Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?

Question

I AM SOOOOO EXCITED! great title by the way!
do you think harry will die?

Answer 1

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Clues to Harry's Ancestry and Destiny
by Phyllis D. Morris [author biography]



When Harry learns that Professor Trelawney’s prediction could have led Voldemort to target Neville Longbottom instead of himself, he cries: “But he might have chosen wrong! … He might have marked the wrong person!”1 It was at this point that I was fully prepared for the revelation that Voldemort chose Harry because he is the last remaining descendant of Godric Gryffindor. I had been waiting for this revelation ever since Dumbledore informed us in PoA that Trelawney had previously made one other real prediction.2 I had been sure the first real prediction would reveal that Voldemort attacked Harry as a baby in order to destroy the last remaining Gryffindor, and Harry’s observation (while waiting for Dumbledore to complete the story of the prophecy) that “the glass case in which the sword of Godric Gryffindor resided gleamed white and opaque”3 only served to heighten my anticipation.

However, my hopes were instantly dashed when Dumbledore replied:

“He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him … And notice this, Harry: he chose, not the pure-blood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing) but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you…”4

So much for the heir of Gryffindor theory, I thought. But then I thought some more. And the more I thought, the more I could see that, in her usual, clever, creative way, J.K. Rowling may have left a way for the heir of Gryffindor theory to survive after all.



The Ancient Feud

The griffin that Gryffindor’s name is presumably based upon is a “mythical creature, with the head, wings and talons of an eagle and the body and hind legs of a lion.”5 Appropriately, the symbol of Gryffindor house is a lion. In addition, the griffin was considered to be an “adversary of serpents and basilisks, both of which were seen as embodiments of satanic demons.”6 One doesn’t have to look hard to figure out who is represented by the serpent and basilisk in the Harry Potter series. The symbol of Slytherin house is a serpent; both Slytherin and Voldemort, the heir of Slytherin, speak Parseltongue (snake language) and the monster in the Chamber of Secrets, that can only be controlled by Voldemort (the heir of Slytherin), is a basilisk.

In CoS , we learn for the first time that there was conflict between Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor regarding admitting students to Hogwarts who were not pure-blood witches and wizards. Professor Binns refers to a “serious argument … between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school.”7 We learn that Slytherin and Gryffindor’s conflict was more severe than originally alluded to by Binns when the Sorting Hat’s song in OotP references “duelling and … fighting/And the clash of friend on friend.”8

The past battles between Slytherin and Gryffindor are continued in the present day by the current conflict between Voldemort (heir of Slytherin) and Harry (heir of Gryffindor). The symbolism is the clearest in CoS , when Harry is fighting Slytherin’s monster that can now only be controlled by Slytherin’s heir, Voldemort. Harry is aided in his defeat of the basilisk when Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix, brings him the Sorting Hat (that we learn in GoF once belonged to Gryffindor). Harry is only able to kill the basilisk once he discovers Godric Gryffindor’s sword within the hat. Hence, the griffin (Gryffindor/Harry) defeats the serpent (Slytherin/Voldemort).

This battle could also be a clue to Fawkes’ past history as well. In the Chamber of Secrets, Fawkes brings Harry two of Gryffindor’s possessions—his hat and sword. Could Fawkes have been one of Gryffindor’s possessions in the past as well? Fawkes is scarlet and gold—the colours of Gryffindor House. Fawkes lives in Dumbledore’s office, along with Gryffindor’s hat (now the Sorting Hat) and sword. The preponderance of items in Dumbledore’s office that once belonged to Gryffindor, in addition to the griffin-shaped knocker on Dumbledore’s office door, suggest that Dumbledore’s office may have once been Gryffindor’s office. Perhaps Fawkes, with his ability to resurrect himself from the ashes of his elderly body, has been an inhabitant of that office since Gryffindor’s time.

If Fawkes was in fact once Gryffindor’s phoenix, it would explain why the organization fighting Voldemort is called the Order of the Phoenix . In a parallel to the good-against-evil battle between Gryffindor and Slytherin 1,000 years ago, the Order of (Gryffindor’s) Phoenix fought (heir of Slytherin) Voldemort during his first reign of terror, and returns to fight him once more after his regeneration. Fawkes, as symbolic of Gryffindor himself, swallows Voldemort’s death curse at the end of OotP, thus preserving the founder of the Order (Dumbledore) as well as protecting Gryffindor’s heir (Harry).

The likely connection between Fawkes and Gryffindor strengthens the theory that Harry is a descendant of Gryffindor. As Mr. Ollivander tells Harry, “The wand chooses the wizard,”9 and the wand that chooses Harry has one of Fawkes’ tail feathers in it. Moreover, when Harry first waves his wand in PS, red and gold sparks (the colours of Gryffindor House) fly from its tip, and red and gold sparks shoot out of his wand in his anger at Uncle Vernon after the Dementor attack in the beginning of OotP.



Clues in the Name “Godric”

It is not until CoS that we learn the first names of the founders of the four Hogwarts houses, when Professor Binns reluctantly tells the History of Magic class about the legend of the Chamber of Secrets.10 Professor Binns informs the class that Gryffindor’s first name was “Godric.”11

The name Godric is already familiar to us from PS, when Professor McGonagall asks Professor Dumbledore to confirm the rumour that Voldemort killed Lily and James Potter when he found them “in Godric’s Hollow.”12 When Rowling was asked during a Fall, 2000 BBC Newsround interview to explain “The significance of the place where Harry and his parents lived, the first name—,” Rowling replied: “Godric Gryffindor. Very good, you’re a bit good, aren’t you?”13 and then went on to say:

I’m impressed. My editor didn’t notice. I said to her, haven’t you noticed any connection between where Harry’s parents were born, not born, where they lived and one of the Hogwarts houses and she’s sitting there going erm, I’m not being rude about Emma she’s brilliant editor, the best I’ve ever had. But no, she didn’t pick that up either. You’re a bit good you are.14

This interview fragment indicates that the name Godric is significant, and that this name connects Godric Gryffindor with the place where Lily and James Potter lived when they were murdered.



St. Godric and the Stag

There is a saint named Godric (also known as Godric of Finchale) who lived in England from 1069 - 1170. St. Godric is “noted for his close familiarity with wild animals” and is represented in art as a “very old hermit dressed in white, kneeling on grass and holding a rosary, with a stag by him.”15 There are numerous legends connecting St. Godric with stags. In the legend of St. Godric and the Hunted Stag, a hunting party is pursuing a particularly beautiful stag that runs to St. Godric’s hermitage for shelter. St. Godric lets the stag in, but the hunting party follows the stag’s tracks and cuts through “the well-nigh impenetrable brushwood of thorns and briars”16 to find St. Godric. They ask St. Godric where the stag is, but “he would not be the betrayer of his guest.”17

The “well-nigh impenetrable brushwood of thorns and briars”18 in the legend of St. Godric and the Hunted Stag parallels the privet hedge that protects Harry from Voldemort when he is with the Dursleys. This legend also parallels the workings of the Fidelius Charm, with St. Godric as the stag’s Secret-Keeper. By refusing to tell the hunters where to find the stag, St. Godric keeps the stag’s whereabouts a secret and thereby protects the stag from death.

Ancient Christians considered the stag to be the enemy of the serpent, and used the stag as a symbol for Christ.19 Thus, the name Godric Gryffindor blends together the symbolism of two animals in opposition to the serpent and basilisk (i.e., Slytherin/Voldemort) — the stag and the griffin.

