Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows recap

Harry, Ron, and Hermione abandon school to hunt down the Horcruxes, the hidden objects holding pieces of Voldemort's soul that keep him alive. On the run as Voldemort seizes control of the government and Hogwarts, they destroy a locket, learn of three legendary objects called the Deathly Hallows, and are captured and taken to Malfoy Manor, where the house-elf Dobby dies saving them. Breaking into a bank vault, they claim another Horcrux and later infiltrate Hogwarts to find one more. A great battle erupts at the school. Snape is killed by Voldemort, but his dying memories reveal that he loved Harry's mother, worked secretly for Dumbledore all along, and that Harry himself is an accidental Horcrux who must die for Voldemort to be mortal. Harry lets Voldemort strike him down, survives, and returns. Neville destroys the last Horcrux, and in a final duel Voldemort's own killing curse rebounds and kills him. Nineteen years later, Harry and his friends are grown, married, and sending their own children off to Hogwarts.

Over his six years at Hogwarts, Harry Potter has grown from a bullied orphan into the wizarding world's symbol of resistance against the dark wizard Voldemort, who killed his parents when Harry was a baby. A prophecy has marked the two of them as bound to face each other, with neither able to truly live while the other survives. After years in hiding, Voldemort has returned to a full body and openly regained his power, and the Ministry of Magic and much of society have fallen under his influence. At the close of the previous year, Harry learned Voldemort's central secret: he has split his soul into pieces and hidden them in concealed objects called Horcruxes, which anchor him to life and must all be destroyed before he can be killed. Dumbledore, the headmaster who had become Harry's guide and had begun hunting these objects with him, was killed by Professor Snape, apparently a traitor. As this book opens Harry is seventeen, grieving, and resolved to leave school with his closest friends Ron and Hermione to finish Dumbledore's task and find the remaining Horcruxes, while Voldemort's followers hunt him.

Voldemort gathers his Death Eaters and confirms that the government and Hogwarts are now under his control, and they plan to capture Harry the moment he leaves the protection of his relatives' home. Harry prepares to go, and the Order of the Phoenix mounts an operation to move him to safety: several friends drink a potion to take Harry's exact appearance, so that seven identical Harrys set out in different directions to confuse the enemy. Voldemort and his followers attack them in the air. In the chaos Harry's pet owl Hedwig is killed, the veteran Order member Mad-Eye Moody dies, and George Weasley is badly wounded, but Harry escapes and the survivors regroup at the Weasley family home. The war has plainly begun, and the safety Harry once relied on is gone.

An official from the Ministry delivers items Dumbledore left to Harry, Ron, and Hermione in his will, including a strange golden ball, an old book of children's tales, and a device that captures light; the reasons behind the gifts are unclear, and a promised sword is withheld. At the wedding of Ron's brother Bill, the celebration is shattered when word arrives that the Ministry has fallen to Voldemort and the government is now his. Death Eaters descend on the gathering, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione are forced to flee together, abandoning their families and the wedding, and going into hiding with no clear plan beyond survival and the search for the Horcruxes.

The three take refuge in the old London house Harry has inherited, where its resentful house-elf, Kreacher, tells them the story of a locket Horcrux and the master who tried to destroy it, revealing that it was stolen years ago by a petty thief. They track the thief down and learn the locket has since passed to a cruel Ministry official. To recover it, the three disguise themselves and infiltrate the Ministry of Magic, now openly persecuting wizards born to non-magical families. They rescue frightened prisoners and seize the locket, but their cover is broken and they must flee for good, unable to return to the house, now on the run with no safe base and one Horcrux they cannot yet destroy.

Living rough in the wilderness, the three grow cold, hungry, and frayed, and the evil locket, which they take turns wearing, poisons their moods. Ron, worn down and jealous, quarrels with Harry and abandons the group, leaving Harry and Hermione alone. The two visit Harry's birthplace, Godric's Hollow, hoping for answers, but it is a trap: Voldemort's snake attacks them in disguise, and they barely escape, with Harry's wand broken in the flight. Harry then follows a mysterious silver doe, a protective spirit sent by an unknown helper, to a frozen pool where the lost sword of Gryffindor lies. Ron reappears at that moment, saves Harry from the locket's magic as he tries to retrieve the sword, and uses the blade to destroy the locket Horcrux. Reunited and one step closer, the friends press on.

