Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series of novels by J. K. Rowling. Released globally in 93 countries at a minute past midnight (00:01), British Summer Time, on 21 July 2007 (2007-07-20 23:01 UTC), the book reached the top spot on both the Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble bestseller lists just a few hours after the date of publication was announced on 1 February 2007. In the United States and Canada, the book was released for sale within each separate time zone at 00:01 local time, a few hours after other English-speaking countries.

The book chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, leading to the long awaited final struggle between Harry Potter and his allies, and the ever-more-powerful and influential Voldemort and his allies, the Death Eaters.

Retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders are reporting that more orders have been placed for this book than for any other in history, and American publisher Scholastic announced an unprecedented initial print run of 12 million copies.

Plot summary

Beginning of book

The book begins at the home of Lucius Malfoy, with Snape and a Ministry official, Yaxley, informing Lord Voldemort of the date Harry Potter intends to leave the Dursleys' house. Voldemort borrows Lucius' wand, because his own is ineffective against Harry's wand (due to the wands sharing twin cores ). Voldemort plans to kill Harry when he is being moved to a new safe place, which must happen when he turns seventeen and his safety with the Dursleys expires. Yaxley claims that Harry will be moved on the 30th, when he turns seventeen; however, Snape disagrees, saying that he will be moved a week earlier.

Snape's claim is true; Harry is leaving before he turns 17. On the night he is to leave the Dursleys' home, he reads an obituary of Albus Dumbledore, written by Dumbledore's friend Elphias "Dogbreath" Doge. Harry learns about Dumbledore's family including his brother Aberforth and sister Ariana through a stinging article by Rita Skeeter examining the family's convoluted history, and he regrets not having asked Dumbledore more about his past.

With the Dursleys escorted to safety by a pair of wizards, the Order of the Phoenix arrives to sneak Harry out of his house. Despite an attempted decoy involving six younger members of the Order of the Phoenix taking a Polyjuice potion to make themselves look like him, Harry, accompanied by Hagrid, is correctly identified by his "trademark" disarming spell (as he dislikes hurting people) and attacked by Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Harry's wand, surprisingly, still reacts with Voldemort's new, borrowed wand, destroying it. Hedwig, Harry's owl, is killed by a stray Killing Curse. After narrowly escaping, Harry and the Order eventually reach the Weasley residence, The Burrow. George Weasley has lost an ear due to the Sectumsempra curse cast by Snape, and Alastor Moody had been killed by Voldemort himself. Reacting to Voldemort's anger at his escape, Harry has a vision of the Dark Lord interrogating Ollivander the wand maker over why his borrowed wand still reacted with Harry's.

A few days later, the Minister of Magic arrives at The Burrow to give Harry, Ron, and Hermione bequests from Dumbledore's will. Ron is given Dumbledore's Deluminator (or "Put-Outer"), with the power to capture lights, Hermione receives a book of children's stories written in Ancient Runes, and Harry inherits Godric Gryffindor's sword and the first Snitch that Harry had ever caught. The Ministry withholds the sword after investigating all the items. The three try to discover the purpose of the bequests without success; Harry only manages to find an inscription on the Snitch: "I open at the close."

Near the end of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour's wedding reception, news comes that Voldemort has taken over the Ministry of Magic, and that Rufus Scrimgeour is dead, replaced by Pius Thicknesse, who is Imperiused. The Death Eaters attack again, trying to capture the now disguised Potter. The three flee the wedding, first to a Muggle café, but after being attacked by Death Eaters again, to 12 Grimmauld Place, the former home of the Black family. There, the three realize that Regulus Arcturus Black was the R.A.B. who removed the locket from the lake, dying in the attempt. However, the house elf Kreacher, after some persuasion, tells them that Mundungus Fletcher has stolen the locket from the house. Fletcher is caught by Kreacher and unwillingly reveals that he has passed it on to Dolores Umbridge as a bribe to keep him from being arrested.

