Deathly Hallows

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The Deathly Hallows are three highly powerful magical objects supposedly created by Death and given to three brothers in the Peverell family. They consisted of the Elder Wand, an immensely powerful wand coveted by generations of ambitious wizards, the Resurrection Stone, a stone which could summon the spirits of the dead, and the Cloak of Invisibility, which, as its name suggests, renders the wearer completely invisible. According to legend, he who possessed these three artifacts would become the Master of Death. Dumbledore told Harry that he and Gellert Grindelwald took this to mean that the uniter of the Deathly Hallows was invincible. The story of the Deathly Hallows was originally told by Beedle the Bard and subsequently passed from family to family as a wizards' fairy tale; the legend gives the names of the three brothers as Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus, respective bearers of the Wand, Stone, and Cloak. Harry Potter is the only known person to have owned all three Hallows at the same time, though he only had the stone and cloak on his person at any one time, as once he took physical possession of the Elder Wand, he had already dropped the Stone in the Forbidden Forest, never to be seen again. Although in Harry Potter and The Goblet of fire, the deathly hallows means nothing to Harry, but, in one scene of the Harry Potter and The Goblet of fire film, there is a scene in Dumbledore's office where there is a close up of Dumbledore. Dumbledore is standing next to a cabinet, and inside is what appears to be a 3D model of the deathly hallows sign. (A Pyramid with a line down the middle, and a ball, a 3D version of the sign)

Contents 1 History 1.1 Origin of the Hallows 1.1.1 Beedle the Bard's story 1.1.2 Reality 1.2 Movement of the Hallows 1.2.1 Antioch's murder 1.2.2 Cadmus' suicide 1.2.3 Ignotus' peace 1.2.4 Descendance 1.3 Quests for Hallows 1.3.1 Albus Dumbledore 1.3.2 Gellert Grindelwald 1.3.3 Harry Potter 1.3.3.1 Cloak of Invisibility 1.3.3.2 Resurrection Stone 1.3.3.3 Elder Wand 1.4 History of the Elder Wand 1.5 Current whereabouts 1.5.1 The Elder Wand 1.5.2 The Resurrection Stone 1.5.3 The Cloak of Invisibility 2 See also 3 Behind the scenes 4 Notes and references

[edit] History

[edit] Origin of the Hallows

[edit] Beedle the Bard's story

In The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the author presents his story of the Hallows as the following:

Hundreds of years ago, the three Peverell brothers were travelling at twilight, and reached a river too dangerous to traverse. The three brothers, being very powerful wizards, simply created a bridge across the river. They were then stopped by Death himself, who was displeased that they had gotten across the river, thus cheating him out of new victims. Death then congratulated them on being clever enough to evade him, and offered each of them a powerful magical item. The first brother, Antioch Peverell, wished to become invincible in duels; Death broke a branch off a nearby tree and created for him the Elder Wand, a wand more powerful than any other in existance. The second brother, Cadmus Peverell, wished to resurrect his lost love; Death took a stone from the riverbed and created for him the Resurrection Stone, a stone capable of bringing the dead back to the living world. The third brother, Ignotus Peverell, realised the danger of the situation and requested a means by which Death could not find him; Death grudgingly gave him the cloak off his back, the Cloak of Invisibility, an invisibility cloak that never lost its power through curses or age. The three objects, the cloak, the wand and the stone, made up the Deathly Hallows.

[edit] Reality

Instead of being rewards for their cleverness, the Deathly Hallows were actually part of a cunning plan by Death to kill off the Peverells so he could take them for his own. However, Albus Dumbledore felt that it was more likely that the Hallows were actually created by the extremely talented and powerful brothers, and that the story of their origins as objects fashioned by Death sprang up around them as result of the powers they possessed.

