WARNING: If you haven't read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, stop. Don't read even one more word. Really, we mean it. We're going to discuss how it ends. So if you don't want to know, STOP READING RIGHT NOW. If you forge ahead, secrets will be revealed.
Of course he dies. The good usually do. And, as is so often the case, he dies far too young, so we mourn not only the life actually surrendered but the noble deeds left unperformed.
No, no, gullible Reader, not Harry Potter - Severus Snape.
Anyone who thought, for even a nanosecond, that the teenage hero of the seven-book series would end up moldering in a worm-infested grave is, well, gravely misjudging the author.
J.K. Rowling is no nihilist. She is neither Kafka nor Camus, but a children's book writer. She is not about to send millions of boys and girls into a deep depression - and earn the unending enmity of their parents - by suggesting that evil triumphs over good.
But Rowling has a spellbook full of tricks up the sleeves of her dress robes, and she manages to have it both ways: Harry dies and lives.
Toward the end of the saga, the boy wizard meets Voldemort in a dark forest. He is unarmed and makes no effort to protect himself. The Dark Lord unleashes the deadly Avada Kedavra curse, killing Harry.
But the savvy reader doesn't despair, noting that the narrative still has another 50 pages to go. And, indeed, in a kind of dream, Harry finds himself at both an actual and a metaphorical crossroads. Albus Dumbledore, Harry's former (and deceased) headmaster, meets up with his protege at the King's Cross train station and tells Harry that he can choose to stay dead and rest in peace - or come back to life and vanquish the Dark Lord once and for all.
Guess which alternative Harry chooses?
This type of ending has a long and venerable precedent, not merely in literature, but in religious belief. In Harry's choice to sacrifice himself to save his friends, Rowling evokes Sydney Carton, the anti-hero in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. ("It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done ... ") And, in resurrecting Harry from the dead, Rowling evokes Jesus Christ.
Nor is Harry the only character in Deathly Hallows to become a martyr.
It will satisfy supporters of the supercilious Severus Snape to learn that the greasy-locked Potions Master has, in fact, protected Harry all along while working secretly for the Order of the Phoenix. In hindsight, that, too, seems obvious. Dumbledore's faith in Snape never wavered, and Rowling is not about to tell her readers that a steadfast reliance on the human capacity for virtue is misguided. The author has said that one of the main themes of the series is the potential for redemption. But by the same reasoning, Snape could not survive, because what he did in his early life was so bad that he could compensate for it only with the ultimate sacrifice.
Our sins might be forgiven, but we still have to pay the piper.
From a psychological perspective, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows might be the apex of the series, because it deals squarely with the most agonizing conundrum facing human beings: confronting our own mortality.
But the aesthetic peak of the series is the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This novel displays the best marriage of complexity and restraint. It has abundant wit, charm and humor - while introducing such dark themes as depression and betrayal.
One of the series' marvels is the way in which Rowling manages to show her hero mature from age 11 to 17, an accomplishment that many critics (including this writer) doubted she could pull off. She does it in part by heaving obstacles in his path, in the form of age-appropriate life lessons.
The first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, has the Mirror of Erised ("desire" spelled backward) which teaches the 11-year-old not to waste time wishing for the impossible. Book 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, has the Occlumency lessons, in which the 15-year-old learns to empathize with his most bitter enemy. Book 6, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, takes place a year later and has the scene in which Harry watches Dumbledore ingest the most poisonous draught of all: his own regrets.
Rowling is too much the realist to claim that evil can be defeated permanently, though once again, she is clever enough to have it both ways. Children likely will read the final pages as entirely sunny, but adults will know better.
If The Deathly Hallows is the darkest book in the series, it's in part because we watch our hero make inevitable compromises as he grows older.
We watch him make a Machiavellian deal in which he is prepared to lie and break his word to obtain a desired result.
We watch the 17-year-old utter two of the three unforgivable curses: He forces others to do his bidding, and he tortures an enemy - actions he previously was unable to perform, even with greater provocation.
It would be a misreading to infer that Harry goes over to the dark side. Instead, Rowling suggests that not even the best of us emerges into adulthood with an utterly pure heart. Harry may temporarily weaken evil, but he can't destroy it - either in the world or in himself.
The author concludes her epic series with a superficial reassurance suitable for a fairy tale: "All was well."
But is it ever?
mary.mccauley@baltsun.com