Middle of book

After a month of spying on the Ministry of Magic, the trio attempt to infiltrate it to retrieve the Horcrux from Dolores Umbridge using Polyjuice Potion and ambushing three workers at the Ministry of Magic. They discover the Ministry of Magic has changed considerably; Muggle-born wizards and witches are being rounded up openly for questioning, and the Fountain of Magical Brethren has disappeared, replaced by a statue of a witch and wizard sitting upon moulds of Muggle-borns. The trio are separated by other Ministry workers, but eventually locate Umbridge as she is interrogating Muggle-borns and take the Horcrux, knocking her out in the process. They free a number of Muggle-born wizards and witches, and encourage them to leave the country. However, the trio's hiding place at 12 Grimmauld Place is discovered by Yaxley and they are forced to flee to the countryside, moving from place to place, never staying anywhere too long.

After several months of this, they overhear a conversation by Ted Tonks, Griphook and Dean Thomas revealing that the Ministry only possesses a replica of Gryffindor's sword; the original's location is unknown. Harry questions the portrait of Phineas Black, and discovers that Dumbledore used the sword to destroy a Horcrux, the Gaunts' ring. Harry suggests attempting to locate the real sword, but Ron objects, feeling that this is a pointless quest. After an argument with Harry, he leaves the group. Harry and Hermione are greatly saddened, but decide to go to Godric's Hollow on the off-chance that Dumbledore left the sword for them there.

Arriving in Godric's Hollow, the two first visit the memorial to Harry's family, then the graveyard, where both Harry and Dumbledore's families are buried. There they encounter the old woman Bathilda Bagshot, an old family friend of Dumbledore's who wrote A History of Magic. Thinking she may have been entrusted with the sword, they follow her to her house. But this is a trap; the apparent Bagshot is Nagini, Voldemort's snake familiar, and Harry and Hermione only narrowly escape from Voldemort, accidentally breaking Harry's wand; an attempt to mend it using Hermione's wand does not work.

On the run for a few more days, eventually a doe Patronus appears on the edge of their camp and leads Harry to Godric Gryffindor's sword, hidden in a frozen forest pool. Harry strips down and dives after the sword, but the locket Horcrux which Harry is carrying responds poorly and tries to strangle Harry. Ron returns and saves Harry from drowning, and also retrieves the sword from the pool. The two then destroy the Horcrux with the sword and return to camp. Hermione is less than pleased with Ron and his return, but had discovered their next step: to speak to Xenophilius Lovegood and ask him about Grindelwald's mark, a symbol which has shown up several times during their journey.

The Deathly Hallows

At Lovegood's home, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are told an old wizard story about three brothers who bested Death, and each had received a magical item for it, the three Deathly Hallows – an unbeatable wand (called the Elder Wand), a stone which could bring back the dead (the Resurrection Stone), and an Invisibility Cloak that never failed with age. Harry believes that his own cloak is that Invisibility Cloak, and is very excited, but soon discovers that Lovegood has betrayed them to the Ministry; Luna, his daughter, has been taken captive and he believes that giving them Harry Potter would cause them to free her. The trio barely escape from the wizards sent to fetch them, but Harry is emboldened and believes that they need to collect all the Deathly Hallows, these artifacts given by Death, to defeat Voldemort.

A few weeks later, the three are still no closer to finding the Deathly Hallows or more Horcruxes. They finally manage to tune into a rogue wizard radio broadcast, run by people they know which gives news on what is really happening. However, Harry accidentally says Voldemort's name and Voldemort's followers, having made the name Taboo so anyone saying it can be immediately traced, find Harry, Ron, and Hermione and capture them, taking them to Lucius Malfoy's home. There, Hermione is tortured and interrogated by Bellatrix Lestrange to find how she acquired Godric Griffindor's sword, believing it to have been stolen from her vault (Bellatrix's one is a fake), while Harry and Ron are imprisoned in the basement with Dean Thomas, Griphook the goblin, Ollivander the wand maker, and Luna Lovegood. Harry asks the broken fragment of mirror he has for help and Dobby appears to help him, freeing them. Dobby saves Dean and Ollivander, but they have made too much noise and Wormtail is sent to check on the prisoners. Harry and Ron subdue him, and Wormtail refuses to strangle Harry. Ron takes away Wormtail's wand and Wormtail's artificial hand, made by Voldemort, strangles its owner to death for the mercy he has shown. Ron and Harry, helpless to aid him, rush upstairs to save Hermione with the help of Dobby. They escape as Voldemort is close to arriving, but Dobby is slain by Bellatrix Lestrange as they flee to Shell Cottage, Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour's home.