The stag is the Patronus form that Harry conjures. That the stag is yet another clue to Harry’s connection with Gryffindor via St. Godric is supported by the Medieval Latin definition of patronus as “patron saint.”20 It is also interesting to note that the stag was associated with healing, and a person bearing the symbol of a stag was “considered impervious to weapons.”21 Thus, the stag is a fitting animal to ward off a Dementor attack.



Other St. Godric-Harry Connections

When St. Godric became a hermit, he “is said to have been troubled by fiends and demons who took various shapes and forms.”22 Harry is particularly troubled by the Dementors, and his boggart takes the form of a Dementor. It is the stag Patronus that saves Harry from the Dementor’s Kiss - the very animal that was saved by St. Godric.

St. Godric had supernatural visions,23 and Harry also has visions. In a dream about Professor Quirrell’s turban, he hears a high, cold laugh and sees a “burst of green light.”24 We learn in PoA (when Harry relives his mother’s death as the Dementors approach) that Voldemort’s laugh is high and cold, and we learn in GoF that the Avada Kedavra curse Voldemort used to kill Lily and James Potter emits a green light when cast. Thus, Harry’s dream reveals the link between Quirrell and Voldemort, even before he is aware that Voldemort is beneath Quirrell’s turban.

In PoA, before he becomes aware that his Patronus is a stag, Harry dreams that:

He was walking through a forest, his Firebolt over his shoulder, following something silvery white. It was winding its way through the trees ahead, and he could only catch glimpses of it between the leaves. Anxious to catch up with it, he sped up, but as he moved faster, so did his quarry. Harry broke into a run and ahead, he heard hooves gathering speed. Now he was running flat out, and ahead he could hear galloping.25

When Harry casts the Patronus charm at the end of PoA to save his past self, Sirius and Hermione from the Dementors, he finally sees his Patronus, “a blinding, dazzling, silver animal”26 that gallops and has hooves—the stag. His dream, then, was about his own Patronus, whose form was unknown to him at the time of his dream.

During his first night at Number 12, Grimmauld Place , Harry dreams that:

… many legged-creatures were cantering softly up and down outside the bedroom door, and Hagrid the Care of Magical Creatures teacher was saying, ‘Beauties, aren’ they, eh, Harry? We’ll be studyin’ weapons this term …’ and Harry saw that the creatures had cannons for heads and were wheeling to face him … he ducked …27

Harry’s vision tells him he is the person whom Voldemort plans to use the weapon he is seeking against, long before Harry learns this as a fact.

St. Godric wrote songs that came to him in his visions. The St. Godric Songs are the “earliest known songs in the English language.”28 Is it any wonder, then, that the Sorting Hat that Godric Gryffindor “whipped … off his head”29 sings a new song at the start of each year at Hogwarts?

St. Godric was not always saintly. Before he became religious, “he was known to drink, fight, chase women and con customers. Even when he became religious, he had to struggle to control his impulses. He would stand in icy waters to control his lust.”30 Harry has the choice between good and evil in the face of temptation, and much like St. Godric, he chooses good (despite “a certain disregard for rules”31). As Professor Dumbledore tells Harry, “It is our choices … that show what we truly are,”32 so do both Harry and St. Godric show us that, by choosing good over evil, one can make a positive difference in the lives of others.



St. Cuthbert-Harry Connections

It was the life of St. Cuthbert that influenced St. Godric to become religious. St. Cuthbert, like Harry, was an orphan. St. Cuthbert “lived in an area of vast solitude, of wild moors.”33 The Sorting Hat tells us in GoF that Godric Gryffindor was also “from wild moor.”34 There is only one character so far in the series with the name Cuthbert — Cuthbert Mockridge, Head of the Goblin Liaison Office, who is mentioned in passing before the start of the Quidditch World Cup in GoF.35 Goblins, and possibly Cuthbert Mockridge’s role in liaising with them, may play a larger role in Books Six and Seven, especially in light of the amount of time Professor Binns has spent on the subject of goblin rebellions in Harry’s History of Magic classes, and in light of what we learn in OotP about goblins having been historically repressed by wizards.

In one of the legends about St. Cuthbert, when Cuthbert went to the beach to pray, sea otters would try to dry his feet with their fur and warm his feet with their breath. After St. Cuthbert blessed them, the otters returned to the sea.36 There are several references to otters and their relatives in the books — the Weasley’s house is near the village of Ottery St. Catchpole; the Weasleys, Diggorys, Hermione and Harry find the Portkey to the Quidditch World Cup at the top of Stoatshead Hill; Hagrid makes inedible stoat sandwiches and, of course, the weasel in the name Weasley.

When Rowling was asked in an interview: “Does the animal one turns into as an Animagi reflect your personality?” she responded: “Very well deduced … I personally would like to think that I would transform into an otter, which is my favourite animal.37 In OotP, we learn that Hermione’s Patronus takes the form of an otter, which makes sense, since Rowling has said,”When I started to write Hermione, when I actually got hold of a pen, she came incredibly easily, um, largely because she’s me.”38 As St. Godric is represented in art with a stag by his side, St. Cuthbert is represented in art tended by otters and swans. With Hermione’s Patronus an otter and Cho Chang’s Patronus a swan, perhaps Hermione and Cho will play a role in Harry’s revival in future books.

Harry even looks like St. Godric. St. Godric is described as having black hair “in youth … his knees hardened and horny with frequent kneeling.”39 When we first meet Harry, he is described as having “knobbly knees” and “black hair.”40 Harry’s father James also looks like St. Godric. When Harry first looks into the Mirror of Erised, he sees his father for the first time since babyhood, a “black-haired man.”41 Harry also sees “a little old man who looked as though he had Harry’s knobbly knees.”42 Could the little old man with the knobbly knees Harry sees in the mirror be Godric Gryffindor himself?

Professor Dumbledore tells Harry when he sees Godric Gryffindor’s name emblazoned on the silver sword Harry used to kill the basilisk: “Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat.”43 Since the many connections between Harry and the life of St. Godric support the theory that Harry is a descendant of Godric Gryffindor, Harry is surely the truest Gryffindor of all.



Voldemort’s Choice

The stag is also the form Harry’s father takes when he transforms into an Animagus. Given the connection between St. Godric and stags, this could be a clue that Harry’s descent from Godric Gryffindor is on his father’s side. As Harry tells us in CoS , he doesn’t “know anything about his father’s family,”44 and so, therefore, neither do we. We are following Harry on a quest to find himself and his destiny, and on the way, he’s discovering his ancestry. Dumbledore attempts to explain this to Harry at the end of PoA when he says, “So you did see your father last night, Harry… you found him inside yourself.”45 Harry’s stag Patronus is therefore the physical manifestation of James being “alive in you, Harry”46 and the outward expression of the descent of both James and Harry from Godric Gryffindor.

If James was a descendant of Godric Gryffindor, it would explain why Voldemort was initially only interested in killing James and Harry during the attack in Godric’s Hollow, and why Voldemort was prepared to spare Lily. We learn in OotP that Voldemort went to kill Harry based on the incomplete information in Professor Trelawney’s first prediction. While Dumbledore explains that Voldemort chose Harry rather than Neville because he “saw himself”47 in Harry, I maintain this is Dumbledore’s own speculation rather than a fact. Unless Voldemort had confided his rationale to Dumbledore (which is highly improbable, since we know of no instance since Voldemort’s attack on Harry when he and Dumbledore have had a private conversation), Dumbledore would have no way of knowing why Voldemort chose Harry rather than Neville. I believe Voldemort knew that James and Harry were Gryffindor’s descendants, which would explain why he viewed Harry as the greater threat (given the past feuding between Gryffindor and Slytherin), and why he would also have wanted James dead.