The friends learn of the Deathly Hallows, three legendary objects, an unbeatable wand, a stone that recalls the dead, and a cloak of true invisibility, that together are said to master death, and Harry becomes gripped by the idea of uniting them, torn between chasing the Hallows and hunting the Horcruxes. Captured by scavengers and taken to the Malfoy family's manor, they are held prisoner while Hermione is tortured by the fanatic Bellatrix Lestrange for information about a break-in. The loyal house-elf Dobby appears and rescues them, spiriting them away, but is killed in the escape. Sheltering afterward, they question a captive wandmaker and a goblin and resolve to break into a heavily guarded bank vault where they believe another Horcrux is hidden, while Voldemort, they realize, is himself now searching for the unbeatable wand.

With the goblin's help the three break into the deep vault of the Lestrange family and seize a golden cup that is another of Voldemort's Horcruxes, then escape by freeing and riding out on a captive dragon. Harry senses that a final Horcrux is hidden at Hogwarts itself, and the three make their way to the village beside the school, where Dumbledore's estranged brother Aberforth shelters them and opens a secret passage into the castle. Inside, they find that the students have kept a resistance alive through the year of Death Eater rule, and old friends rally to Harry. As they begin searching for the hidden object, the alarm is raised, Voldemort learns Harry is there, and the school braces for open battle.

The teachers and students drive out the Death Eater in charge and fortify the castle, and the Battle of Hogwarts begins as Voldemort's army attacks. Amid the fighting the friends find the hidden Horcrux, an old diadem, in a vast storeroom, where it is destroyed by cursed fire that also kills one of their attackers. Voldemort, convinced that killing the supposed owner of the unbeatable wand will make it truly his, has his snake kill Snape. As Snape dies he gives Harry a flood of memories, which reveal the truth: Snape had loved Harry's mother since childhood, had turned against Voldemort after her death, and had served Dumbledore faithfully all along, even carrying out Dumbledore's own dying wish by killing him. The memories also reveal the hardest truth of all, that a fragment of Voldemort's soul lives inside Harry himself, so that Harry must let Voldemort kill him before Voldemort can finally die.

Accepting what he must do, Harry walks unarmed into the forest and lets Voldemort strike him down without defending himself. But because Voldemort had earlier rebuilt his body using Harry's blood, Harry is not truly killed; the curse destroys only the piece of Voldemort's soul inside him. In a vision Harry meets Dumbledore, learns the full story, and chooses to return to life. Feigning death, he is carried back to the castle, where the fighting resumes. Neville Longbottom beheads Voldemort's snake, the last Horcrux, with the sword of Gryffindor, making Voldemort mortal at last. In the final duel Harry reveals that he, not Snape, is the true master of Voldemort's unbeatable wand, because of how its ownership had passed, so the wand will not turn against him. Voldemort's own killing curse rebounds and destroys him for good. The war is won, though at great cost in lives, including Ron's brother Fred and the friends Lupin and Tonks. The wizarding world is freed, and Harry, wanting no more power, gives up the unbeatable wand.

In the Battle of Hogwarts, the last of Voldemort's Horcruxes fall: Ron and Hermione destroy Hufflepuff's cup, the diadem is consumed by cursed fire, and Voldemort's snake Nagini is beheaded by Neville with the sword of Gryffindor. Voldemort kills Snape, believing it will make him master of an unbeatable wand, but Snape's final memories show he was Dumbledore's loyal agent, driven by lifelong love for Harry's mother, and that Harry is himself an unintended Horcrux who must die. Harry walks into the forest and lets Voldemort strike him down without defending himself. Because Voldemort had earlier used Harry's blood to rebuild his body, Harry does not truly die; he meets Dumbledore in a vision and chooses to return. Voldemort's killing curse had destroyed only the fragment of soul within Harry. In the final confrontation Harry reveals that he, not Snape, is the true master of the unbeatable Elder Wand, so it will not work against him; Voldemort's own curse rebounds and kills him for good. Many have died in the fighting, including Fred Weasley, Lupin, and Tonks, but Voldemort is destroyed. An epilogue set nineteen years later shows Harry married to Ginny, and Ron married to Hermione, seeing their own children off to Hogwarts in a world finally at peace.