Minilesse Zach -- Horcruxes vs. Hallows

Zach’s Minilesse – Horcruxes vs Hallows

Like all of us, the Character’s in Harry Potter #7 The Deathly Hallows had to make pivotal choices between two distinct roads whose end would greatly affect their lives. Whether between good and evil, friend and foe, or life and death; Voldemort, Harry, and Dumbledore all had to make the soul-defining decision between Horcruxes and Hallows.

1. Voldemort – Chose to split his soul into Horcruxes in an effort to save himself and cheat death. By so doing, (using the blood of another person more worthy than himself, I might add) he never really understood the Hallows, thus leaving himself vulnerable to their true nature and thus causing his final downfall.
2. Harry – At Shell Cottage Harry knew Voldemort was flying to Hogwarts seeking the bloodiest of the three Hallows entombed in Dumbledore’s folded hands. But he also had to be sure if Griphook and Ollivander had answers to finish the Horcrux quest he had already begun. Rather than fight his way onto the page of the Deathstick’s history, he chose to take the road less traveled that his mentor had left clues and directions towards.
3. Dumbledore – in their surreal afterlife meeting, “’Dumbledore turned his whole body to face Harry, and tears still sparkled in the brilliantly blue eyes…was I better, ultimately, than Voldmort?... I too sought a way to conquer death, Harry.’ ‘Not the way he did,’ said Harry. After all his anger at Dumbledore, how odd it was to sit here, beneath the high, vaulted ceiling, and defend Dumbledore from himself. ‘Hallows, not Horcruxes.’ ‘Hallows,’ murmured Dumbledore, ‘not Horcruxes. Precisely’” (713). Though mortal and imperfect, even in his most youthful days, Dumbledore had not chosen to go the soul-splitting way of the Horcruxes but to eventually help others through the Hallows.

Voldemort’s choice of Horcruxes solidified his evil nature and his misunderstanding of the Hallows. Harry’s choice of Horcruxes over Hallows showed his loyalty and love and which eventually brought the all the Hallows to him. And Dumbledore’s choice of Hallows rather than Horcruxes showed him his own weakness early on, that he then sought to mend as he saved lives and taught others to do the same.