It is possible Dumbledore also knows that Harry is Gryffindor’s heir, and that this piece of knowledge is being saved up for a dramatic revelation in one of the remaining two books. It is also possible Dumbledore does not know this information. While Dumbledore appears all-knowing and infallible throughout the books, there are key pieces of information of which he is unaware (the existence of the Marauder’s Map comes immediately to mind), and he does make mistakes (for instance, he was the one who hired Gilderoy Lockhart).



The Philosopher’s Stone and the Alchemical Great Work

So if Harry really is a Gryffindor’s heir, what does this mean for the series? Before I answer that question, I need to explain the alchemical basis for the books. The use of the term “Philosopher’s Stone” in the title of the Bloomsbury editions of PS immediately tells us that Rowling is using alchemical symbolism. In alchemy, the Philosopher’s Stone “was viewed as a magical touchstone that could immediately perfect any substance or situation. The Philosopher’s Stone has been associated with the salt of the world, the astral body, the elixir, and even Jesus Christ.”48

Dumbledore’s Chocolate Frog card says “Professor Dumbledore is particularly famous for … his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel.” Hermione later discovers that “Nicolas Flamel … is the only known maker of the Philosopher’s Stone!”49 Rowling isn’t making this up — there really was a person named Nicholas Flamel who lived in France in the middle of the fourteenth century, who could (legend has it) use alchemy to make gold from other materials, and who was on a life-long quest to find the Philosopher’s Stone.50

Alchemy is “the study of the transformative processes involved in the perfection or evolution of matter.”51 The Great Work of alchemy is “to speed up this natural process of perfection and resurrect the spiritual essence of man that has become trapped in matter.”52 The Great Work

is a series of purifications of a base metal from lead to gold that is accomplished by dissolving and recongealing the metal via the action of two principal reagents. These reagents reflect the masculine and feminine polarity of existence; ‘alchemical sulphur’ represents the masculine, impulsive, and red pole and ‘quicksilver’ or ‘alchemical mercury’ the feminine and cool complementary antagonist. Together and separately these reagents and catalysts advance the work from base metal to corporeal light or gold.53

The Great Work is divided “into three or four essential phases: ‘the work of blackening’ (Nigredo or Melanosis), ‘the work of whitening’ (Albedo or Leucosis), and finally ‘the work of reddening,’ which alchemists originally separated into two complementary moments, that of gold (Citrinitas or Xantosis) and that of purple or transmutation of venom (Iosis).”54 In alchemy, the griffin is “a half-lion and half-eagle creature that symbolizes the Conjunction of the fixed and volatile principles.”55 Moreover, the basilisk “represents the melding of our higher and lower natures in Conjunction, a process that must be continued in the next three operations of alchemy for this ‘Child of the Philosophers’ to become the Living Stone of the fully integrated Self.”56 Hence Harry’s battle with the basilisk at the end of CoS was the necessary precursor before the final three phases of the Great Work could commence in the series.



The Phases of the Great Work in Harry Potter

In the Harry Potter series, the first phase, the work of blackening, appears to have taken place in OotP. The work of blackening requires a “death” and a “descent into hell”57 before rebirth can take place and the work of whitening can commence. In OotP, we have the death of Sirius Black (note the blackness of his name). Harry also descends into hell in a multitude of ways, both physically and psychologically. He starts the book in the hell of Number 4, Privet Drive , tormented by dreams of “long dark corridors, all finishing in dead ends and locked doors.”58 When Harry is rescued from the Dursleys, he finds his existence little better in the darkness of Number 12, Grimmauld Place (also known as the “Noble and Most Ancient House of Black”59). He is then forced to descend into a dungeon at the Ministry of Magic in order to attend his disciplinary hearing. Once at Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge makes a private hell for Harry with her special flesh-cutting quill. At the end of OotP, Harry physically descends into the hell of the Department of Mysteries where he must fight Death Eaters to save his life and the lives of his friends. Harry’s final hell is witnessing Sirius’ death and living with his loss.

Hopefully, Harry will be able to experience the rebirth necessary to move to the second phase, the work of whitening. His empathy with Luna as she searches for her lost belongings at the end of OotP was a good first step. The work of blackening “corresponds to the ‘flight of the raven,’”60 thus perhaps explaining Harry’s break-up with Cho Chang, Ravenclaw seeker. Since the work of whitening “is completed in the paradisal vision of a white swan sailing on a silver sea,”61 it is possible that Harry and Cho may reunite at the end of Book Six, given that Cho’s Patronus is a swan.

I believe the “white” death in Book Six will be that of Albus Dumbledore. In Latin, albus means “white, or dead white.”62 Throughout the first five books, Dumbledore has been preparing Harry for his inevitable final battle with Voldemort. As we saw at the end of OotP, if Dumbledore remains alive, he will be able to step in front of Harry and protect him from Voldemort. Dumbledore must therefore die in order for Harry to be able to confront Voldemort alone at the end of Book Seven.

In alchemy, “Xantosis — the appearance of the gold — … marks the beginning of the ‘red work.’”63 Rowling has provided lots of red herrings (emphasis intended!) to lead us down the wrong path in determining who will die in Book 7. The first (rather large) red herring is the first name of the Hogwarts gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid. Rubeus is from the Latin stem rubor, meaning “redness.”64 However, I maintain it is one of the other meanings of rubor that prompted Rowling to give Hagrid the first name of Rubeus, namely “shame, disgrace,”65 given Hagrid’s penchant for getting himself and others into trouble.

I therefore believe the death in Book Seven will not be that of Rubeus Hagrid. In alchemy, the work of reddening is symbolized by

the ceremonial meeting of the Red King and the White Queen. The King is crowned in gold, clothed in purple; he holds a red lily in his hand. The Queen is crowned in silver and holds a white lily. Near her a white eagle has alighted, a symbol of Mercurial ‘sublimation’ which is to be ‘fixed’ by the now-beneficent force of Sulfur, symboled by the golden lion that walks close to the King.66



Ron’s Demise, Followed by Voldemort and Harry’s Final Battle

I believe in Book Seven, the Red King will be Harry, heir of Gryffindor, symbolized by the eagle and the lion, joined together in the griffin (Godric Gryffindor), and the colours of red and gold — the colours of Gryffindor House, of Fawkes (Gryffindor’s phoenix?), of the sparks that fly unintended from Harry’s wand. I believe the White Queen will be Voldemort, heir of Slytherin, symbolized by the silver of Slytherin House. The lily carried by both the Red King and the White Queen reflects the blood of Lily Potter in both Harry and, as of GoF, Voldemort. The lily in the Red King, or Harry’s, hand is red because the white of his mother is mixed with the red Gryffindor blood of his father. In the final phase of the Great Work, the Philosopher’s Stone, which is white from the purification of the second phase, is similarly turned red. 67

Before Harry and Voldemort’s final battle, however, Ron Weasley may face Voldemort (the White Queen) and die in the process. In order for Harry to pass through the chessboard obstacle to reach the Philosopher’s Stone at the end of PS, it is Ron who sacrifices himself to the white queen so that Harry can checkmate the king. The books are full of red references to Ron. The first time Ron is referred to in PS, he’s described as having “flaming red hair.”68 We then learn that Ron’s mother makes him a sweater every year, and that his sweater is “always maroon.”69 Ron’s pyjamas are even “maroon paisley.”70 Interestingly, Ron complains that he “hate[s] maroon,” 71 but wears his maroon sweaters and maroon pyjamas anyway, which could be suggestive of his acceptance of his eventual fate, however abhorrent.