[edit] Movement of the Hallows

[edit] Antioch's murder

In time, the brothers went their seperate ways. Antioch Peverell travelled to a wizarding village where he boasted of the Elder Wand in his posession. He was subsequently murdered in his sleep by a wizard hoping to take the wand for himself.^[1]

[edit] Cadmus' suicide

Cadmus travelled back home and used the Resurrection Stone to bring back the woman he loved, but was dismayed to find that it was only a pale imitation of her: the dead did not truly belong in the living world. In the end, Cadmus killed himself so he could truly join her. ^[1]

[edit] Ignotus' peace

Ignotus used the cloak to remain hidden from Death for a long time. When he was an old man, he passed the cloak onto his son, and went willingly with Death to the next world. ^[1]

[edit] Descendance

The cloak continued to be passed down through the descendants of the Peverells (although the name became extinct in the male line). The wand passed from wizard to wizard, nearly always by the murder of its previous owner. The stone was also passed down through the Peverells' descendents. It eventually ended up in the posession of the Gaunt family, and was later stolen by Tom Marvolo Riddle, neither Tom nor Marvolo Gaunt were aware of the powers of the stone, nor that it was a Hallow. Marvolo was solely concerned with the "noble origins" of the stone, made into a ring, and thought that the Hallows symbol on it was the family coat of arms. Lord Voldemort could not have been aware of the stone's true origin either, as he transformed the stone into a Horcrux.

[edit] Quests for Hallows

The Hallows played a particularly important role in the lives of Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald, and Harry Potter.

[edit] Albus Dumbledore

In his youth, Albus Dumbledore, along with soon-to-become Dark wizard Grindelwald, entertained dreams of finding and appropriating the Hallows for himself. This quest for power also manifested itself in his vision of a future where wizards would rule over and control Muggles "for the greater good". Dumbledore rejected this philosophy soon after he met Grindelwald, when a family argument caused him to revise and reconsider his beliefs after the death of his sister.^[2] Up until his death, he never trusted himself with power, refusing the post of Minister for Magic three times - yet his yearning to find the Hallows never left him. After his sister Ariana died, Dumbledore sought out the Resurrection Stone in the hopes that finding it would somehow revive his dead sister and parents. Thus when he chanced upon it sometime in 1996, when it had already been turned into a Horcrux by Voldemort, the temptation proved too much to handle and he put on the ring, invoking a terrible curse Voldemort had placed which caused his right hand to wither and die. Only when the curse was broken by Gryffindor's sword did the stone revert back to its normal state.^[HP6] Dumbledore also came into possession of the Cloak of Invisibility when he borrowed it from its owner, James Potter, a descendant of Ignotus Peverell. It was he who passed the Cloak on to James' son, Harry, to whom it proved to be a useful tool in defeating Voldemort and his allies. He also gave to Harry the Resurrection Stone, by means of the Snitch Harry had caught in his first ever Quidditch match.

[edit] Gellert Grindelwald

During a holiday spent with his aunt at Godric's Hollow, Gellert Grindelwald met Albus Dumbledore, and with him he sparked his desire for the Hallows.^[2] In his later life, Grindelwald gained possession of the Elder Wand by stealing it off the wandmaker known as Gregorovitch. Upon duelling Dumbledore sometime in the 1940s, Grindelwald lost, and thus lost possession of the wand. Decades later, in 1998, Lord Voldemort attempted to find out what had happened to the wand by visiting Grindelwald at his cell in Nurmengard. However, Grindelwald denied ever possessing the hallow, and was murdered by Voldemort.

[edit] Harry Potter

Upon hearing the Tale of the Three Brothers, Harry Potter wished to unite the Hallows to become the Master of Death and ultimately defeat Lord Voldemort. He dismissed this idea however, as he knew that the late Albus Dumbledore wished for him to destroy the Horcruxes in order to beat the Dark Lord. Harry did possess each of the Hallows eventually, for a short amount of time. ^[2]

[edit] Cloak of Invisibility

Without realizing it, Harry Potter possessed one of the Hallows from the age of 11, the Cloak of Invisibilty. The latter was rightfully his, and should have been passed down to him from his father, James Potter, had he not been murdered. Harry is a living descendant of the third brother, Ignotus Peverell.

[edit] Resurrection Stone

Upon his death, Albus Dumbledore left the Resurrection Stone to Harry in his will. It was disguised inside a Snitch, the first one Harry had ever caught in a Quidditch match.^[3] On the Snitch was engraved the words ' I open at the close ', in order to open it Harry said " I'm going to die ". This he did before confronting Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters in the Forbidden Forest during the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry used it to "bring back" and talk to his mother, his father, Remus Lupin and his godfather, Sirius Black. Harry dropped the stone later in the forest ^[2], and never told anyone (besides Dumbledore's portrait) so that nobody would seek it. In a recent interview, Rowling said she would like to believe that a centaur's hoof pushed it into the ground, burying it forever.

