guessing he believes is that super powerful wand from "The Tale of the Three Brothers."
    • Yikes. That's not a good development.