Moreover, Maurice Aniane maintains that “it would be better to translate rubedo as ‘work in the purple’ rather than ‘work in the red.’ The purple results from the union of light and darkness, a union which marks the victory of light. Purple is the royal color.” 72 In GoF, Ron hands Dobby “a pair of violet socks he had just unwrapped”73 along with his annual maroon Christmas sweater. In addition, Mundungus Fletcher “rescu[es] Ron from an ancient set of purple robes…”74 in OotP.



Harry is Doomed to Die

So if, based on alchemical principals, after Ron’s demise, the White Queen, Mercury (Voldemort), is to be sublimated by the Red King, Sulphur (Harry), this surely means that Harry will defeat Voldemort in the end and we’ll have a happy ending in Book Seven! Unfortunately, given the wording of Professor Trelawney’s second real prediction, I’m not so sure. The prediction reads “…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…”75 In uncharacteristic forthrightness, Rowling (through Dumbledore) confirms Harry’s interpretation of this part of the prophecy as meaning “one of us has got to kill the other one … in the end.”76

I maintain that Harry is not capable of murder. He could not bring himself to kill Sirius in the Shrieking Shack in PoA when he believed Sirius to be responsible for the death of his parents (he couldn’t bring himself to kill Crookshanks either, for that matter). When forced to duel with Voldemort in the graveyard in GoF, he throws the disarming charm, not the killing curse. The worst curse Harry has ever thrown is the Cruciatus curse, which he hurled at Bellatrix Lestrange when completely distraught over her murder of Sirius.

I also believe it is Rowling’s intention to communicate her belief that killing is wrong, no matter what the circumstances. In GoF, Sirius tells Harry, Ron and Hermione in the cave outside Hogsmeade, “I’ll say this for Moody, though, he never killed if he could help it. Always brought people in alive where possible. He was tough, but he never descended to the level of the Death Eaters.”77 To kill, therefore, is to “descend to the level of the Death Eaters” — i.e., to go as low as one can go.

So if Harry can’t bring himself to kill Voldemort, in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled, Voldemort must therefore kill Harry. While I believe most of us (including Rowling’s own daughter, Jessica) would be devastated if Harry were to die in Book Seven, this is exactly what I believe Rowling has planned all along. She has tried to get us ready for this eventuality in a number of interviews. In a chat with Jesse Kornbluth of AOL in October, 2000, Rowling was asked: “Why stop at seven books when you could make up Harry’s whole life?” to which she replied: “I notice you’re very confident that he’s not going to die!”78 In a July, 2000 interview with The Scotsman, Rowling said: “I always planned seven [Potter books], I never said I would do another one, but at the moment there will be just the seven. I’ve got it planned, and Harry dies obviously.”79 While Rowling then said: “But that’s just a joke — or is it?,”80 she has definitely left open the possibility of Harry’s death.

Moreover, when Rowling read the chapter of GoF in which Cedric dies to her daughter Jessica, she tells us “I looked up at her, expecting her to be really upset. But she said, ‘Ah, it’s not Harry. Who cares?’”81 In a later interview, Rowling tells us that Jessica has told her “unequivocally who I’m not to kill. And I’ve said, ‘Well, I already know who’s going to die, so now is not the time to come to me and tell me I mustn’t kill X, Y and Zed, because their fates are now preordained.’ And she doesn’t like hearing that at all. Not at all.”82 I contend that Rowling has intended from the start for Harry to die, and no one — not even her own daughter — is going to deter her from this course. As Rowling has said, “My Holy Grail is to end the seven-book series and know I was really true to what I wanted to write.”83



Harry will Achieve Immortality through Death

But if Voldemort kills Harry, what message does that send? That evil triumphs over good? I think not. Rowling has taken great pains to stress that Voldemort is mistaken when he says: “There is nothing worse than death.”84 As Dumbledore says in response, “You are quite wrong … Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness.”85 John Granger puts it perfectly when he says, “Dumbledore teaches Harry not to fear death as much as a life without love, which is the real death.”86 Moreover, according to Granger, “Death is the necessary part of the alchemical work; only in the death of one thing, from the alchemical perspective, is the greater thing born. … But Love, the action of contraries and their resolution, transcends death; it is what brings life out of death, even eternal life and spiritual perfection.”87

Harry’s death is necessary for him to complete the third phase of the Great Work. As the series starts with Voldemort’s quest for immortality through possession of the Philosopher’s Stone, it will end with Harry completely thwarting him by becoming a living Philosopher’s Stone and achieving immortality without even seeking it. However, while Voldemort seeks to become immortal in order to remain alive on earth, Harry will become immortal in order to remain alive in death. He will remain alive forever “beyond the veil,”88 and will rejoin those he loved in life — his mother, his father, his godfather, his headmaster and his best friend — and perhaps his ancestor, Godric Gryffindor.

The series is full to the brim with symbols of Harry’s potential resurrection from the dead and immortality beyond the veil — symbols that are also associated with Christ and his resurrection. Christ is represented by the stag and the lion, and “A number of birds represented Christ, such as the … eagle, phoenix [and] swan.”89 With regard to the phoenix specifically:

The final stage of the [Great] Work was often symbolised by the Phoenix rising from the flames. This goes back to the Greek myth of the Phoenix bird which renewed itself every 500 years by immolating itself on a pyre. This is thus a kind of resurrection and was paralleled with the symbol of Christ rising from the tomb. In interior terms its marks the rebirth of the personality from out of the crucible of transformation. The alchemists in meditating on processes in their flasks threw themselves into a sea of strange experiences, and as they worked these within their meditations and sought to grasp the inner parallels and significance of each of the stages of the process they had embarked upon, in a sense they experienced an inner death and rebirth in attaining the Philosopher’s Stone. 90

The likely connection between Fawkes the phoenix, Godric Gryffindor and Harry strengthens the theory that Harry will die and be reborn beyond the veil in Book 7. Moreover, as Aniane says :

The alchemist therefore descends into the depths of ‘Matter,’ that is into the depths of life. He proceeds to awaken the ‘inner Mercurial femininity’ which lies asleep at the root of cosmic sexuality, so as to make it into a force of regeneration. In the desire, which gives birth to metals in the womb of the earth and to the child in the womb of a woman, a will for immortality is at work. But so long as this desire is oriented only toward the outside, immortality is fragmented in time, is objectified in the chain of generations. Outer birth so to say ‘syncopates’ eternal birth — cuts it up. … The alchemist refuses to run away from this mystery: he enters into it. He comprehends it, that is, ‘takes into himself’ the desire, which everywhere links Sulfur to Mercury; he obliges it to wish for God.91

Voldemort’s desire for immortality is a desire oriented toward the outside, a selfish, self-serving goal that he will therefore not be able to achieve. When Voldemort possesses Harry at the end of OotP, Harry yearns for death, thinking “death is nothing compared to this …”92 and knowing that, if he were to die, he would “see Sirius again.93 Accordingly, Harry is taking into himself the desire for death and for immortality after death in order to be reunited with those he loves. He does this unawares — the very first time he sees the veil, it “intrigue[s] him; he [feels] a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it.”94



Hermione will be Left Behind

Unfortunately, much like Susan in the Chronicles of Narnia, Hermione isn’t likely to be part of the group enjoying immortality beyond the veil, at least by the end of Book Seven. Hermione can’t hear the whispering voices coming from behind the veil, and she overreacts to Harry’s all-consuming interest in the archway and Luna’s claim that “‘There are people in there!’”95 by saying:

“What do you mean, ‘in there?’” demanded Hermione, jumping down from the bottom step and sounding much angrier than the occasion warranted, “there isn’t any ‘in there,’ it’s just an archway, there’s no room for anybody to be there.”96

Hermione, like Susan, refuses to believe in the possibility of a paradisal afterlife. Hermione needs to see things with her own eyes in order to be able to believe them, and scoffs at people like Luna who believe in such ridiculous things as Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. As Rowling herself has said: “In many ways Luna is the anti-Hermione. Hermione is so logical and so very intractable in many ways, whereas Luna is prepared to believe a thousand impossible things before breakfast.”98 Luna matter-of-factly believes that her dead mother is behind the veil, and that helps Harry to also believe he will find his loved ones there some day. Because it’s not provable, Hermione refuses to believe, and therefore will be left behind.