Harry and his friends bury Dobby and begin planning anew. Harry questions Ollivander about the Elder Wand, and chooses not to try and prevent Voldemort from acquiring it from the tomb of its last owner, Dumbledore. Instead, he questions Griphook about how to break into Gringotts, and in exchange offers him the goblin made sword of Godric Gryffindor. After extensive planning, the group goes to Gringotts to see if they can find one of the Horcruxes in the Lestrange vault; Hermione poses as Bellatrix Lestrange, Ron is disguised, and Griphook and Harry go in under the Invisibility Cloak. They manage to penetrate the traps and find the Horcrux, Hufflepuff's cup, but are detected while doing so. Griphook seizes this opportunity to flee with the sword. Harry, Ron, and Hermione narrowly escape on the back of a captive dragon, but Voldemort discovers at last that they are seeking out his Horcruxes.

Harry has a vision shortly after the escape; he can see from Voldemort's eyes and hear his thoughts. Voldemort lists all the locations of the Horcruxes, realizing now they are being sought after and destroyed. Voldemort inadvertently reveals that the final Horcrux, which Harry suspects to be a relic of the founder of Ravenclaw, is safe within Hogwarts. Harry realizes that if they want to get the Horcrux within Hogwarts, they need to do so immediately, before Voldemort finds his other Horcruxes missing and puts more protection on the remaining ones.

The Second Battle of Hogwarts

At Hogsmeade, Harry, Hermione, and Ron are cornered by Death Eaters in the street, but they are saved by the quick thinking of Aberforth Dumbledore. Aberforth opens a secret passageway to Hogwarts through a portrait of his sister, where Neville Longbottom greets them.

When Harry arrives at Hogwarts, he alerts the Heads of Houses at Hogwarts to Voldemort's imminent arrival, and the younger students are evacuated for safety and the older students encouraged to stay and fight. Dumbledore's Army and subsequently members of the Order of the Phoenix are called to help.

Ron and Hermione go to the Chamber of Secrets to retrieve Basilisk fangs to be able to destroy the Hufflepuff cup Horcrux; Ron gets in by imitating Harry's Parseltongue.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron go into the Room of Requirement to look for Ravenclaw's lost diadem. Draco Malfoy and Crabbe and Goyle are also in there after the diadem. Crabbe mishandles a spell and sets on fire the centuries' accumulation of junk and items hidden there by students, and the fire destroys the diadem. Harry and his friends get away on two broomsticks which they find in there, and manage to rescue Draco and Goyle, but Crabbe cannot be found in time and dies in the fire.

Hagrid is captured by Acromantulas and later ends up a captive in the hands of the Death Eaters. Ron's estranged brother Percy Weasley arrives and reunites with his family. Just after, a Death eater kills Fred Weasley. In the same battle, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, and Colin Creevey are also killed (the exact cause is unconfirmed). Harry, Ron and Hermione manage to escape to go to the Shrieking Shack, where they see Voldemort order his snake Nagini to kill Snape, believing this will transfer the Elder Wand's power to him. As he dies from the snake bite, Snape gives up his memories to Harry, who uses the Pensieve to find out that Snape was on Dumbledore's side, motivated by his lifelong love of Lily Evans (Harry's mother). Snape was asked by Dumbledore to kill him if the situation demands it; the curse placed on the Horcrux ring (which is also the Resurrection Stone) limited Dumbledore's life, regardless. Harry also discovers that he himself is a Horcrux, and that Voldemort cannot be killed while Harry remains alive. Resigned to his fate, Harry tells Neville to kill Nagini, the snake, and goes to the Forbidden Forest where Voldemort is. Harry then uses the Resurrection Stone (hidden in the Snitch) to see his parents, Lupin, and Sirius one last time before he sacrifices himself to Voldemort and is seemingly killed by the Avada Kedavra curse.