[edit] Elder Wand

Without realising until later, Harry became the master of the Elder Wand when he defeated Draco Malfoy during the Battle of Malfoy Manor in 1998. The wand recognised him as its master whilst Harry dueled Lord Voldemort during the Battle of Hogwarts, even though Harry had never even touched it before. Harry did not want the wand, he only used it to repair his thence broken Holly and Phoenix feather wand.^[2] Once this deed was accomplished, Harry replaced the wand in the tomb of Albus Dumbledore.

[edit] History of the Elder Wand

Main article: Elder Wand

Of the Elder Wand, only its recent history is available. Celebrated Bulgarian wandmaker Gregorovitch had obtained and kept the wand for some time to study and eventually copy its magical powers in his own wands. Sometime in the middle of the 20th century, a young Grindelwald stole and took the wand for his own. The wand switched hands yet again when, in one of the most famous duels of the wizarding world, Dumbledore fought and defeated Grindelwald. Dumbledore used the wand wisely, never for his own gain but for the betterment of the wizarding and Muggle communities, and so managed to avoid incurring the misfortune the Elder Wand was supposed to bring.

In 1996, Dumbledore was overpowered by Draco Malfoy, and subsequently killed by Severus Snape. Though neither of them took the wand (it was laid to rest with the Headmaster's body), the magic in it caused it to recognize one of them as its new master. Therefore when Voldemort stole the wand from the tomb, it did not work its legendary wonders for him as it was supposed to. Supposing that Snape was the new master of the wand, having killed Dumbledore, Voldemort executed him in order to let the ownership pass to himself. Yet again he made a fatal oversight: he had no way of knowing that, as that boy had been the one to overpower Dumbledore, Draco Malfoy was the next master of the wand, and that, having defeated Draco in turn some months later, Harry Potter was its current owner. Having failed to consider these factors, Voldemort attempted to kill Potter using the wand but failed - the wand would never harm or kill its owner. In the climactic duel that concluded the Battle of Hogwarts, the Elder Wand recognized its rightful master and, instead of killing him, backfired upon Voldemort, killing him and making Potter the only person to have survived the Killing Curse -thrice over, having survived it for the second time earlier that day.^[HP7]

[edit] Current whereabouts

[edit] The Elder Wand

As Harry Potter had no intention of using the Elder Wand for his own purposes (having achieved his goal of defeating Voldemort), he only used it to restore his own broken wand. He then returned the Elder Wand to the grave of Albus Dumbledore, supposing that, if he died of natural causes without leaving behind an heir, its power would finally be broken, and its bloody history along with it.

[edit] The Resurrection Stone

The Resurrection Stone was lost somewhere in the Forbidden Forest near Aragog's lair, where Harry intended it to remain. J. K. Rowling later revealed that a centaur pressed it into the ground by stomping on it as the herd charged to help in the fight against Voldemort.

[edit] The Cloak of Invisibility

As for the Cloak of Invisibility, Harry remarked to Dumbledore's portrait that he would be keeping it for himself and his family ^[HP7]; it is most likely still is with him to this day.

[edit] See also

• The Tale of the Three Brothers
• The Tales of Beedle the Bard
• Peverell brothers
• Antioch Peverell
• Cadmus Peverell
• Ignotus Peverell
• Elder Wand
• Resurrection Stone
• Cloak of Invisibility
• Master of Death
• Albus Dumbledore
• Gellert Grindelwald
• Harry Potter

[edit] Behind the scenes

• The three Deathly Hallows bear similarities to the three treasures of the Imperial Regalia of Japan:
  • The Elder Wand represents the Kusanagi Sword, as the wand is somewhat of a "sword" for a wizard in general. Both were also used to kill a snake-like villain (the wand killed Voldemort while the Kusanagi killed the Orochi).
  • The Resurrection Stone represents the Yasakani Jewel, as the stone is somewhat of a "jewel" with special powers.
  • The Invisibility Cloak represents the Yata Mirror, as the cloak is somewhat of a "mirror", deflecting the wearer's visibility.

[edit] Notes and references