Our Journey with Harry Continues

While Hermione may be left behind, we the readers will accompany Harry into the hereafter. As Granger makes clear in his book, The Hidden Key to Harry Potter, the power of the Harry Potter series lies in Rowling’s ability to make us identify with Harry. I believe we identify with Harry largely because of the physical imagery Rowling uses to connect us with him — primarily, her descriptions of the physical manifestations of his emotions. We’ve all experienced the sensation of “a bucketful of ice cascad[ing] into [our] stomach”98 when we’ve been caught doing something naughty; we’ve all felt our heart “swollen to an unnatural size … thumping loudly under [our] ribs”99 when we’re scared. We will therefore travel with Harry through the remaining two phases of the Great Work, and become purified along the way, eventually dying with him at the end of Book Seven and rising from death to enjoy immortality with those we loved in life.

Harry's journey towards gold: Alchemical symbols in the Harry Potter series
by Audrey Spindler



Audrey Spindler is a French 32 year old teacher who lives in a charming medieval town in South Burgundy. After completing a history degree, she passed a research MA, specialising in 17th and 18th century history, and a DEA in "Western Culture and Civilisation - From Renaissance to the Eighteenth Century", which focussed particularly on religious and social history. A teacher by day, Audrey can be found each night in the Lexicon forum, where she keeps her HP obsession going amongst fellow Potterheads. Her passion for Harry Potter and history finally met when she discovered that alchemy was a key element of the books' symbolism. The Alchemy thread she started with some friends has has been an amazing bubbling cauldron for months now, and it is the theories born out of this work which she is presenting in this essay.



Alchemy has an important role in the Harry Potter series that JK Rowling begins with the Philosopher's Stone story and the historic character of Nicolas Flamel, a medieval French alchemist, who was meant to have discovered the Philosopher's stone with the help of his wife Perenelle. Other real alchemists are mentioned in the books as Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa who figure on Chocolate frog cards (PS 77 -78). On those cards, Dumbledore is also mentioned as an alchemist. Moreover, Albus (white in Latin) means "the Initiate" in alchemy (Fulcanelli 109), that is to say the alchemist, "the one who knows," which fits perfectly with Dumbledore. But there is more than that and the aim of this paper is to suggest that JK Rowling is using the symbols of alchemy as a framework for the entire series.

There is not only one definition of alchemy but several. First, alchemists were searching for the Philosopher’s Stone, a transformational object used to transform base metals into silver and gold and also to provide universal medical cure for illnesses, “the Elixir of Life,” made thanks to the stone. But alchemy didn’t consist of laboratory work alone. It was also a personal quest as the Alchemists’ main aim was the ennoblement of the soul, symbolised by the ennoblement of the matter.

So, the Philosopher’s stone is not only an object but also the symbol of the journey the alchemist made to obtain it. This journey was the true reward because it gave him knowledge (he was supposed to have understood the mysteries of Nature), hence wisdom, and made him a better human being. This is what the alchemists called “the philosophical gold”: their own spiritual transformation was the true gold sought, the real Philosopher’s Stone. The symbol of this alchemical journey can be very rich when applied to Harry’s, and to other characters’, transformation in the books.


The language of alchemy

Alchemists developed a secret symbolic language because they wanted to share their knowledge only with people they thought deserving of the information: “the fraternity of the true philosophers”. They drew pictures in an elaborate language of symbols, that they also scattered in their texts, which correctly read by another alchemist, would give him information and procedures to follow. These images and metaphors are numerous in the HP series, as we’ll see. JK Rowling also uses some “tricks” alchemists used in their texts: they used anagrams (as with Tom Marvolo Riddle / I am Lord Voldemort), backwards writing (think of the Mirror of Erised) and what they called “the phonetic cabbala”, that is to say puns: people had to read the sentence aloud to understand its hidden meaning (how not to think of Knockturn Alley/nocturnally, Diagon Alley/diagonally, Knight bus/night bus or Grimmauld place as “grim old place”?).


The three stages of the Great Work and Harry’s journey

There are three great stages in the creation of the Philosopher’s stone. This work was called the Great Work, or The Work of the Phoenix, and consisted of the transformation of the “material prima”, the “First Material”, into the Philosopher’s stone after going through those stages. It begins with the Black process, followed by the White process (at the end of which the stone transforms metals into silver) and the Red process during which the Stone becomes red and, at the end, transforms metals into gold. The symbolism of these stages can be applied to the books, each one being a journey in itself and, at the same time, part of the greater journey that represents the whole series.

In the HP series, some alchemical symbols keep recurring, bound to those stages:
- Nigredo is the Black process, from the colour of the Materia Prima at the beginning of the work. This unattractive black matter is also a fertile one. It is Saturn’s reign, the planet of melancholy, the “black humour”. It represents the descent into Hell the soul of the alchemist has to make to be born again – to ascend – because from darkness, light will come eventually.

Symbolically, Harry has to get through his own nigredo process. The trials he endures, the knowledge he learns about his past, and the sorrow he experiences make him going deeper and deeper in this process. But these trials also strengthen him and will allow him to become the wizard he was meant to be. In the books, some recurring symbols from alchemy suggest this black process: the black colour, blackness, night, death, skulls, skeletons, black dragons, underground tunnels and passages, the Saturn planet, lead (Saturn’s metal), mirrors that represent the beginning of the Work, the Veil, thestrals, decapitations (symbolical, as when disembodied heads appear in fireplaces during Floo network communication or when Harry predicts “his own death by decapitation” (GoF 197) or real, think of Nearly Headless Nick)…

Sirius Black and Severus Snape can also be connected to Harry’s black process. Both are bound to Harry’s past and, each in its own way, bring Harry knowledge of that time. The sorrow he experiences at the loss of Sirius is a key part of this process.

In that perspective, the Dementors can be seen as the personification of the “black humour”. Their mere aspect and each of their appearances suggests a “dive” into darkness. Harry’s first encounter with a Dementor presents a creature whose robe is made of “black material” and whose hand is “glistening, greyish, slimy-looking and scabbed, like something dead that had decayed in water” (PoA 66) which reminds me of putrefaction, a stage of the nigredo process. When Harry feels his power, the text says:

“He was drowning in cold. There was a rushing in his ears as though of water. He was being dragged downwards, the roaring growing louder… And then, from far away, he heard screaming, terrible, terrified, pleading screams.” (PoA 66)

Cold is bound to the melancholic humour; and “a descent of the soul in hell” (Encyclopédie des symboles 444) describes perfectly the Dementors’ terrible power.

