Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Chapters Two–Three Summary & Analysis

Summary: Chapter Two: In Memoriam

Harry stumbles out of his room at the Dursleys’ house, clutching his bleeding hand. On his way to the bathroom he steps on a cup of tea inexplicably left outside of his bedroom door. After treating his finger and cleaning up the broken tea cup, he returns to his room, where he has spent the morning sorting the belongings in his school trunk into things he’ll no longer need, and a smaller pile of things he will keep with him now that he’s left Hogwarts and is about to leave the Dursleys’. He has just cut his finger on a shard of the mirror that Sirius gave him in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, of which all that now remains is the single shard.

Harry reads two newspaper articles commemorating Albus Dumbledore. “Albus Dumbledore Remembered,” by Dumbledore’s schoolmate and longtime friend, Elphias Doge, describes Dumbledore’s brilliant career at school, despite his having a father imprisoned at Azkaban for attacking Muggles; his relationship with his less intellectual younger brother, Aberforth; his struggles following the deaths of his mother and sister; his triumph over the Dark wizard Grindelwald in a famous duel in 1945; and his brilliant career as headmaster. Harry feels regret that he knew so little of what there was to know about Dumbledore’s life and wishes he’d asked Dumbledore about himself.

The second article is an interview with the journalist Rita Skeeter, who has just written a biography of Dumbledore called The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. In the interview, Skeeter indicates that her book debunks the supposed accomplishments that Dumbledore is famous for, reveals dark secrets about his family, and depicts Dumbledore’s relationship with Harry Potter in a sinister and unhealthy light. Disgusted by Skeeter’s lies, Harry puts down the paper.

Harry picks up the broken mirror shard, turning it in his hands as he thinks bitterly about Rita Skeeter’s lies. He catches a flash of bright blue in the shard, which reminds him of Dumbledore’s blue eyes. He decides he must have imagined it, because there’s nothing blue in the room that it could have been reflecting.

Summary: Chapter Three: The Dursleys Departing

Harry’s uncle Vernon summons Harry from his room. Harry goes downstairs to find all three Dursleys—Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley—sitting in the living room dressed for traveling. Uncle Vernon announces that he’s changed his mind: He doesn’t believe Harry that Uncle Vernon and the Dursleys are in danger, and he’s not going into hiding with the help of the Order of the Phoenix. Repeating a discussion they’ve had many times already, Harry explains that once he turns seventeen, the protection charm that keeps them all safe will break, and Voldemort and the Death Eaters will torture and kill the Dursleys. The Ministry of Magic cannot protect them because the Death Eaters have already infiltrated it.

Dudley breaks in and announces that he’s going to go with the representatives of the Order, so Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia have no choice but to acquiesce as well. Hestia Jones and Dedalus Diggle, members of the Order of the Phoenix, arrive to take the Dursleys into hiding. Dudley surprises his own family and Harry by inquiring where Harry is going to go. He surprises them even further by declaring that, in contrast to what Harry believes the Dursleys think of him, he does not consider Harry to be “a waste of space,” and declares that Harry saved his life. Harry realizes that Dudley actually is grateful for Harry’s saving him from the dementor that had attacked him the summer before, and that the tea cup outside his bedroom must have been put there by Dudley in a clumsy attempt at solicitude. Harry shakes hands with Dudley, and the Dursleys depart.

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