However, Harry awakens and meets the deceased Albus Dumbledore in an enormous deserted hall, which is explained to be a sort of equivalent to King's Cross railway station. Here, it is explained he cannot die while Voldemort lives since he used Harry's blood to recreate his body, and Lily's protection binds the two. It is unclear if he actually dies, or it is merely a dream. He finds that the spell destroyed the part of Voldemort's soul he had inside himself, represented by a wounded dying creature. He also discovers that Dumbledore sought the Hallows, with Grindelwald, for less than noble reasons, resulting in the death of his sister Ariana during a duel between Albus Dumbledore, Aberforth Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Only Harry is worthy of possessing the Hallows. It is also revealed that Harry's wand reacted against Voldemort's borrowed wand because Voldemort's wand had once had the Priori Incantatem spell used on it by Harry's wand; it would have a similar reaction against Voldemort next time, even if the wand he was using was not his. Harry is given the choice of "going on", or returning to try and stop Voldemort; he chooses the latter.

Back in the forest, on Voldemort's orders, Hagrid carries Harry (seemingly dead) back to Hogwarts to much dismay and shock to those there. Bravely, Voldemort is faced down by Neville, who rejects his offer to join him and become a Death Eater. Voldemort then summons the Sorting Hat and puts it on Neville's head and sets it on fire to torture him—at that moment, the Centaurs attack. In the confusion, Harry covers himself with the invisibility cloak, and Neville kills Nagini, the last Horcrux, using Gryffindor's sword pulled from the Sorting Hat. In the ensuing battle Antonin Dolohov is killed by Filius Flitwick, Pius Thicknesse by Arthur Weasley, and Bellatrix Lestrange by Molly Weasley. Harry reveals himself to prevent Voldemort from killing Molly in retaliation. Coming face to face with Voldemort in the Great Hall, Harry is seemingly faced with impossible odds—with Voldemort possessing the Elder Wand, he cannot be beaten in a duel. However, Harry gambles correctly that Draco Malfoy was the true master of the Elder Wand, not Snape—it was Draco who had disarmed Dumbledore and thus had beaten him in a duel, while Snape was acting according to Dumbledore's wishes in killing him. Because he disarmed Malfoy, the mastery of the wand has passed to Harry. When Voldemort strikes Harry with the killing curse from the Elder Wand it rebounds and kills Voldemort. Harry decides to return the Elder Wand to Dumbledore's grave instead of keeping it for himself, though not until after using it to repair his own wand.

Epilogue

In the story's epilogue, taking place 19 years after the Second Battle of Hogwarts, Harry and Ginny Weasley are married and have three children named James, Albus Severus, and Lily. Ron and Hermione are also married and have two children named Rose and Hugo. The two families meet up at King's Cross Station when taking their children to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters for their departure to Hogwarts. Lily is too young to attend Hogwarts just yet, Albus is entering his first year at the school, and James is already an experienced Gryffindor.

At the station, Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione spot Draco Malfoy across the platform with his wife (unnamed) and his son Scorpius. Though Harry and Ron acknowledge him, it is clear that tension remains. The mischevious James catches Teddy Lupin, the son of Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks and Harry's godson, kissing Victoire, a cousin of the Weasleys. It is revealed that Neville Longbottom has become the Herbology Professor at Hogwarts. The Sorting Hat apparently survived the battle of 19 years ago or has been repaired or replaced.

Harry's scar has not hurt since the Dark Lord's defeat.

List of characters killed

This book has the longest list of named casualties of any Harry Potter book.

Character	Killed By	Cause of Death	Point of Death
Charity Burbage	Voldemort	Avada Kedavra	Gathering of Death Eaters at Malfoy Manor
Hedwig	A Death Eater	Avada Kedavra	The flight from Little Whinging
Alastor Moody	Voldemort	Avada Kedavra	The flight from Little Whinging
Ted Tonks	Snatchers	Unknown	The search for Muggles and Blood Traitors
Dirk Cresswell	Snatchers	Unknown	The search for Muggles and Blood Traitors
Gregorovitch	Voldemort	Unknown	Unknown
Rufus Scrimgeour	Voldemort	Unknown	Sometime during the course of Bill & Fleur's wedding
Grindelwald	Voldemort	Avada Kedavra	Coincides with the escape from Malfoy Manor
Bathilda Bagshot	Voldemort	Unknown	Unknown
Wormtail	His own magic silver hand	Strangulation	The escape from Malfoy Manor
Dobby	Bellatrix Lestrange	Throwing knife	The escape from Malfoy Manor
Remus Lupin	Unknown	Unknown	Second Battle of Hogwarts
Nymphadora Tonks	Unknown	Unknown	Second Battle of Hogwarts
Vincent Crabbe	Himself	Fiendfyre	Second Battle of Hogwarts
Severus Snape	Nagini	Snakebite	Second Battle of Hogwarts
Fred Weasley	Rookwood	Unknown	Second Battle of Hogwarts
Colin Creevey	Unknown	Unknown	Second Battle of Hogwarts
Nagini	Neville	Beheaded with Gryffindor's sword	Second Battle of Hogwarts
Antonin Dolohov	Professor Flitwick	Unknown spell	Second Battle of Hogwarts
Bellatrix Lestrange	Molly Weasley	Unknown spell	Second Battle of Hogwarts
Voldemort	Himself	Avada Kedavra (Spell backfire caused by Elder Wand Allegiance)	Second Battle of Hogwarts