- Albedo, the white process, follows Nigredo. The Materia Prima is on its way towards the Philosopher’s stone. If the work was stopped there, it would make a Stone that would turn metals into silver (bound to the moon in alchemy). Here again, some alchemical symbols of this process can be found in each book, when Harry’s goal is in sight: the white and silver colour, silver, and the moon. The swan and the lily are also albedo’s symbols. So Lily Potter, Albus – the white – Dumbledore, Luna (moon in Latin), “Moony”/Lupin and Cho’s patronus can also be connected to that stage.

As with the nigredo process, albedo can be seen in each book and throughout the whole series. At the end of Order of the Phoenix, Harry seems to have reached the deepest point of his black process. Sirius Black has gone through the black veil1, Harry sits alone, on the bank of the dark Lake2, “ trying not to think about his godfather or to remember that is was directly across from here, on the opposite bank, that Sirius had once collapsed trying to fend off a hundred Dementors..." (OotP 754). The Lake is a metaphorical reference to Harry’s depressive feelings after Sirius’s death but, at the same time, he is now on the “opposite bank” of the Lake. Symbolically, he has achieved the crossing of the Black process.

So, before the HBP came out, we supposed it would be the “white/silver book” in Harry’s journey, the one in which Dumbledore’s role should be crucial, before the final stage. And it was, culminating with Dumbledore’s death, the white flames and smoke and the white tomb, title of the last chapter by the way. Besides, Harry has matured since Order of the Phoenix. He is a new man from now on, beginning to be the leader he is meant to be. Thanks to Albus, and especially to the knowledge learnt in the Half-Blood Prince, he will reach the final stage of his 7 books journey. Sentences like this one, at the end of the HBP, fit perfectly the whole alchemical journey symbolism:

“he simply knew that the task of discovering the truth about the real Horcrux had to be completed before he could move a little further along the dark and winding path stretching ahead of him, the path he and Dumbledore had set upon together, and which he now knew he would have to journey alone” (p.592)

There is more than enough material in the HBP, especially about the white process, to write an entire paper3 but there is a detail I would like to mention because I think it is very important: it is the title of a book Harry is reading at some point: “Quintessence: a Quest” (HBP 285). Quintessence is a very important alchemical symbol. Basically, it means that the alchemists believed that to the 4 elements (air, earth, water, fire) a fifth should be added. That fifth element was the spiritual nature of the essence of the universe. It was in each of the 4 elements and, at the same time, above them.

Before the Half-Blood Prince, we had connected the quintessence symbol to Dumbledore, saying that if we were seeing the 4 houses as the 4 elements, which JK Rowling confirmed recently in an interview4, then the headmaster was the quintessence of the 4 houses: at the same time in each of them and above them.

Now, at the end of the Half-Blood Prince, Harry and Dumbledore make a last trip together and, funnily enough, they go through the 4 elements together during that trip: water, when they swim; earth, in the cave; fire, that Dumbledore conjures to save them from the Inferi and air when they ride broomsticks afterwards. So, I think quintessence can apply to both Harry and Dumbledore from now on: Harry because he needs to unite everyone at Hogwarts in the final battle, so to be the one above the houses distinctions, and Dumbledore because of the white smoke shaped like a phoenix we see in the last chapter. Somehow, I’m certain his spirit will be able to help Harry again before the end. The “quest” mentioned here is then double for Harry: in the Half-Blood Prince, it is to help Dumbledore on his own path till his final quintessence and it is also a hint to Harry’s future mission in book 7.

- Rubedo, the red process, is the last stage of the Great Work. At its end, the Philosopher’s Stone is achieved and can transmute common metals into gold. Here again, at the end of the books, when Harry has achieved his “quest”, we find alchemical symbols connected to rubedo: the Phoenix, rubies, the red colour, gold, the sun… Fawkes, red and gold, is of course bound to that stage, as are Dumbledore’s patronus (a phoenix), the Gryffindor house (red and gold) and Rubeus Hagrid, rubeus meaning red in Latin. So, Harry’s three “mentors”, Sirius Black, Albus Dumbledore and Rubeus Hagrid are bound to the three alchemical stages.

In this way, at the end of PS, the first thing Harry sees when he wakes up after Voldemort’s defeat is: “Something gold was glinting just above him” (PS 214), just as, during the feast, “the green hangings became scarlet and the silver became gold.” (PS 222) Harry has achieved this book’s quest.

The phoenix, image of the stone, symbolises the destruction and the recomposition of the Materia Prima which is transforming to become the Philosopher's stone. He is the Cinnabar Bird, symbol of the perpetual rebirth of the matter and of the spiritual immortality the alchemist reaches when he has achieved the stone. It is a very important symbol and Fawkes is just as important in the series. Besides, he cries “pearly tears”. In alchemy, pearls, also named “Madeleine’s tears” (Gineste 252) “come” from the philosopher’s stone and can turn metals into gold or be used to make elixirs. Fawkes’s pearly tears’ elixir save Harry, bitten by the basilisk in CoS, just before he reaches gold by defeating Riddle and saving Ginny. We encounter this symbolism again at the end of GoF, when Fawkes heals Harry’s leg in Dumbledore’s office. At this point of the book (GoF 606), Harry has achieved his quest, his journey, not only by surviving the graveyard scene but also by finding the courage to tell what happened.

Fawkes5 is thus the symbol of the achievement of the quest for Harry in CoS and GoF but most certainly also across the whole series. Symbolically, Book 7 should be the “red/golden book”, in which Harry will achieve his journey. I have no doubt Fawkes, Dumbledore’s bird, will be there, at the very end.

So, through each “quest” Harry has to lead, he can be seen as “the seeker of gold” from a metaphorical point of view, gold understood as the alchemists’ philosophical gold, meaning knowledge, achievement, understanding of the world he lives in, and growing up to be a better human being. Quidditch is the perfect image of that quest: Harry, the seeker, must avoid black Bludgers, so to catch the silver and gold Snitch (while Chasers use a red Quaffle to score). The same symbolical colours again… Those colours, carefully repeated and sprinkled in the books, as the spider spins its web, create a wonderful symbolical background to JK Rowling’s text.


An example: Harry’s journey in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

- Five of six books thus far open with Harry in a “dead” position6; he is either asleep or stretched out. But not CoS which, nevertheless, begins with a similar symbol: Harry having to pretend not to exist and hence sham death. [Three times Harry says, “I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I’m not there” (CoS 10)]. Three days later, locked in his room: “He lay on his bed watching the sun sinking behind the bars on the windows and wondered miserably what was going to happen to him.” (CoS 22). The metaphor is always the same: Harry’s journey in the book begins; he enters the black process, the one he has to go through so to make progress, to grow up.

Nigredo symbols continue in the next chapters, as when Harry first travels by Floo powder (calcination is a stage of the nigredo process) and arrives in Knockturn Alley (“nocturnally”, the alley of blackness), “down there”, as says Hagrid (the Red) when he takes a covered with soot Harry back “into bright sunlight” (45).

In chapter 5, when Harry and Ron approach Hogwarts, we also find dark references and the image of the mirror (with the lake) and what is below, all very characteristic of the nigredo process.

“ Silhouetted on the dark horizon, high on a cliff over the lake, stood the many turrets and towers of Hogwarts castle. " [...] "Glancing out of his window, Harry saw the smooth, black, glassy surface of the water, a mile below." (58-59)

The same dark references are to be found during “The Deathday Party,” that celebrates Nearly Headless Nick’s beheading, and “The Duelling Club”: even the snake Draco conjures is long and black… So, discovering he is a parselmouth is part of that black process for Harry, as is Snape, dark, black-clad and mysterious, the one who always forces him to look at the past from another point of view and hence makes him progress, though reluctantly.

