Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Har­ry Pot­ter And the Death­ly Hal­lows By J.K. Rowl­ing The ded­ica­tion of this book is split 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. Oh, the tor­ment bred in the race, the grind­ing scream of death and the stroke that hits the vein, the haem­or­rhage none can staunch, the grief, the curse no man can bear. But there is a cure in the house and not out­side it, no, not from oth­ers but from them, their bloody strife. We sing to you, dark gods be­neath the earth. Now hear, you bliss­ful pow­ers un­der­ground – an­swer the call, send help. Bless the chil­dren, give them tri­umph now. Aeschy­lus, The Lib­er­ation Bear­ers Death is but cross­ing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one an­oth­er still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is om­nipresent. In this di­vine glass they see face to face; and their con­verse is free, as well as pure. This is the com­fort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows CHAPTER NINETEEN THE SIL­VER DOE It was snow­ing by the time Hermione took over the watch at mid­night. Har­ry's dreams were con­fused and dis­turb­ing: Nagi­ni wove in and out of them, first through a wreath of Christ­mas ros­es. He woke re­peat­ed­ly, pan­icky, con­vinced that some­body had called out to him in the dis­tance, imag­in­ing that the wind whip­ping around the tent was foot­steps or voic­es. Fi­nal­ly he got up in the dark­ness and joined Hermione, who was hud­dled in the en­trance to the tent read­ing A His­to­ry of Mag­ic by the light of her wand. The snow was falling thick­ly, and she greet­ed with re­lief his sug­ges­tion of pack­ing up ear­ly and mov­ing on. “We'll some­where more shel­tered,” she agreed, shiv­er­ing as she pulled on a sweat­shirt over her pa­ja­mas. “I kept think­ing I could hear peo­ple mov­ing out­side. I even though I saw some­body one or twice.” Har­ry paused in the act of pulling on a jumper and glanced at the silent, mo­tion­less Sneako­scope on the ta­ble. “I'm sure I imag­ined it,” said Hermione, look­ing ner­vous. “The snow the dark, it plays tricks on your eyes.... But per­haps we ought to Dis­ap­pa­rate un­der the In­vis­ibil­ity Cloak, just in case?” Half an hour lat­er, with the tent packed, Har­ry wear­ing the Hor­crux, and Hermione clutch­ing the bead­ed bag, they Dis­ap­pa­rat­ed. The usu­al tight­ness en­gulfed them; Har­ry's feet part­ed com­pa­ny with the snowy ground, then slammed hard on­to what felt like frozen earth cov­ered in leaves. “Where are we?” he asked, peer­ing around at the fresh mass of trees as Hermione opened the bead­ed bag and be­gan tug­ging out the tent poles. “The For­est of Dean,” she said, “I came camp­ing here once with my mum and dad.” Here too snow lay on the trees

and Har­ry walked along­side it, watch­ing his son's thin face, al­ready ablaze with ex­cite­ment. Har­ry kept smil­ing and wav­ing, even though it was like a lit­tle be­reave­ment, watch­ing his son glide away from him. . . . The last trace of steam evap­orat­ed in the au­tumn air. The train round­ed a cor­ner. Har­ry's hand was still raised in farewell. “He'll be al­right,” mur­mured Gin­ny. As Har­ry looked dat her, he low­ered his hand ab­sent­mind­ed­ly and touched the light­ning scar on his fore­head. “I know he will.” The scar had not pained Har­ry for nine­teen years. All was well. -The End-