About 50 people were killed in the Second Battle of Hogwarts, but most of their names are not given.

List of Horcruxes found

Horcrux	Destroyed by	How	Location found	Location destroyed
Tom Riddle's diary	Harry Potter	Basilisk fang	Malfoy Manor (planted by Lucius in Ginny's cauldron)	Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts
Marvolo Gaunt's ring (Resurrection Stone)	Albus Dumbledore	Godric Gryffindor's sword	The House of Gaunt	Headmaster's Office at Hogwarts
Salazar Slytherin's locket	Ron Weasley	Godric Gryffindor's sword	Cave (retrieved by Regulus, kept by Kreacher, stolen by Mundungus, bribe to Umbridge)	Forest of Dean
Helga Hufflepuff's cup	Hermione Granger	Basilisk fang	Lestrange Vault at Gringott's	Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts
Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem	Vincent Crabbe	Fiendfyre	Room of Requirement at Hogwarts	Room of Requirement at Hogwarts
Harry Potter	Voldemort	Avada Kedavra (which Harry survived, though the horcrux within was destroyed)	Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts	Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts
Nagini	Neville Longbottom	Godric Gryffindor's sword	Voldemort's shoulders	Entrance Hall at Hogwarts

The final (eighth) piece of Tom Riddle's soul remained inside Voldemort, and was destroyed by himself when a Killing Curse that he aimed at Harry reflected back at him.

Pre-release controversy

Anticipation

Rowling made a public request that anyone with advance information about the content of the last book should keep it to themselves, in order to avoid spoiling the experience for other readers. To this end, Bloomsbury invested £10m in an attempt to keep the book's contents secure until the July 21 release date. However, there was speculation that some shops would break the embargo and distribute copies of the book early, as the penalty imposed for previous installments — that the distributor would not be supplied with any further copies of the series — would no longer be a disincentive.

Online leaks

In the week prior to its release, a number of texts purporting to be genuine leaks appeared in a number of forms. On July 16, a set of photographs representing all 759 pages of the U.S. edition was leaked to the Internet and was fully transcribed prior to the official release date. One source reported that this leak came from the GameFAQs message boards, specifically "Poll of the Day", and later appeared on websites and peer-to-peer networks, leading Scholastic to seek a subpoena in order to identify the source. Scholastic described the content of the texts as "convincing" but refused to comment on their authenticity, noting only that several texts had conflicting content, with a similar reaction from the publishers. This represents the most serious security breach in the Harry Potter series' history. Rowling and her lawyer admitted that there were genuine online leaks, but they did not specify which ones they were or if the whole book was available. She requested on her site that fans ignore the online leaks and that readers do not spoil the plot for those waiting on the release on Friday night. Reviews published in both The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times on July 18, 2007 corroborated many of the plot elements from this leak, and about one day prior to release, The New York Times subsequently, correctly, confirmed that the main circulating leak was real.

Early delivery

One reader in Maryland received a copy of the book in the mail from DeepDiscount.com four days before it was launched, which evoked incredulous responses on the part of both Scholastic and DeepDiscount. Scholastic initially reported that they were satisfied it had been a "human error" and would not discuss whether they would be penalized. However, later the following day, Scholastic announced that approximately 1 ten-thousandth (0.01%) of the U.S. supply had been shipped early, constituting around 1200 copies, and that it would be launching legal action against DeepDiscount.com and its distributor, Levy Home Entertainment. Scholastic has filed for damages in Chicago's Circuit Court of Cook County, claiming that DeepDiscount engaged in a “complete and flagrant violation of the agreements that they knew were part of the carefully constructed release of this eagerly awaited book.”