Besides, in “The Polyjuice Potion,” we see Fawkes for the first time – and not on any day but on a death/rebirth day, very symbolical of the nigredo process, as is Harry and Ron’s incursion in the Slytherin common room [they “hurried down the stone steps into the darkness” and “They walked deeper and deeper under the school” (164)] .

Later, when Hermione is petrified, she is also in a “dead position” – “Hermione lay utterly still, her eyes opened and glassy” (190).

- “Aragog” is a key chapter in which white references appear, after the boys come back to the castle: “Harry swung his legs up onto his bed and leaned back against his pillows, watching the moon glinting at him through the tower window” (208). While watching the moon (albedo), Harry truly understands what Aragog said, that is what happened 50 years before. He is not in the dark anymore but in the white of the moonlight, as is Ron a moment later: “Ron rubbed his eyes, frowning through the moonlight. And then he understood. ‘You don’t think – not Moaning Myrtle?” (209).

- Black and death references though are still here in the “The chamber of secrets” chapter, all bound to Ginny and the chamber [“Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever” (217)]. She also lives her own black process in that book.

- But when Fawkes, now radiant again, appears during Harry’s fight with Riddle, his red process begins as we saw. Thanks to Fawkes, and to Gryffindor’s sword – his “white weapon”7 – Harry has achieved his quest and, thus, symbolically, reached gold. So says the text of their way back in the tunnel: “Led by Fawkes, whose wide scarlet wings emitted a soft golden glow in the darkness” (238) and then in the castle “Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor.” (240).


Some other key symbols in the books:

Some of those symbols were not used only by the alchemists but the meaning they gave to them, as the use they made of mythological and astrological traditions, was specific and is very rich when applied to HP.

* The mirror represents the beginning of the Work because it is a reflection of nature. It is also meant “to show the invisible from the visible so that one can see what is hidden” (Encyclopédie des symboles 415). It is also the symbol of the reflection between the earth and the heavens, the body and the mind. This symbolism fits very well with the mirrors we encounter in the HP universe, beginning with the Mirror of Erised, which indeed shows what is hidden, showing first Harry’s and Ron’s secret desires and then the hidden Stone. In CoS, when Hermione is found petrified, she carries a mirror with which she hides a secret, the truth about the basilisk that will put Harry on the right path. There is also Moody’s Foe-glass, which shows hidden enemies. The pensieve, whose “glassy substance” (GoF 507) reveals the past, is also bound to the mirror symbolism.

* The maze symbolises the whole Work with its two main difficulties: the path the alchemist must follow to reach the centre of it (where the “fight” between the alchemical principles happens) and the other one leading out of the maze. For that, he needs the Ariadne's thread which myth has a very important symbolical meaning. Ariadne means "araignée" (spider) and the Ariadne' s thread symbolises knowledge and the assistance of the Masters who preceded the alchemist (Fulcanelli 63). How not to think of the GoF maze? It leads Harry to the fight with Voldemort and he will return from it thanks to his parents, to “the knowledge of the ones who came before” indeed.

In CoS, this symbol can also be applied to Hogwarts and its “labyrinthine passages” (CoS 164), to spiders climbing “a long silvery thread” (CoS 117) which will lead Harry to Aragog’s knowledge. When he reaches the centre of the Hogwarts maze later, in the chamber, it is the assistance of the masters who came before him (Gryffindor and Dumbledore) that will save him and help him going out of it.

The Ministry of Magic is another interesting maze which Harry went all over so many times while sleeping and had so much trouble finding its centre in OotP.

The Marauder’s map shows the same symbolism, as we see when the twins make it work for the first time: “thin ink began to spread like a spider’s web from the point that George’s wand had touched” (PoA 143)…

Dedalus Diggle is also connected to that symbol. In mythology, Dedalus is the one who built the maze and told Ariadne to give Theseus a thread. Harry meets him twice in PS, especially at the Leaky Cauldron, just before he enters that other “maze” that is the wizarding world.

Aragog’s death in the HBP, which helps Harry discovering Slughorn’s memory, is bound to that symbol too. In book 7, Harry will have to reach the centre of the Wizarding World maze at last, where he will fight Voldemort. His Ariadne’s thread, in and out of that maze, is –in my opinion– most certainly Snape. His house, at “Spinner’s End” and the “deserted labyrinth of brick houses” described there (HBP 27) reinforce that theory.

* The ouroboros is a dragon, or a snake, biting its own tail. It represents the end of the Work, perfection, eternity, the beginning and the end at the same time. The circle symbol, very present in the series, has the same meaning. In alchemy, it also represents a conception of learning: the one who learns makes some progress and the one who makes some progress wants to learn more. Each book covers a year in Harry’s life and hence makes a circle: each year he makes some progress and learns more about his past and universe. Some details reinforce that symbolism: PoA begins with the “Owl Post” chapter and ends with the “Owl Post Again” one. GoF’s last chapter is called “The Beginning”…

The ouroboros also suggests that some characters may “bite their own tail” in the end and cancel themselves out: Draco (dragon in Latin) Malfoy, Wormtail(“worm” as snake) and, of course, snake-like Voldemort. Wormtail’s silvery hand, whose matter first reminds of quicksilver, liquid mercury, reinforces that idea. Mercury, the god, is also Hermes, “the messenger” and Wormtail, for now Voldemort’s messenger, can well become the fate’s messenger eventually. In the HBP, we start seeing that evolution in Draco.

* Hermes’ messenger symbolism is also to be found in Percy’s owl name. Mercury/Hermes is also the guide of the alchemist and of the spiritual research. A nice connection can be made here with Hermione: HermyOne, the hermetic one, whose initials are HG, the chemical element mercury symbol, and can be seen as JK Rowlings’ messenger in the books.

* Some animals of the alchemical bestiary are to be connected with HP characters:

* The peacock can be connected to Gilderoy Lockhart. “Gilde” (golden) “roi” (king) shines but he is only fake gold. He has an “enormous peacock quill” (CoS 123) and is always wearing different shades of blue or green, the peacock’s colours. In alchemy, the peacock symbolises the visible transformation that happens to the Materia Prima during the last stage of the Great Work but, more interesting, it sometimes also symbolises a process that has failed, only giving impurities, which fits very well with Lockhart.
* The salamander symbol, also represented by a woman with long hair like flames, can be connected to the Weasleys and also to Lily Potter. The Weasleys and Lily are often described as having flaming hair, and the Weasleys are sometimes connected to real salamanders or, even more often, to fire or fireworks. The salamander represents the inner Salt (an alchemical principle) which can’t burn and remains in the ashes of burnt metals and also quicksilver, the spirit creator of the world trapped inside the matter. It is also meant to extinguish the fire at will. Lily has gone but who she was influences Harry and her spirit may still help him again, as in GoF. It is also a nice metaphor of the unfailing support Ron and his family represent for Harry.
* The grey wolf and the dog symbols are very important. The grey wolf symbolises antimony and the dog “raw metals” (gold and sulphur) before their purification during the work. The process of the purification of gold by antimony is symbolised by a wolf devouring a dog. How not to think of Lupin, the werewolf, and Sirius, the dog animagus, who fight in PoA? Lupin’s help in this book will indeed allow Harry to symbolically “purify” that gold, that is to discover Sirius’ true nature, the golden heart of an innocent man. The Grey Wolf is also a guide for the alchemist, as is Lupin for Harry. The way Lupin is described in PoA reinforces the Grey Wolf image, as in the train: “ his light-brown hair has flecked with grey” (59), he had a “tired grey face” (65), or at Hogwarts: “A ray of wintry sunlight fell across the classroom, illuminating Lupin’s grey hair and the lines on his young face.” (140)

