Harry further realizes that Voldemort was tracking Ollivander, Gregorovitch,
and now Grindelwald because he wants the Elder Wand—not because
he wants a new wand, or answers about how to defeat Harry’s wand.
Finally, Harry decides that his Invisibility Cloak—the
cloak his father left to him—must be the cloak in the story, and
that he himself must be descended from the third brother in the
story, living as he did in the same town as the Peverells. He remembers
that in the letter fragment from his mother that he found in Sirius’s
house, she mentions that Dumbledore had borrowed the Cloak. Harry
reasons that Dumbledore must have known that it was one of the Hallows
and must have wanted to assemble them all. Harry is seized by the
idea that if he gathers the Hallows himself, he will finally be
powerful enough to defeat Voldemort, whose Horcruxes will be no
match for the Hallows.
It occurs to Harry that Voldemort must not know about
the Hallows, having been raised in a Muggle orphanage without being
read wizard fairy tales. He must be searching for the wand thinking
only that it is a powerful wand, not one of three artifacts. If
Voldemort had known, he would have pursued the Hallows rather than
making the Horcruxes, and he wouldn’t have made a Hallow into a
Horcrux (the ring with the Resurrection Stone in it).
As passionate as Harry is about his deductions, Hermione
resists, noting that there would be no reason for Dumbledore not
to tell Harry about the Hallows if they existed, and reminding Harry
that Dumbledore left clear instructions to find and destroy Horcruxes—not
to go searching for Hallows to destroy Voldemort. Ron supports Hermione,
so the matter seems to be closed, but Harry lies awake that night
obsessing about what he could do with the Resurrection Stone and
the Elder Wand—for example, using the Stone to question Dumbledore
and the Wand to free Luna from Azkaban, where she is most likely
being kept. Over the next few days, the sense of division between
Harry and Ron and Hermione deepens.
One night, Ron manages to tune into the underground radio
program “Potterwatch,” produced by members of the Order of the Phoenix.
Harry, Hermione, and Ron listen eagerly as wizards they know and
recognize give out news of the outside world and the people they
know and love. Ted Tonks and Dirk Cresswell have been murdered,
along with a goblin; Xenophilius is in prison; Hagrid was almost
arrested but escaped; Muggles are being murdered by Death Eaters
in great numbers. Rumors have circulated that Voldemort has been
sighted outside of England.
As the program ends, Harry seizes on this last piece of
information to insist that Voldemort must be searching in Europe
for the Elder Wand. Unfortunately, he slips and says Voldemort’s
name, breaking the Trace and leading the Ministry’s agents to their
hiding place. A voice announces that a dozen wizards are outside
the tent, and orders them to come out with their hands up.
Analysis: Chapters Twenty–Twenty-Two
This sequence of chapters, which finally introduces us
to the meaning of the book’s title, brings together the two plotlines
that have dominated the book. On the one hand, we have seen Harry’s
difficult quest to find the Horcruxes and destroy Voldemort before Voldemort
can kill him. Under the surface of that plot, Harry has been struggling
internally with his grief over Dumbledore. In this second plot,
Harry has struggled to stay faithful to his promise to Dumbledore
to destroy the Horcruxes, while his doubts have grown that Dumbledore
may not have loved him and may not even have been a good person.
Essentially, Harry has not been able to fully focus on or commit
to the quest that Dumbledore left him because of his grief over
Dumbledore—he feels unable to accept Dumbledore’s love now that
Dumbledore is dead, and is thus unable to maintain his faith in
Dumbledore and the quest.
The Deathly Hallows capture Harry’s imagination primarily because
they offer a way out of his impasse. With the Resurrection Stone,
Harry could speak with Dumbledore, or with his parents, and he would
no longer feel cut off from his dead loved ones. He would be master
of death, and so would no longer have to grieve. His power would
be sufficient to defeat Voldemort at last. But if Harry chooses
to pursue the Hallows instead of the Horcruxes, he will pay a price,
because he’ll essentially be abandoning his faith in Dumbledore
altogether, refusing to do what Dumbledore advised, and he’ll be
giving up on the possibility that Dumbledore knew what was best
for him. He would be putting his faith in his own power rather than
in Dumbledore.
The fact that choosing to look for the Hallows would be
a dangerous, even foolish decision, is implied by a number of factors.
In the story of the three brothers, the gifts from Death are intentionally duplicitous,
giving the two older brothers what they want but leading directly
to their ruin. Only the younger brother thrives, and that is because
he does not even seek to “master” death by becoming a killer, an
immortal, or a resurrector of dead souls. All he asks for is a normal
life. Other signs include the fact that Xenophilius seeks the Hallows,
and Xenophilius is manifestly a fool. Throughout literature, folklore,
and mythology, the attempt to bring back dead loved ones almost
always backfires, being an unnatural and taboo act that the gods
will not tolerate.