Some of the early release books soon appeared on eBay, in one case being sold to Publishers Weekly for $250 from an initial price of $18.

Price Wars

In Malaysia, as Harry Potter fans awaited the July 21, 2007 release of the book, a price war brought about controversy regarding sales of the book. Four of the biggest bookstore chains in Malaysia, MPH Bookstores, Popular Bookstores, Times and Harris, have decided to pull Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows off their shelves as a protest against Tesco and Carrefour hypermarkets. The retail price of the book in Malaysia is MYR109.90 (about USD32.12), while the hypermarkets Tesco and Carrefour sell the book at MYR69.90 (about USD20.43). This is seen as a move to pressure the distributor Penguin Books to remove the books from the hypermarkets.

In the UK, supermarket Asda claimed that the retail price of the book (UKP17.99: equivalent to US$37 at the time of release) was "holding children to ransom". The publisher responded by threatening to withdraw Asda's supply of the book, claiming a previously unpaid debt [1]. Asda issued an apology and settled the debt, and its supply of the book was restored. [2]

Asda, plus several other UK supermarkets, took pre-orders for the book at a discounted price and then announced a further discount on the day before release; they finally sold the book at £5.00 (equivalent to US$10.28 at the time of release), less than the wholesale price. The book was sold as a loss leader, with the supermarkets taking a loss of just over £3 with every copy sold, but attacting large numbers of customers to their stores. Some supermarkets offered this low price only if a minimum value of other products were bought at the same time; Asda did not impose even this restriction. This attracted uproar from UK booksellers who argued they had no hope of competing in those conditions [3]; independent bookstores protested loudest, but even Waterstone’s, the UK's largest dedicated chain bookstore, could not compete with the supermarket price. Some small bookstores bought their stock from the supermarkets rather than their wholesalers. [4] Philip Wicks, a spokesman for the UK Booksellers Association, said: 'It is a war we can't even participate in. We think it's a crying shame that the supermarkets have decided to treat it as a loss-leader, like a can of baked beans." Michael Norris, an analyst at Simba Information, said: "You are not only lowering the price of the book. At this point, you are lowering the value of reading."

Tesco also lowered its price to £5, but only if customers spent another £50 in store. Morrisons later lowered its price to £4.99 - the cheapest in the UK.

Sabbath controversy in Israel

The book's early Saturday morning release in Israel was criticized for violating the Sabbath; Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai commented that "It is forbidden, according to Jewish values and Jewish culture, that a thing like this should take place at 2 a.m. on Saturday. Let them do it on another day." Yishai indicated that he would issue indictments and fines based on the Hours of Work and Rest Law.

Early critical reception

Arthur Levine, U.S. editor of the Harry Potter series, denied distributing any copies of Deathly Hallows in advance for press review.

Waiting for Harry Potter at midnight in Borders - Sunnyvale, California

On July 18, The Baltimore Sun published online the first review of the book. Writer Mary Carole McCauley, who received early access to the book, praised Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as a "classic bildungsroman, a coming-of-age tale about the maturation of the title character". She notes that "...book seven lacks much of the charm and humor that distinguished Rowling's earliest books. Even the writing is more prosaic", but then observes that given the book's darker subject matter (death), "how could it be otherwise"? An editor's note appended to the review claims that the paper acquired a hardcopy of the book "through legal and ordinary means".

Several hours later on July 18, The New York Times also posted online a positive review of the book. Critic Michiko Kakutani, who purchased the book from a retail outlet in New York City, wrote "The world of Harry Potter is a place where the mundane and the marvelous, the ordinary and the surreal coexist...and people's lives are defined by love and loss and hope — the same way they are in our own mortal world."

Ms. Kakutani's review provoked negative response from some Harry Potter fans who felt the review revealed details of the book's plot. At least one fan website called for a letter-writing campaign to The New York Times.