* Planets: Alchemists saw the cosmos as a whole thing, in which everything was interconnected. They used a system of connections, based on the number 7, in which the 7 metals they used were connected to 7 planets, 7 colours, 7 parts of the body, the 7 notes of the octave… 7 is a key number, recurring along the 7 books. Saturn was mentioned in connection with the nigredo process but other planets are important in the books, especially Mars. In alchemy, Mars means iron, but also war, from the god symbolism, and rubedo, that is his reign. Harry seems to be very bound to that planet: the story starts on a Tuesday (Mars day), he receives his first Hogwarts letter and turns 11 on Tuesdays too. In PS, centaurs keep saying “Mars is bright tonight”; in CoS, Dobby has to iron his hands… In GoF, Sybill’s predictions all have Mars connections, especially before the tasks. In other words, Mars, war, comes for Harry; but it is also the red process, the one he will reach through that war, at the very end.8


The alchemical principles and the Harry-Hermione-Ron trio

* Sulphur and Mercury: Basically, alchemy is based on dualism and first on the fundamental opposition male-female. The Great Work is the union, the conjunction, of the male element, Sulphur, and the female element, Mercury. In alchemy, every "characteristic" of an element has its counterpart (Hutin 70-76):

Sulphur - -- - Mercury
Male - - - - - Female
Fire - - - - - -Water
Hot-dry - - - Cold-humid
Gold - - - - - Silver
Sun - - - - - -Moon

King - - - - - Queen (…)

In that perspective, Harry may be seen symbolically as sulphur, since solar and gold symbols are always bound to him (the Gryffindor house’s lion, colours, and round rooms; the sword, his round glasses, his scar shaped like the “S-like” rune for sun…). Mercury can be bound to Hermione, through her initials (HG=mercury) and also because she is really Harry's female counterpart. When they act as one, they are symbolically the alchemical hermaphroditic couple: as in PoA, when they use the time-turner and are bound by the golden chain, or OotP in which they become a fighting pair, during the Ministry of Magic battle: Harry grabs Hermione's robes, and they proceed to defend each other's bodies from the spells.

* Salt: Some alchemists added a third element to Sulphur and Mercury: Salt that is what is palpable. Ron can then be connected to the Salt symbol (cf the salamander). Since PS, it is the trio's combined actions that make them progress. This is the triad symbolism: 3 entities exist by themselves but are also only one single entity; they’re not the same but complement each other, which fits perfectly with our trio. The way Ron and Hermione stand by Harry’s side at the end of the HBP reinforces the idea that they will indeed “act as one” in book 7.


Harmony

Alchemists believed in the relation between the macrocosm and the microcosm: the universe was organised in concentric spheres (from planets to men, from men to minerals), hence the connections between metals, planets, organs… The key principle of that organisation was balance, harmony. They believed in the theory of the balance of the 4 elements (air, fire, water, earth) and the 4 humours (sanguine, melancholic, bilious – Ron’s second name is Bilius – phlegmatic, think of Fleur’s “Phlegm” nickname in the HBP).

This is a fantastic metaphor for Hogwarts’ houses and their founders and JK Rowling confirmed after the HBP release that the 4 houses were bound to the 4 elements9. We already saw that in CoS for example, when Professor Binns says that they “built this castle together” and that “For a few years, the founders worked in harmony together.” (CoS 114). But when Slytherin left Hogwarts, he broke that balance and hence, the balance of the Wizarding World. Voldemort’s actions still are the consequences and illustration of that severing. So, Harry’s true aim may be to restore this balance by first reunifying Hogwarts and then defeating Voldemort. His fate and the wizarding world’s fate are closely bound, as what happens to the microcosm happens to the macrocosm as well.

In the same interview, JK Rowling mentioned this idea when she said: it is “the very Dumbledore-esque hope that they will achieve union, and they will achieve harmony. Harmony is the word” and again, talking about the 4 houses and the 4 elements: “So again, it was this idea of harmony and balance, that you had four necessary components and by integrating them you would make a very strong place.” Quintessence: a quest, indeed...

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"Let the work of the Potter, consisting of dryness and moisture, instruct you." said once the alchemist Michael Maier (Atalanta Fugiens XV). While our Potter still has a lot to learn from the Potters who preceded him, we also have still a lot to learn from him, before the journey ends, before the phoenix flies away…

Answer 2

Will Harry die? Certainly anything is possible in keeping with how such epic tales go. And just the thought that Harry might die is why I can wait long past 2007 for the final book to come out; as long as the 7th book is not published, Harry is still safe and sound.

But I have a theory that the actual answer is "Yes and no." See, I think the Draught of Living Death will play a key role in the final outcome. 1) It was one of the very first potions mentioned by Snape in the first book. 2) Making the Draught of Living Death was Professor Slughorn's first assignment in the sixth book. 3) Harry learned how to expertly make the DoLD by following the scribbled instructions in "his" potions book - the one belonging to the "Half Blood Prince." 4) That book was carefully hidden in the Room of Requirement with such detail that Harry is bound to go back to retrieve it. So it is my great hope that Harry will only seem to die, but ultimately live.

Answer 3

I think, since it's magical and all, Fred's hand would disappear from the clock - having his hand there for all that time after his death would be disturbing, if not upsetting, for the Weasleys, wouldn't it? Besides, if every dead member of the Weasley family was still on the clock, it would be overcrowded with hands. But, then again, it could have been only the Weasleys we know. And I don't think there's a part labeled 'Dead', to be honest - that's just weird and unnecessary. For the disappearance of the hand (if it did in fact disappear), I think it would just vanish or quickly fade away: that's what magic can do, after all.

Answer 4

Although it would be really sad if Harry did die I think he will. I think that Harry will somehow sacrifice himself to save everyone else, it would just seem to be to much of a 'happy ending' if he survived. If Harry does live it would have to be because some else like Ron saved him by sacrificing himself, so either way I think JK will write about someone sacrificing themselves for their friends, which, although it will be really sad, it would be a fantastic way to finish of a great series.

Answer 5

I dont know, but I stopped being excited since I read the 5th and even more the 6th book, they were too dissapointing, Sirius dead, Dumbledore dead, now if that ***** of Rowling kills Harry, or Ron, or Hermione, I will throw all my editions to the garbage.

Answer 6

Yeah, it's in the cards, besides Lord Voldermort and Harry have some connections, so when Lord Voldermort dies, Harry will too.

Answer 7

If she kills him, it wouldn't be a very bad thing after all -- she would have certainly thought about how it would turn out after she has written the final books: someone else would most definitely come back and write another sequel, and I don't think she'd approve of that, so killing him would ensure that her ending to the story would be the very end of it all.

Answer 8

I can't wait to read this book either. I would like Harry to live but I'm just not sure. I just hope that she doesn't kill Snape off. I'm already ticked that she had him kill Dumbledore.

Answer 9

dude..what if some people see this and not play J.K. Rowlings hang man game? some website ruined it for me.....anyways i think harry will die....reasons that i think are right....

Answer 10

no,and its funny that so many people who are fans believer dumbledore is dead,if you read the books you can clearly find all the clues that point to hate fact he is not dead,its just too obvious

Answer 11

I don't know but I have faith that J.k will do the best for the story.She has already killed one of my favourites Black.