THIS POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. BE WARNED!

It’s hard to put into words why I enjoy the Harry Potter series. I’ve been getting criticized a lot lately, mostly from coworkers, for my enjoyment of the series. “It’s a children’s series!” they say, but for most of them, I’d be surprised if they ever read fiction. Me? I read a lot of fiction. When I buy a house, having a room set aside as a library is, I think, going to be a top priority. As an avid reader, and as having the added bonus of being an English major, I think I can say with some authority that the Harry Potter series is some of the most compelling fiction I’ve ever read. There’s not much childish about a series of books that begins with the attempted murder of a baby; a series in which treachery and cruelty and death play such large and important roles. Character development is top notch. The plot is so involved and detailed it defies description. Harry Potter may be marketed as a children’s series of books, but if they are indeed children’s books, then our children are far, far smarter than the adult who picks up a John Grishman novel.

Looking back, it’s almost as if JK Rowling was trying to toughen up her audience for the onslaught of death in this final installment. Cedric Diggory in Goblet of Fire, Sirius Black in Order of the Phoenix, Albus Dumbledore and a miscellaneous Death Eater or two in The Half-Blood Prince. And then we get to the Deathly Hallows, and the deaths start early and keep on coming — Hedwig, Mad-Eye Moody, Dobby the Free Elf, Fred Weasley, Tonks, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape. Even Colin Creevey falls in the end, where his camera lands, nobody knows.

Yet, throughout everything, for this is the darkest book of the series by far, the book still manages to keep that impish humor that is always so wonderful, and here, so excellent: ‘”GET BACK!” shouted Ron, and he, Harry, and Hermoine flattened themselves against a door as a herd of galloping desks thundered past, shepherded by a sprinting Professor McGonagall. She appeared not to notice them: Her hair had come down and there was a gash on her cheek. As she turned the corner, they heard her scream, “CHARGE!“‘

There are some truly terrifying moments in this book. The bottom of page 736, “and suddenly Harry knew what was going to happen before it did.” Flashback to the death of Sirius Black in Order of the Phoenix for me, I didn’t, for a moment, think it would turn out the way it did. I’m grateful I was wrong.

This is what I wanted to see: I wanted to see Harry make some sort of loving, family connection with the Dursleys. I wanted to see the redemption of Draco Malfoy. I wanted Snape to turn out to be a good guy. In a way, I got all of these things, although certainly not in the way I expected.

It isn’t Petunia who reaches out to Harry, although she was certainly the one I expected to. Rather, it is Dudley, grateful for being saved from the Dementors back in Book V, who extends a Dursleyish hand of friendship — as Harry explains, for a Dursley to say “I don’t think you’re a waste of space” is pretty much the same thing as “I love you.” As for Petunia, Harry has yet another reason to hate Severus Snape: he played a key role in her hatred and suspicion of magical society.

As for the Malfoys, it is once again that powerful concept of love which thwarts Voldemort. He underestimates the Malfoys’ love and concern for their son, whose fate in Hogwarts is endangered by the Dark Lord. When Narcissa kneels beneath the seemingly dead Harry, her thoughts are not for the success or future of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but for her son. “Is he alive?” she whispers to Harry, motivated not by power, not by fear, but by love. As for Draco, I hoped for more from him. I hoped he would take an active role in opposing the Dark Lord, sadly, he does not. I guess he can’t be blamed for being his father’s son, although one would’ve hoped he’d not give his own son such a strange and evil name. However, I suspect if JK Rowling ever does write a series of books about the adventures of Harry’s and Ginny’s and Hermoine’s and Ron’s and Draco’s kids at Hogwarts, Scorpius Malfoy would be a very different boy than Draco. Perhaps the adult Draco would produce an offspring closer in spirit to Neville Longbottom than Lucius’ young child.

The most gratifying part of the book, for me, revolved around Severus Snape, who ended the last book killing Albus Dumbledore and fleeing the Hogwarts grounds to reunite with Voldemort. There’s no reason to love the hook-nosed professor at the beginning of Deathly Hallows: a curse he fires slices George Weasley’s ear off. But, as in all of JK Rowling’s novels, there is more to a person’s actions than what appears on the surface. I speak of the Pensive sequence. Snape, by this point, is already dead — killed by Voldemort’s snake Nagini. Lying in the Shrieking Shack, Snape holds onto life long enough to pass over parts of his memory to Harry, who is then able to view them in the Pensive in the Headmaster’s office. Here, we learn that Severus Snape was, in fact, acting under Dumbledore’s orders when he fired the “Avada Kedavara!” curse at him atop the Astronomy Tower the year before. When Dumbledore begged at the end of that book “Severus … please …” he wasn’t pleading for his apparently treacherous Defense Against the Dark Arts Instructor to save him, rather the reverse, in a flashback conversation between the two regarding Draco’s plan to assassinate the Hogwarts headmaster: “You must kill me,” in order for Draco’s soul to be saved. Snape had, in fact, betrayed Lilly and James Potter to Voldemort, and the fear of what that meant drove him to Dumbledore. After they died, the desire to protect Harry — for Lilly, Snape’s one and only true love — was his only motivation, but he demands this be kept a secret. ‘”My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?” Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Snape’s ferocious, anguished face. “If you insist…”‘

I may, in fact, have teared up when Harry, nineteen years in the future, explains to his son, leaving for Hogwarts for his first year and afraid of being sorted into Slytherin house: “You were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.”

Voldemort dies, of course, a victim of his own poor grasp on ancient magic. Despite that death, this is not a happy book. There is much sorrow. There is much loss, compounded, perhaps, that for we fans, this is the last we’ll see of Harry Potter and the magical world JK Rowling created. Once the Dark Lord is defeated, and this is perhaps my biggest complaint of the book, we almost immediately jump forward nineteen years. I feel almost as if the book could’ve used more of a conclusion, more of a window into the world in which we’ve now been absent for so many years … but alas!

There is, of course, a happy ending (at least something is happy about this book) for Harry to live to have a child: Percy reunites with his family prior to the Battle of Hogwarts and shields his fallen brother’s body. It is Molly Weasley, that plump housewife with the wickedly vicious wand, who defeats Bellatrix Lestrange. Neville proved himself a true Gryffindor, by pulling Godric’s sword from the sorting hat and slaying the final Horcrux. He will eventually become Professor of Herbology at Hogwarts. Draco and Harry nod at each not unfriendly on the 9 3/4 platform at King’s Cross. Hermoine and Ron marry: they have two children, Rose and Hugo.

As for Harry Potter, “The Boy Who Lives”, he marries Ginny Weasley. They have three children, James, Lilly, and the aforementioned Albus Severus. Harry Potter’s scar has not hurt for nineteen years.

All is well.