A representative of Bloomsbury, the UK publisher of the Harry Potter series, responded to the reviews:

As the originating publisher, we're really disappointed with what happened in the US. We're relying on the support of retailers and the media in the rest of the world to allow readers to find out for themselves. We are asking people to wait.

There's only 40 hours to go.

According to the The Washington Post, a Bloomsbury spokeswoman also "likened the events in the United States to the Boston Tea Party, a 1773 protest by American colonists against Britain."

JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, said:

I am staggered that some American newspapers have decided to publish purported spoilers in the form of reviews in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children, who wanted to reach Harry's final destination by themselves, in their own time.

I am incredibly grateful to all those newspapers, booksellers and others who have chosen not to attempt to spoil Harry's last adventure for fans.

The first person in line at the Burlington, Vermont, U.S., Barnes & Noble bookstore started reading, moments after having bought the book, under a streetlight.

In response to complaints, The New York Times books, culture and theatre editor Rick Lyman defended the decision to publish the review. He stated:

Our feeling is that once a book is offered up for sale at any public retail outlet, and we purchase a copy legally and openly, we are free to review it.

As for charges that we gave away the ending, that is simply not true. We took great care not to do so, nor to give away significant details about who lives and who dies.

On July 20, the The New York Times also stated that the main circulating leak available on the internet was indeed authentic, after comparing the book Ms. Kakutani had purchased and based her review upon with the leak's photographs.

Following the review and these subsequent statements, The New York Times received further complaints from many Harry Potter fans.

The third and last pre-release American book review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published on July 20 by the online newsmagazine Salon.com. There was no detail given on how reviewer Laura Miller obtained her copy.

Dedications and epigraphs

The Dedication of this book is split in seven ways: To Neil, to Jessica, to David, to Kenzie, to Di, to Anne, and to you, if you have stuck with Harry until the very end.

The dedication is written on several lines, and the words form the shape of Harry's scar.

Unlike the other Harry Potter books, the book is prefaced by two epigraphs, both on the themes of death and friendship. The first is from Aeschylus' The Libation Bearers, and the second is from from William Penn's More Fruits of Solitude.

After Deathly Hallows

Rowling spent seventeen years writing the seven Harry Potter books. In a 2000 interview through Scholastic, her American publisher, Rowling stated that there is not a university after Hogwarts and "I won't say "never," but I have no plans to write an eighth book."

When asked about writing other books similar to Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, she has said that she might consider doing this with proceeds donated to charity, as was the case with those two books. Another suggestion is an encyclopedia-style tome containing information that never made it into the series, also for charity.

In February 2007 Rowling issued a statement on her website about finishing the final book, in which she compared her mixed feelings of "mourning" and "incredible sense of achievement" to those expressed by Charles Dickens in the preface of the 1850 edition of David Copperfield, "a two-years' imaginative task". "To which", she added, "I can only sigh, try seventeen years, Charles..."

She continued "I've never felt such a mixture of extreme emotions in my life, never dreamed I could feel simultaneously heartbroken and euphoric." Recognising that her readers might experience similar feelings, she consoled them with the thought that "there will be plenty to continue arguing and speculating about, even after Deathly Hallows comes out." She ended her message: "'Deathly Hallows' is my favorite, and that is the most wonderful way to finish the series."

The release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows wiped more than $310m from the stock value of Bloomsbury, Rowling's publisher, as investors believed the publisher had lost their most significant product. [5]

Editions

Bloomsbury (United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, etc.)

• ISBN 0747591059 Hardcover
• ISBN 0747591075 Hardcover (special edition)

Raincoast (Canada, etc.)

• ISBN 1551929767 Hardcover
• ISBN 1551929783 Hardcover (adult edition)

Scholastic (United States, etc.)

• ISBN 0545010225 Hardcover
• ISBN 0545029376 Deluxe Hardcover

The titles of non-English editions will be translated from Harry Potter and the Relics of Death.

External links

• J.K. Rowling's Official Website
• Harry Potter at Bloomsbury.com web site U.K. publisher book information
• Harry Potter at Scholastic.com web site U.S. publisher book information
• Harry Potter at Raincoast.com web site Canadian publisher book information
• Harry Potter at Allen & Unwin web site Australia-New Zealand publisher book information